Articles

Article in the Bournemouth Echo

Read The Article

Download acrobat reader

Is everyone underweight these days?

Is everyone underweight these days? You would think so from the models represented on the catwalk. What's the point? The clothes are not going to look like this in reality when you buy them in the shop.

You may be aware of the new phenomenon of using 00 size models. This is a US size but it is the equivalent of a UK size 4. In other words, the size of a healthy 7 year old. It is true that every girl or woman determines whether she will listen to the voice of the media encouraging her to be underweight, but can we in the fashion industry really sit back and claim no responsibility at all for it?
What if, we lived in a world where it was attractive to be yourself? What if we lived in a world where which didn’t advocate looking like Kate Moss? What if it wasn’t cool to look like you were on drugs? What if it was cool to look confident and healthy and happy with yourself no matter your weight? Hmmmm…. Interesting.

The model agencies would be made up of completely different candidates. Women would go round professing how proud they were of the girth of their bum, the width of their thighs and others would ooh and aah about the size of their stomach after a big meal. What if that was beautiful? Well maybe it is?

I hate to say it but if you have ever sat there berating yourself over any of your body parts you have been a victim of the fashion industry in some way or another. Perhaps it wants you to feel insecure about your looks. Why, I am not so sure, maybe to drive sales, to have power over you so you think you don’t know anything about clothes and end up relying on it to tell you how to dress. In actual fact, you could know a lot more than many so called authorities do about clothes, because there is no one way to dress, as most of the designers and stylists would have you believe. Actually there’s a lot of fun to be had if you have a curvy figure, but they don’t tell you about that.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that I am advocating obesity, as that too is an unhealthy extreme, but lets face it, most of the population, even if they were to lose weight, would have hips or bosoms or bums that prevented them (thankfully) from looking like a current catwalk model.
In the words of Judy Garland “Be a first class version of you, not a second class version of someone else”.

On looking up the word model in the dictionary I found the following meanings: “to give shape or form to”, is that what models on the British catwalk are doing with their flat elf like bodies?...Or wait, another definition of the word; “to assume a typical or natural appearance” hmmm, there’s more, and this is an interesting one; “to display to other persons or to prospective customers”. Do these prospective customers, such as yourselves, really need to see what six foot skinny sombre looking (usually) teenagers look like in these clothes that you are supposed to be buying? Is that going to give you any idea what you would look like in them? And don’t get me wrong, I think you would look much better, on the general assumption that you have actually eaten in the last 2 days and therefore have some life in you.

What about if we said that being happy, healthy and confident, being proud of your own skin are attractive traits? By that definition are any of these catwalk models attractive? I for one, do not want any of the so called models parading around selling my clothes. My clothes don’t even look good on these girls and I know that because I have, in the past, at the last minute, asked a modelling agency to send me a model, and I got a straight figured skinny girl, the clothes just hung off her and may have looked better on a hanger. It’s not her fault, she was a nice girl who was urged into modelling because she is skinny and has no curves.
Clothes are not just for 17 year old straight figured girls, you might have noticed, fully formed women need to dress too.

Watch this site for pictures of fuller models.

Natural Style?

Have you ever had a friend that swears that “mango” is her favourite colour even you know it looks hideous on her? The thing is, maybe she did once have a top in mango as a kid that looked adorable on her. Or a friend who swears she’s a natural blonde, because she was when she was born? Sometimes we build our likes and dislikes based on compliments, or insults we received as a child, and we hold onto them as if we won’t get new ones if we update our look. We all know the old adage “mutton dressed as lamb” and that doesn’t just apply to old women wearing tarty clothes. We’ve all heard of the film star that was famous for her look 20 years ago and so she held onto it to supposedly stay young even though it looks old and outdated now. What she doesn’t know is that if she updated her look and wore what suited her style and personality today she would actually look younger.

Many people nowadays are “having their colours done”, and consulting a professional as to what suits them. The thing is that sometimes this also changes over time. As your lifestyle changes, so does your clothing preference, but very often you will find people wearing clothes that suited their life when they were a student, or when they were carting young kids around, even though the kids are now grown up with families of their own. Women often say to me, “what colours suit me?” and I reply by saying, a lot of colours would suit you, it’s the tone of the colour that makes the difference. At this point I usually get a blank look! The best thing to help you is instinct and a good dose of women’s intuition. Other than that, try this exercise during the daylight.

Sit yourself down in a bright, naturally lit room in front of a large (clean) mirror. Then one by one hold items from your wardrobe up against your face, and mark out of ten how good you look against each piece. Notice I said “how good you look against the piece”. This is an important point, as many female shoppers often see something they love the colour of, hold it up against them and see that the colour stands out on themand buy it thinking it looks great on them. When she takes it home to try it on, suddenly she notices all those pink splotches on her face and a few zits that weren’t there before. It’s not because you suddenly got uglier, it’s because you chose colours that stand out on you, instead of colours that make YOU look good.

The main rule to follow as you hold the pieces up against you is “Does this piece grab my attention, or is my face grabbing my attention” If the answer is that your face is grabbing your attention, because it looks radiant against this colour, then you’ve won. If the piece looks good against you, forget it, chuck it in a bag and pass it on to Oxfam, to people who will appreciate it. And don’t worry too much about the “in” colour for the season.

Next, it’s the compliments. Now, when you have a wardrobe of clothes that make YOU look good. You’re bound to receive compliments, and if you already did receive them then wait, here’s the difference; before you would have received compliments saying “your dress is great, where did you get it”, or “your jumper is a fantastic colour”. Now people will be looking at you and they may not even know why, professing such comments as “You look great", "you’re blossoming", and “you seem really confident”. Now here’s the fun part, then you say “Thank you” and smile, leaving the rest to their imagination!

Let’s talk about style. Style is a very personal thing and no one has the right to tell you what yours is. Sure, they can guide you and make suggestions, but finding one’s personal style is a discovery and should be treated that way. There’s so much choice available to us today that it’s often confusing, especially for women who have multi functional busy lives. Where to start? Is a common question asked by intelligent, otherwise confident women. Have a look through magazines and photos of different styles and tear out the ones that appeal to you. Next tear out the ones you can see yourself actually wearing, and then tear out the stuff you can’t stand and finally, the stuff you think you have to wear but don’t like(i.e. what people have told you suits you)

You will start to see a trend. You can then stock up on the stuff you would actually wear and use bits from the fantasy section, steering clear of what you can’t stand and what other people think suits you. Through a process of discovery and over time you will start to work out your own personal style. And don’t be afraid of making a boo boo; just try things out at less important occasions, before you wear them to your annual awards ceremony! Even if you do mess up, hey at least you tried and the more you mess up, the closer you are to finding your own personal style.

Women are like Chameleons

Women are amazing. I say that not only because I am a woman, but because women have such very diverse roles to play in one day. This has never occurred in the past, as least not as much as it does today. One minute you’re a high powered business executive, the next you’re a damsel in distress, then you’re a mother picking up the kids from school, agony aunt to your best friend and if your luck’s in, you’re a romantic lover or a sexy siren. All this role playing, as fun as it is, can be complicated if we don’t know how to make it easy.

That’s what SUPRYA clothes are all about, making your life fun and easy, and the bets way to do this is to be yourself. As Judy Garland said, “It is better to be a first class version of yourself than a second class version of somebody else”.

The word chameleon, according to dictionary.com, refers to any of numerous Old World lizards of the family Chamaeleontidae, characterized by the ability to change the colour of their skin. So once you know the core definition of who you are (your skin), it’s easy to build other colours and looks around it, or at least what people see of your look. For example, if you’ve been in an office all day, dressed to be taken seriously, say you’ve been wearing a suit jacket, to pick up your kids you take it off, revealing a comfortable yet glamorous long sleeved top. You then chat to the other Mums a bit, and go on to make dinner at home, so you cover up with a long wrap top. One you’ve got the kids in bed, its time for that date, so you keep on the glam top from before, and whip off the office trousers and put on a knee length skirt with heels and you’re ready. No fuss, but a chameleon like charm and ease.

How do you make sure that all these things that you’re chopping and changing work well together? Well you’ve already worked out what you like and what you don’t like, in terms of style and colour, so most things in your wardrobe will now look good together. What’s more, if you wear the colours that suit you the best, these colours will generally look good when worn together.

So many women say they don’t know what to wear when it comes to going out on a date, or to an office party, or even for a casual day out with friends or family. We’ve all had the dilemma of going to work and going out straight afterwards, what to wear? We want to be attractive to the opposite sex in the evening but taken seriously in our work. And what about if you work at home, what then? Some feminine separates can be the solution to our problem, clothes that are easy to put on and take off, easy to stick in a small bag and take to work. But you don’t want to necessarily be changing 2 or 3 pieces of clothing, so just change your top and shoes, or your trousers to a skirt and a cardi, or take off the skirt and put on a sexy wrap around dress.

When I work from home I am often wearing combat trousers and a fleece top over a cotton cami, to run an errand I’ll change the fleece for a fitted wrap top and I’m ready to go. If I’m home in the evening I’ll change into lounging pyjamas and a robe. If you live with your partner and want to be more attractive, wear slinky lingerie under that robe. It’s all about my wardrobe making my life comfortable, not about me making compromises for fashion. The funny thing is, when we dress for ourselves, we’re suddenly more attractive.

You may change your role throughout the day but you’re still you, and you want to feel you’re reflecting that into the world around you, wherever that is, whatever the occasion. It could be the glamorous version of you, or the Mum version of you, or the fun down to earth version of you. They’re all aspects of you and the days of being labelled a glam girl or a country bumpkin for life are over. You’re just you and you dictate the clothes you wear, you’re clothes don’t dictate who you are.

View the archived articles