What's your style?

Within the confines of the streets of spring 2014 fashion week, we find all the tribes of style.

None of these photos represent 100% of the tribe. They are just guidelines and subjective at that. 

Which tribe is mostly you?
Do you have a secondary tribe too?

Classic

Classic with a twist

Sporty

Whimsical

Romantic

Grunge

Rock chic

Dramatic

Minimalist

Which is your primary tribe?

Which is your secondary tribe?

Understanding your style helps you shop - it helps to make buying decisions which will go with the rest of your closet, hence saving you money & time. It makes getting dressed easier.  And who doesn't want that? 

Meet Jenny - Woman of Style

The scene: The mess hall tables at Carlingford Court shopping centre in Carlingford. 

SIA is eating a spud (cheese & doner kebab shavings) and having a cup of tea.

A lady with a little boy sits at the table next to her. Despite being consumed by her yummy spud, she immediately sees the blog worthiness of the lady.

When she asks the lady for photos and tells her about the blog, the lady says she'll check in with hubby and come back. Her name is Jenny. 

Jenny leaves. 

At that point, SIA commiserates with her spud that she may never see Jenny again. SIA wishes she had adopted the stalking technique instead. 

Five minutes later.

Jenny comes back. With two little boys & a hubby in tow. 
SIA excited. 

Hubby was probably checking SIA didn't have two heads and wasn't running a syndicate trafficking in pretty Asian women.

All seems good. Snap, snap, snap. 

Jenny was doing the sport luxe look. 

Why does Jenny's look work?

First, Jenny is tall & slim. But her look transcends her height & figure. It can work for most women, albeit modified.

First, you need a ubiquitous white shirt. Jenny's was crisp white cotton & oversize.
Yours can be fitted, shorter, collared and in cream rather than white. It'll still work - as long as it fits you. 

I asked Jenny whether her shirt was Korean. It looked like the Korean tops SIA has discovered in Eastwood recently. 
Jenny confirmed it was from Korea, but direct Korea, not via Eastwood. 

She wore leggings. They were in a grey/brown leopard print. 
Classy print, funky shape. You can even wear jeans as an alternate. They could be skinny or bootleg (pears). They can be printed or plain. The key though is pants didnt overtake the top. They were subtle. 

Then comes the sneakers - the sneaker is the shoe for 2014 and very running after children friendly. Notice how these are not the sneakers Jenny wears to the gym? They were totally clean, had two strokes of colour on them & were her non gym sneakers. And they worked. 

The bag was a white in a mock croc - subtle but with signs of luxury. 

Then there was the grooming - subtle make up, mani in white, loose carefree waves. Deliberate loose carefree waves. 

Plus subtle status jewellery. Nothing to overtake from the sport luxe look. 

What about me/you? 

Your height, colouring & body shape will determine whether you need to tweak Jenny's look to make it appropriate for you. 

You can turn it into preppy, minimalist even biker chic. It's all possible - as long as you know what works best for your preferences and body.

Do you have Jenny's look (or a modified version) in your closet? 

   

Woman of Style: Colourful Elke

The scene is Coles supermarket at Carlingford.
Think small mall, small suburb. 

So when I spotted this lady, looking at chocolates of all things, I knew I would regret it if I didn't stop & said hello. 

People like her don't turn up often. In Carlingford.

Her name was Elke (please correct me if I have spelt it wrong). 

I complimented her on her hair & glasses & well, her whole look. 

Then we played scarves. 

She was wearing a finely striped silk in shades of mint, orange, taupe, maybe a bit of blue. 

She was wearing hers in the classic European knot.

So I showed her some variations of this.

1. One end in the loop, then twist the loop & put the other end in. 

2. Twisting clockwise v anti clockwise

3. Inserting the single ends east to west & west to east.

4. Another one which I cant explain but I will find the instructions for it & add them here soon. 

Since all of these were going swimmingly, I figured we could challenge ourselves with the "Friendship knot". It's so different as far as scarf knots go, I couldnt let a stylish lady leave without imparting that knowledge to her. 

And we did & it worked. But we were there a while making it work & the Coles people did keep a watch on us. Surely they realised by the end, that we were harmless? Surely?

Here is a Hermes friend's video of the friendship knot. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvlaVhScbT4

The photos I took show Elke keeping her friendship knot intact. That's a sign she liked it. 

Some photos show her looking at her left - that's her fending off other customers who wanted to go through our photography studio to get to aisles 12+. How rude! 

I took some photos, then Elke started to wheel her trolley away and I realised she had slung a handbag over her arm & I hadn't photographed it! So we went back into the Coles studio for more photos! The bag was a print fabric in a natural canvas with a thick red shoulder strap....in red. 

Elke looked amazing.

She had pulled together colour & texture in a funky but relaxed way.  

She was wearing basics in neutrals (even the jacket was a tiny houndstooth men's print) but showed her personality through the accessories. Down to the animal men's slipper with the red trim. 

Definitely blog worthy. 

It was no surprise that Elke was European - that's not to put Aussies down, but to say that we have alot to learn from our Euro sisters!

Finally, one of the best scarf tying videos from Wendy's Look Book. I never tire of this one and as we get new readers all the time, I am sure some of you may not have seen it yet. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaSrE1-xh_M

Finally, finally, if you see a stylish woman in your midst, tap her on the shoulder & pay her a compliment.  

Let's play the Olsen Game: Which twin is which?

One of Style into Action's favourite games is playing "Pick the Olsen twin".

It's simple.
Take any photo of Mary Kate & Ashley & identify which girl is which.

There are physical and behavioural differences between the girls. But as this is a style blog, we should focus on their style differences.

Ashley favours a more classic look with more of a glam element than Mary Kate - both in clothes & accessories.
Mary Kate is wilder with a more extroverted and dishevelled in her look.
So for example, both may be carrying Hermes Kelly bags, but MK's is bashed up & Ashley's is pristine. 
Or Ashley favours a classic lady pump (think Manolo Carolyn sling back) which MK's shoes are platformed or gutsy. 

Even if you dislike the Olsens - this is a good game to play. Why? because it will fine tune your appreciation of style differences and that in turn will help you fine tune the way you project your look to the world. 

Ready to play the game? 

The answers telling you whether Ashley is on the left or the right are on the bottom in tiny print.  I am sure you can then figure out which one is mary Kate. 

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The position following tells you where Ashley is in each photo, from our perspective:
1. Right, 2. Left, 3. Left, 4. Left, 5. Right, 6. Right, 
7. Left, 8. Right, 9. Right, 10. Left, 11.Right, 12. Right, 
13. Left, 14. Right, 15. Right, 16. Left, 17. Left, 
18. Left, 19. Right, 20. Right, 21. Left, 
22. Right, 23. Left, 24. Right, 25. Left, 26. Right, 27. Left, 28. Left, 29. Left, 30. Left