ode to be stylish

I don't know if it is because I am a graphic designer by trade or because I was raised in a family of stylish women, but I am constantly on the search for the next great thing that will fit in with my personal style be it the latest font, color scheme or clothes. {my, that was a long sentence!} You can imagine my excitement finding this blurb of blurbs on http://design-your-life.org/ {my latest addition on my design research list} I say find something you love, make it classic and design/walk with confidence. {By the way, this applies very much to my work as a print designer so here you go} Read on.

In the classic 1938 book on the emergence of American fashion design, Fashion is Spinach, designer Elizabeth Hawes offers an interesting typology for those interested in clothes. For her there are three groups—the chic, the fashionable, and the stylish. Writing when French style still predominated over American dress, she defined the “chic” as those who understood and wore the most inventive Parisian haute couture. To be chic was to be wealthy, to live a life of leisure, or to be extremely well connected to the world of avant-garde design. This puts “chic” out of the range of most ordinary people. To be fashionable, on the other hand, is fairly easy. All you have to do is follow the fashion magazines, gossip columns, and advice dished out at trendy stores. The fashionable are people who change their look often, only wear the latest colors, and sneer and those who can’t (or won’t) keep up. Obviously, Hawes does not consider “fashionable” a compliment. Finally, there are the stylish. These are people who have figured out for themselves what looks good on their bodies and what makes them comfortable. They don’t have to change their look with the current fashion, because they have developed their own look. Their self confidence and self knowledge makes their clothes look good.