THE 1-2 PUNCH goes to Nordstrom for a photo shoot

What is “The 1-2 Punch?”

• 1 is Color: the power of a custom personal color palette. It takes the stress and challenges out of shopping for and dressing in clothes that flatter your natural coloring and seasonal style. This is my specialty.
• 2 is Style: the confidence that comes from shopping with a skillful personal stylist who really understands how to find garments that flatter your figure and personality. This is the specialty of my friend, Margo Passadore, who actually loves to shop for her clients.
• The Punch! is when Color + Style combine to make you a total knockout!  That’s what my collaboration with Margo brings to our clients.

To launch the 1-2 Punch and showcase our complementary skills, we recently invited 8 women of different ages, shapes and seasonal coloring to a two-on-one educational “Before & After” dressing room consultation at Nordstrom, where each would try on outfits that did them no favors (color or style-wise) and then Margo put them in outfits that played up their best features.

In exchange for the free education, our intrepid ladies agreed to let us take photos during the process. We will be sharing each gal’s unique Before & After story in upcoming issues of our newsletter and blog posts, so stay tuned! But first, the five lessons common to all eight clients:

Top 5 Color and Style Lessons from our Nordstrom Photo Shoot

L. Before, R. After. Horizontal line demo. Details on what was bad & good in next post.

1. Working with a professional makes a difference. When you need wiring done, you call an electrician; when you aren’t sure what colors or styles look best on you, you call color and style professionals. Said one of our volunteers, “I can’t believe how much I learned — how much better I look in the right colors and how certain styles minimize my figure issues. I couldn’t have done this on my own.”
2. No “body” is perfect. It’s not your fault if clothes don’t fit you just right. Our gals are learning to seek out brands and styles that best suit their particular shapes. They discovered that alterations are often the secret to a good fit. As is a professionally fitted bra.
3. Even in the best of stores, the lighting is difficult. We often had to take a garment over to the window or door to make sure the color matched the client’s color palette.
4. It takes time and patience to develop a wardrobe. Colors and styles change every season, and at any given moment different stores may have better choices. Last week we found that Nordstrom was big on light bright garments, which limited our photo-shoot options for those clients needing darker or more muted colors.
5. Horizontal lines (like stripes, seams, hemlines or color changes) in your clothing can work for or against you in unexpected ways. The horizontal line widens what the viewer’s eye sees. Our clients learned how to work this visual trick to increase or diminish width where needed. [Kate, our model here, exemplifies what a difference the horizontal placement of a color break can make… Next week we feature Kate in several “Before and Afters” and describe them in detail.]

[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’I want to know more’ type=’radio’ options=’Subscribe me to your newsletter,Contact me about a consultation’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’/][/contact-form]