Advice from an image consultant

Yesterday, I interviewed a woman who works as an image consultant and got a bit of a reality check. Most of the time, I feel as though I'm fairly put together, but learned that I probably am not. Ah well, live and learn.

Anyway, here's some of the advice she gave, which actually makes a lot of sense and isn't really that difficult to achieve.

1. Every, single item in your closet should be a 'wow' piece. Meaning, it should either make a strong statement, or you should love it so much that merely laying eyes upon it gives you heart palpatations.

My source -- a wealthy woman who could probably afford to fill all the closets in her large home -- said she doesn't have many clothes at all. But she's chosen wisely, and wears them in different ways.

So in a perfect world, she said, nobody would go to their closet and groan, "What should I wear today?" They would instead approach their closet, and, overwhelmed by their exciting, tasteful choices, exclaim with joy: "Wow! What should I WEAR today?"

(That's a fine theory. And sometimes, I do exactly that. But more often, I'm afraid I'm 'wow'ing for the wrong reasons.

As in:

"Wow! I wonder how long it will take for the wrinkles to fall out of that shirt, which I refuse to iron because ironing is a tedious, soul-sucking activity!"

"Wow! I used to fit into these jeans. What the hell happened?"

I need to work on this.)

2. Don't save it for a special occasion. Wear it whenever you want.

What are you waiting for? You only live once and you might as well go about your days wearing something that makes you feel awesome and pretty.



Finally! Validation for wearing my electric purple or gold shimmer eyeshadow during the day!

3. First impressions do count.

According to her, a person makes a judgment about another person in 1/48 of a second and it's based on their clothes, because that's usually the first thing you notice when someone is headed in your direction. In that split second, they can decide what your personality is like, whether they'd want to be friends with you, your intelligence, your social and economic status, etc.

It may not be the right thing to do, she said, but that's what happens. I guess I we all know this on some level, but it's nice to be reminded.

Anyhoo, just food for thought.

I might actually iron something tonight just for kicks. And while I should probably kick my smorgasbord of awesome Smashbox and MAC eyeshadows to the curb, well, that's just not gonna happen quite yet.

Baby steps, people. Baby steps.