Discovering Your Inner Style - 8 Steps to G.U.R.U.

Does not add anything to what any other book on personal style will tell you. As any other book on style, it describes number of styles and provides the reader with a quiz that you can take in order to determine your dominant style. The styles are not your regular "Classic", "Bohemian", "Bombshell", or "Eclectic". Instead, this book uses slightly different names "Natural", "Classic", "Polished", "Artistic".

Also it uses different names for color types: instead of Spring, SUmmer, Winter, Fall, it uses Bright, Subtle, Strong and Deep, but that's where the difference ends.

The book has a lot of contradictory information. For example, it tries to combine your inner personality traits with a closing style and body shapes. That's the part I find contradictory as author suggest that a particular personality trait suggest a clothing style which in turn suggests a body shape. Well, I took the quiz and based on the results, my body shape should be "apple", while in reality it is hourglass. Thus I was not able to user author's recommendations.

In real life I have not seen any connection between personality and body shape, and very little connection between dominant personality trait (i.e. communicator, mediator etc) and clothing style. For example if your personality train it a "Mediator" or "Communicator", does not necessarily mean that you would look good in clothing classified as "Natural" or "Artistic".

Disappointing...

Style Clinic

The book starts out talking about a distinction between the concept of style and the concept of fashion. Style is different from fashion in the way that fashion trends come and go and style is timeless. It helps knowing exactly what works for your body type and your style personality. What pieces worth splurging and what to buy cheap. What needs to be renewed often and what will last. The book also talks about classics - the pieces that will never go out of style. I especially enjoy that part since I prefer timeless pieces over new trends. Trends come and go and there is no need to follow each one, especially considering the fact that not all trends will work well for a particular body type. As the book mentions, if one looks great in boot-cut jeans, there is no need to get into unknown territory of skinny jeans just because they are trendy at a particular time. there is no need to deviate from what has worked well for you in the past. The basic moral is - Fashion makes you desire things you should not. Shop your style, not the hottest fashion trends.




Also the book lists some timeless classics, such as trench coat, LBD, tuxedo suit, good jeans, classic knits such as twinsets, turtleneck and v-neck sweater.



Personally I am a big fan of trench coats, cashmere, good jeans, twinsets, pearls and LBD.



Then the book goes into what should be kept in your closet and what should be discarded. The more you buy, the less it seems you have to wear. Buying a lot does not mean that everything you buy will work for you, most of us buy impulsively on a whim and then end up with disfunctional wardrobe. And that's where the Style Clinic comes in.
It helps you to decide what to purge from your wardrobe and what is worth keeping.

Next subject is wardrobe basics - white shirt, cardigan in your favorite color, suit jacket that goes with your skirt, 3 pairs of pant: jeans, tailored work pants, and smart day-to-evening pants, classic LBD, couple of casual t-shirts and tank tops, dressy round-neck top as a dressy alternative to a t-shirt, day skirt, 3 pairs of shoes: boots, ballet flats and a pair of high heels.



The list of basics is followed by details about each item, how to pick the right one and what to wear it with.


Also there is plenty of advice on how to find the perfect fit for your body, on using colors and prints in order to emphasize or camouflage, dressing appropriate for your age, and some successful shopper tips. Such as CBS: coat, bag, and shoes formula and other useful rules.

Second part of the book talks about each piece of clothing (jeans, skirt, dress etc.) more in depth, what to wear it with, what kind to choose for each body type, how to build a coat capsule, how to select a perfect pair of pants, a skirt, dress, accessories etc. Well illustrated with pictures of celebrities that fit a particular body type and/or wearing particular article of clothing.




I'd highly recommend this book since it has a good advice for any occasion

The Pocket Stylist

One of the most useful books on dressing yourself. It talks about 3 body types: apple, pear, and hourglass, helps you determine which one do you belong to, gives you an idea of what type of clothes would look good on you, emphasize your best features and conceal your worst... Also it will teach you how to take your measurements correctly, where to buy clothes and accessories while staying within your budget, organizing your closet and much more.

In addition to 3 body types, the book takes into consideration not only skinny women of these types, but also those who are bigger than average. Therefore, there are 6 types listed in the book: A,B,C,D, E, F. Where A is pear shape regular, B - hourglass, C - apple, and D - pear ample, E - ample hourglass, and F - ample apple shape.

The book is pretty compact in size and can be easily carried with you

Dressing Rich: A Guide to Classic Chic for Women with More Taste than Money

This book really encourages you to clean up your closet getting rid of the cheap looking pieces. It helps you to create a wardrobe of more quality and if you follow all the up to date advice, discarding what can no longer be used in today's society, you will never be overdressed or underdressed (don't know which is worse...:)).

It also teaches you a bit about different fabrics, which is helpful if you don't know anything about them.

The book talks about a bunch of different dressing styles. Personally I would never make one of them my own, but nevertheless I enjoyed reading about them.

After reading this book I went through my closet and was very happy to discover that I mostly own natural fabrics and there were few pieces I had to get rid of to make my wardrobe more of quality.

What I found the most interesting in this book is when it talks about an article of closing being "quality" depending on how you use it. For instance if you use plastic coat as a raincoat, it is "quality" or "q", but if you use it as a "leather" coat, it's non-q. I like this kind of philosophy. I am passionately against fakes - clothing that looks like couture but not, fake D & G, Valentino etc. I'd rather wear generic clothing than something with a false pretense of a brand name.

I believe this book is a must have. Even though it is pretty old, it is still useful and will be for a long time. After all that's what defines a good book, piece of clothing or anything else - timelessness

Nothing to Wear? A 5-step cure for the common closet

A pretty useful book for those who wants to clean up their closet a bit and actually ending up having more to wear. Personally, I got rid of half the things in my closet and as a result I have a lot more to wear and also I stopped buying impulsively and filling up my closet with items I never wear.

Mistake number one for most women is that we do not always stick to our style when shopping for clothes. Some times we just like something, other times we cannot walk past a real bargain. Either way, we end up buying things that are not a part of our "signature" look.

This book helps you define your style, if you already haven't and encourages you to get rid of all the clothing that does not constitute your style "uniform".

The book presents you with 5 steps to improving your wardrobe:

1. Define your style

Five different styles are presented in the book:
Classic
Chic
Bohemian
Whimsical
Avant-garde
















There is a style type quiz you can take to determine which style do you fit in with. One can belong to more than one type. For example one's style can be Chic-Classical, etc.

2. Edit your wardrobe - discard everything that is not your "uniform"

3. Fill in the gaps - build a backbone of your closet, the basics, and then add the "frosting", items beyond the basics

4. Put it all together - get out your digital camera and take pictures of outfits, build wardrobe capsules, photograph them etc.

5. Nurture the new you - instructions on how to care for your wardrobe, how to store clothes and such

Here is a sample inspirational board from the book:

Steps to organized closet

1) First go over every single item in your closet and pull out items you have not work in the past year. This often include very nice pieces that are hard to part with but face it, if you haven't worn it for that long, what are the chances you will in the next year?

2) Go over "not worn in the past year pile" and pick out
  a) items that are torn or otherwise ruined and non-fixable
  b) items that are not your size
  c) items that are your size according to the label but do not fit you
  d) items that are "wrong" color, i.e. color that is not in your color palette (spring, summer, fall, or winter)
  e) items that are not your usual style. Maybe that's why you haven't worn them for a year

The remainders of that pile should be hang in a separate closet for another 6 months to a year to see if you will use them or not.

3) Look over the rest of the items in your clщset and see if there are any colors outside of your palette. If there are, you should remove them. You do not need anything that does not flatter you.

4) Go over the jackets in your closet and check the sleeves if they are ending somewhere below the wrist bone but before the first knuckle on your thumb. If they are shorter you should get rid of them, and if they are longer - shorten them. Next check is wearing each jacket and lifting your arms to see if jacket moves with you and whether you are comfortable.

5) Go over the sweaters and tops and ensure they are not baggy and make you loook like a scarecrow, then check the length to make sure they are reaching to either your high hip bone, or your lover hip. Anything shorter or longer than that might not flatter you or look tacky.

6) Check the pants to ensure each pair is the right length for the style:
  a) Skinny jeans or pants with tapered leg should reach to your ankles
  b) Straight leg pants should cover half of your shoe
  c) Wide-leg pants or bell-bottoms should cover your shoe almost completely

Then try on each pair and make sure the pants are not wrinkly at the lover hip level, that zipper is working, and that the crotch is not hanging
If any of these criteria are not met, see if you can have the pants tailored to fit you and if not - discard them.

7) Check each skirt to ensure they are the most flattering length - either right below the knee, right above the knee or up to the narrowest part of your ankle. The most flattering hemlines are the ones at the level of the most narrow parts of the leg.

8) Do the same for dresses

9) Review the remaining items in your closet to check for the following
  a) each item is "your style"
  b) each item can be worn with at least 3 other items in your closet
  c) the patterns are suitable for you (if your facial features are rather small, I'd recommend getting rid of all the large prints for they will make you look vulgar, and if your facial features are larger, then small prints will only emphasize them and that's not very flattering.

Style on a shoestring

It was just OK. Nothing extraordinary and nothing new. I'd recommend The Pocket Stylist instead. There is info some might useful but to most it should be common sense. For example on how to pick the right fit. Does one really needs a guide to be able to tell if an item fits well or whether you can see undergarments' lines on your clothing or not?

I also found that most recommendations on the styles did not take into account specific body types. I could be wrong, but I got an impression the author was using a particular body type as a model for this book.

The book starts out talking about undergarments and wearing correct undergarment for each outfit, how undergarments should fit etc. Then it talks about how other clothing items should fit and what to look for to get the right fit. Also there is a lot of info on thrift stores and when to shop for what to catch good sales, some on organizing your closet, picking the colors and what each color means. There is also a section on what not to wear.

What I found useful was some info on the pockets, pocket alignment and shape. Information on thrift store was also somewhat useful, as well as the section on what not to do. Overall the book isn't bad at all, just not as informative as one would expect from all the positive reviews.