Steal Her Style by Sarah Kennedy

Steal Her Style! 
Doesn't it sound exciting?
I've got a book with this title. The author Sarah Kennedy gives analysis of style features of popular actresses and top models, such as Audrey Hepburn, Twiggy and Brigitte Bardot. Talking about their iconic looks, make up, fashion of the period, Sarah advices how to copy their style and hopefully produce the same impression as Audrey Hepburn. 
What is the trap in this approach? 
Let's have a look on these two photos. Lesley Hornby, known as Twiggy, the most popular model of the 1960th, had her peculiar make, hair style, and she popularised bright yellow short dresses. But the first thing we see is actually her strong personality. It dominates on make up and yellow colour, and it associates with her style features. If another girl wears similar dress and hair style, she has to possess the same bold look, feel like she is a trendsetter, be the actual face of the epoch.  Otherwise it looks like poor imitation. It does, because Twiggy's style is very recognisable. Her face is recognisable first, her spirit, her energy, her personality; only then her dresses and hair cut. Taking everything but personality doesn't steals her style. I don't think it can be stolen from her. Every attempt to copy Twiggy memorises her, enriches her, but not the copyist. 

Little Black... Trousers

What I really love is uncommon and intriguing detail or two in common garment. Such as classic black pants. Of course they fit, of course fabric is nice, but that's not enough. I want them to make a style for me or my customer. Such as these free-form flowery inserts and leaf-shape beaded detail on the waistband. Flowery fabric goes well with the plain black, because they have the same slight shimmer, so they blend into one another a little. With dull black fabric it won't work. Cuffs are flowery too. They might be not very visible all the time there at the ground, but they when they come into sight, in brighter sunlight for instance, they finish my design beautifully.

Old Photo Pick -2

This week I picked several photos for you.
I like these two old photos. They both represent outfits for going out, for going for a walk. And there are 70 years in between them.

Style in brief: prints, colours and textures

Here are some good and bad examples for you. I did my best to make experiments as pure as possible, keeping the same pose, the same background, the same hair do and make up. This is to get clear view how appearance can change in different colours, prints or even textures.