“Never confuse fashion and style. Fashion relies on unattainable looks on women with unrealistic bodies. Style is about utilizing the best aspect of you.”
Stacy London US fashion consultant, author, media personality.
Fashion is dictative from the outside in but Style is unique to each person it is from the inside out. Think of adding fashion as a fun aspect like seasoning to a basic meal. Style which is something that grows as you find your identity and both allow as well as cultivate it to manifest over time. Style is a combination of aspects, it’s not just about clothes it is about attitude and is a short hand language without words reflecting so much about you. At first discovering this is like sketching, then as you expand like a painting till you become a work of art.
I was a great follower of Fashion when I was very young now I realise this was important as part of my evolvement, as I was growing up in the most interesting time of innovative change. I guess it began to be fashionable to not be fashionable & was the start of creating a whole new sense of style. This was the swinging 1960’s & looking back that’s where the idea of alternative fashion really started, where Street Fashion started. It was in the air & if one was receptive as I was one caught the trends as I did just by being aware & being in the present.
I began to think my time had come when the Beatles made their first LP record, before that I simply couldn’t identify with much that was currently considered fashionable. It was the start of another form of culture, an experimental counter movement in layers of ways, very influence by Musicians & London.
It is inevitable that as you are discovering your style that you will make mistakes, till you grow slowly into who you want to be.
I wore miniskirts when I never should have as I never had the legs for it! Somehow I started to get a reputation for innovation with my friends, when I did a makeover on my best friend Judy which changed her life! My conservative boyfriend Frank recognised my sense of style & asked me to go shopping with him. I dressed him in purple bell bottoms & a tailored shirt slightly unbuttoned & to my surprise he became more of a confident extrovert!
This began an interest in making clothing & accessories which slowly evolved into my career going down many diverse paths till today, when I teach the Art & Skill of Dressmaking from my Studio & Creative Work with Special Clients who need help to make their clothes feel more suitable, as an expression of what they would prefer to project as an image.
One of the most stylish women I have ever had the privilege to work with, recently came to me to adjust her wardrobe to make what we now call Wearable Art. The first sentence she uttered as she came into my Studio was an apology for not being fashionable. I took one appreciative look at this unique woman & said instantly that is because you are Stylish which goes so much farther than Fashion!
It is different for everyone, but for me it is about finding what basically suits you which is generally a core clothing which you are comfortable in, because the more unconscious one is of the clothing you are wearing, once you put it on the better.
This has become the personal recipe for success for me in my personal life & study of what works for others.
Fine Feathers Sewing School
