At the beginning of virtually every conversation about style, I ask a very important question:

What do you love about your body? How do you dress to highlight these features?

Can you answer this question for yourself? If you cannot, you’re not alone. The vast majority of women I speak with – as clients, at my classes and workshops, at Corset, and elsewhere – are stumped by this question. They’ve been taught to think of their bodies as a mass of negatives, flaws to be disguised, weaknesses to be downplayed, features that need to be masked and minimized at all costs. Getting dressed is primarily about hiding what causes shame. Considering dressing from a positive standpoint – focusing on features to highlight, aspects that inspire pride – is a novel idea, and a challenging one. When asked to name even one physical feature that they’d like to dress to show off, most women draw a complete blank. read more

A few weeks ago, a lovely reader reached out to me over e-mail. She said many kind and supportive things, but one stood out in my mind and is still rattling around in there. She’d just finished my book, and said she was so grateful that I hadn’t forced her to donate the contents of her closet or make drastic changes to her dressing behaviors. She loves neutrals and muted colors, and had been toting around an inferiority complex for AGES, convinced that her disinterest in bold, bright colors constituted a shortcoming. It was such a relief to her to read that she could wear those neutrals and muted colors forever if she wanted. I was thrilled to hear that my book had been helpful to her on her personal style journey, but also dismayed to hear that she’d felt pressured to dress in ways that didn’t resonate with her personally. read more