The wonderful Emma Gordon came to my rescue a few years ago and I can’t recommend her highly enough as a personal stylist & image consultant. She has helped to update my wardrobe, given me valuable style tips and basically made me feel like a much more confident, fashionable dresser. Personally she is a delight to work with: she is professional, her knowledge of current trends is spot on and she has a real talent for helping people to find their own personal style.
Getting to know me
Emma and I started our fashion journey together just as I went back to work part time, once my two girls were both in school. I was in a bit of frenzy at the time, with a wardrobe full of clothes and nothing to wear! She started by spending some time getting to know me and my style, my day to day life, what kind of dresser I felt I was and what I wanted to achieve out of our time together. For me it was clear – i needed help to update my wardrobe, be more stylish, confident and on-trend and help me to try new things so I didn’t always wear the ‘same old thing’. I work with mainly under 30s, so at work I wanted to feel smart but cool (but not mutton dressed as lamb!) and then at home be practical but stylish for the school run too (there’s only so many times I can go in my running kit!).
The detox
Emma spent time to going through my wardrobe and helping to cull the stuff that was either grotty (moth eaten, old and lost its shape, lost its colour etc) or dated (lots of baggy jumper dresses, below the knee dresses with sashes to tie at the back etc). She’s healthily ruthless and needless to say the bits I pleaded to keep, I haven’t worn in two years and sent off to charity last week. We then spent time going through the rest of my clothes and she showed me different combinations and ways of wearing my clothes that I had never thought about. For example, adding a studded belt around my little black jacket (both in my wardrobe) completely updated the look whilst nipping in my waist nicely. It was like getting to know my clothes again and realising that I actually had quite a lot of nice stuff – it had just been buried amongst all the old pairs of jeans and jumpers which I hadn’t actually worn for 15 years! Once we’d gone through my clothes she then helped me arrange them into funky outfits so that I could just reach for one each morning, rather than having the 30 minute panic/melt down/depression about not being able to find anything to wear!
She then recommended a few new pieces and accessories that would update my clothes and keep my style current. She followed up and our session with a series of emails that gave me links to the different items she had recommended, with varying price ranges which was great. One of Emma’s other key strengths is to identify and recommend really gorgeous, high quality looking high street clothing in addition to the better quality smaller designer brands, so that you can update your look without spending a small fortune. I get regular comments about various items which Ems has recommended, and so often it’s the clothes or accessories I have bought form River Island or Dorothy Perkins!
Personal shopping experience
9 months after my wardrobe detox I asked Emma to take me shopping for a morning to help find a few new outfits for work and for home for Autumn / Winter. Prior to the trip Emma sent me a load of links to look at to give me an idea of the types of things she thought would compliment my wardrobe. We agreed a list and off we went. Not only was it brilliant fun, I came away with loads of gorgeous things that I never would have picked out myself or dared to try on. She scoured the rails in each shop and brought all the clothes to me in the changing room (luxury) and I left the shopping trip with a whole bunch of fab clothes , having got really good value for money and within my set budget (she is a strict budgeter which for me it essential!). I usually spend 3 hours searching shop after shop and end up either having spent way more than I intended and then taking it all back, or having bought nothing at all and feeling depressed. Not this time.
Always on
Emma has been great about keeping me up to date with current trends. When I am not sure about a purchase or want to know what the couple of key things I should get for that season are, she is brilliant as just sending me a few ideas over in an email. In fact her Pinterest page is brilliant and I often check it out when I am stuck in a rut.
I really love the that fact that Emma helps you develop your own personal style and doesn’t just put you in the latest trends or try to mirror her image. She takes the time to understand your needs and is able to be really tailor her recommendations according to your needs.
Next up, time to book my next shopping trip!