Bring in a Fashion Helper
Let’s say you’ve developed some fashion flair but haven’t the time or drive to haunt stores or study fashion like the stock market. . . . How can you get help?
Why not make use of people who do study fashion? I’m going to do another testimonial. Listen, I’m not some dopey female who thinks clothes and hair are the most important things in life, but I do get really thrilled about anything I can fix. Clothes and hair are frequently more fixable than parents or a man who drinks or your neighbor who plays his stereo all night.
Testimonial: I am standing at the glasses counter at Saks one day next to this great-looking woman—black velvet knickers, black turtle sweater, black boots, newsboy’s cap, blond streaky hair, silver-buckled Elsa Peretti belt, bracelets clear up her arm to the elbow and I say to this stranger as is sometimes my wont—usually nobody’s going to hit you!—”You look terrific!” “Thank you,” she said. “Fashion is what I do for a living . . . I’m a fashion coordinator.” She said if she could ever help me in any way, she’d be glad to. I took her card and put it away—for three years! Then one day, closets jammed and nothing to wear, I said to myself, Listen, you get help in every other area of life when you need it, why not a fashion helper (me, who’s supposed to know about clothes and advise Cosmo readers!). I didn’t know what to offer to pay her or even what she might do, but we made a date.
Well, darling, if anybody had told me some strange person was going to come over and straighten out my closets for six hours and I would pay, I would have said they were crazy. Closets you can do yourself, and what has that to do with chic? Well, you see, from being so close to your clothes and your closets, finally you can’t see what you see and everything needs a fresh appraisal.
We organized like maniacs, stacked and folded, put all the summer stuff out of sight in the back since it was now winter. I urged Jill to help me dump things I was keeping for sentimental reasons (the dress I met Queen Elizabeth in) and some of my Mistakes (that gray coat that makes me look like a small gray elephant), but she didn’t throw out that much. Next visit we put together outfits—skirt, blouse, jacket, belt, shoes and bag—maybe a couple of dozen combinations. She didn’t want me to write them down but to absorb what she was doing so I could do it myself, but in the beginning I wrote down. I just never would have thought of missing item. I will never be as fabulously dressed as she is, but I’m better than I was.
Regardless of who helps you or doesn’t, you need to spend time in front of a mirror trying things together . . . doing Carrie’s experimenting . . . it’s the only way to find out. French girls do this without shame for hours . . . so must you if you want specialness. the old Loden wool jacket with gold lamé camisole and the peach velvet skirt. I loved the shaking up. Jill now comes twice a year; we still organize the closets because I have perilously little space, then we put together little outfits, figure out where I have a hole so I can pick up the
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