Wardrobe Communication: Mastering the Art of Personal Expression
By Amy Fleming
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About this ebook
Wardrobe Communication: Mastering the Art of Personal Expression aims to assist the reader in diagnosing their personal style. The reader will be guided through an analysis of her figure and coloring, as well as the personality traits and goals that affect her wardrobe choices. The reader is encouraged to learn the language of clothing so that she can communicate what she wishes to accurately. This book contains substantial appendixes.
Amy Fleming
I am passionate about helping women find themselves and present a seamless persona to the world, so that their insides and outsides match. I am madly in love with color and have been known to wax poetic about fabric.Native SoCal gal. BA in Women's Studies from UCSC. Wife. Mother. Christian. Image consultant.
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Book preview
Wardrobe Communication - Amy Fleming
Wardrobe Communication
Mastering The Art of Personal Expression
by
Amy Fleming
Published by Amy Fleming at Smashwords
Copyright 2016 Amy Fleming: All rights reserved
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Introduction
Chapter 1: Good enough… isn’t
Chapter 2: Appearance and Assumption
Chapter 3: Clothing as Conversation, or - the Social Contract
Chapter 4: Three Factors in the Pursuit of Style
Chapter 5: The Artist’s Toolbox
Chapter 6: Color
Chapter 7: Raw Materials Management
Chapter 8: The Elements of Style
Chapter 9: Hiring and Firing
Chapter 10: Bringing it all Together
Chapter 11: Conclusion
Appendix A: Who Are You?
Appendix B: Raw Materials
Appendix C: Rules of Fit
Appendix D: Textiles
Appendix E: Color Dictionary
Appendix F: Sample Wardrobe Priorities
Thank you
About the Author
I
Introduction
What can your clothing do for you?
The first purpose of clothing is to protect us from the elements. Whether desert sun or roaring blizzard, the right clothing keeps nature’s worst at bay. If your clothing is failing to protect you, it is failing at its most basic function.
The second purpose of clothing is to allow us to do what we need to do. Hobble skirts are seldom worn by dancers on the stage, and pre-school teachers are most unwise if they wear 5" heels. This second category also includes required levels of modesty – whether that requirement comes from inside or out.
The third purpose of clothing is to communicate, and that’s what I’d like to talk about.
Most of us have two categories of communication for our clothing to accomplish. The first is beauty – we want to be attractive. The second is our personal statement, whatever it is that we want to tell the world about ourselves. The second category can be broken down into the general statement that we like to make, and audience-specific statements. (One does not wish to tell the postman the same thing that one wishes to tell one’s husband, for example.)
We don’t always think of our own clothing as a means of communication, although we understand that costume is a vital part of an actor’s representing a character on stage, and most of us are ready to interpret other people’s clothing at the drop of a hat. It is not my business to advise you on the general statement that you choose make to the world (although audience specific statements will be discussed at length), it is my business to help you make that statement thoughtfully and consciously.
Your clothing is a tool, a tool that you can learn to use skillfully to create the impression you wish to convey.
Because visual communication hits the subconscious before it hits the conscious, it’s more powerful than verbal communication.
We understand that businesses use color to affect us emotionally – that’s why fast food restaurants are painted red and yellow: those colors have been proven to influence appetite. We know that companies have entire departments devoted to nothing else but using line, symbolism, color and mood to affect the company’s public image. We’ve all heard that we have thirty seconds to make a first impression – the impression people are left with permanently.
But we take none of that into account when we get dressed in the morning. Instead of accepting that our clothing is a communication with the world at large, we say, don’t judge the book by its cover
… when that’s exactly what humans do. There are any number of parts of human nature that I don’t particularly care for, but since human nature isn’t going to change overnight, I don’t sit up and fuss about it – I deal with it.
Just so when it comes to appearance as communication. You don’t have to like the facts to use them. And you can learn the rules by which you are communicating. Because so few people choose to learn those rules, simply knowing what your clothes are saying puts you miles ahead of most others you’ll meet.
In addition to the world at large, your clothing choices affect your own subconscious. You see yourself … you take in what you’re seeing, and you reinforce or subvert your efforts to be the person you want to be. You can positively affect your own attitude by wearing the right clothing.
So, I offer you this metaphor – clothing as employees. Your clothing needs to work for you, and work it will. Any good employer needs to know what he or she wants their employees to do on the job, and so you should know what function you need your clothing to perform.
Other than actors on a stage, I believe that we should all dress from a standpoint of communicating truth – that our goal should be to seamlessly match our insides and outsides. That doesn’t mean you have to wear your heart on your sleeve, it does mean that if you choose to wear a heart, it belongs to you. What you see is what you get
is a statement to live by. Are the people around you seeing what they’re going to get when they get to know you? Are you seeing the woman you want to be when you look in the mirror? Is your clothing accurately communicating the woman inside?
I think that too many of us suffer from grass-is-greener-itis. When we see someone with an enviable style, we copy them. But this never works out as planned. Something’s always off. That’s because instead of copying the character traits of the person we admire (or just appreciating ourselves) we copy their outsides and hope that a good coat of paint will transform us.
Style is never about imitation. Style is based on knowing yourself, and in communicating that self to the world around you. Look around you at famously stylish people. They each have an individual flair. The truly stylish person cannot be confused for anyone else, because they have carefully chosen their clothing to communicate a certain message. Anyone can be stylish, with any figure, at any age. Style is personal.
That’s what this book is about. You’re going to learn how to navigate the raw materials that God gave you, the personality that you have, and the role that you play (or intend to play) on this stage we call life. You’re going to learn to treat the items in your wardrobe as employees in the You Corporation, each one of them with a duty to perform – and a duty to you, their employer, to do it well.
Congratulations – you’re now really in charge of your very own business – the business of you.
Chapter 1
Good enough... isn’t.
The easiest way to look decent every morning is to make sure that every piece of clothing that you grab looks good on you.
As a wise grocery shopper, you know the easiest place to resist the potato chips is in the aisles. Likewise, the easiest place to resist the almost right
clothing is in the store. Remember that when you’re in the dressing room, the clothing is on a job interview – it’s auditioning to be part of your life. So if it’s close, but not close enough… sorry Charlie.
There are occasional exceptions to this – you have a funeral tomorrow, and you don’t own anything but casual clothing in bright colors. You just started a new job, and there’s a dress code, and you wore your one and only outfit that suits… today. That’s emergency shopping, and that’s not what I’m talking about.
The other exception to this isn’t quite an exception. It’s the clothing destined for alterations. These are great slacks, but they’re too long. This skirt fits perfectly through the hips, but the waist is really baggy
. Good. You go straight from the store to the drycleaner (or wherever you get your alterations) and you get