My wardrobe personality.

Claire Bunton image consultant from Norwich came to see me at my home to chat to me about my ‘wardrobe personality’. Which was just a bit crazy to me. I didn’t really feel like I fit into one group, however Claire’s softly softly approach really changed how I felt from the beginning of the session to the end. I always thought I didn’t really care about clothes to be honest. I just wear comfortable clothes, ‘natural’, ‘hippy’ like my friends would sometimes refer to me as… which was never really said in a nice way more as a derogatory term. So I just sort of got put into the ‘natural’ category.

I think it’s really important for Claire to come to your home as it’s somewhere you feel relaxed and when Claire was chatting to me I could soon see I had myself completely wrong and was almost underselling myself. Claire mentioned that she felt I was a romantic at heart and then that got me thinking looking around my living room that she was right. Even though I had never really thought about myself like that. This is why I feel it’s really important for Claire to come to you because I personally feel happier with my style around my house, than my actual clothes style. Looking around my living room I could see the wall hanging I got on my travels with the delicate lace and dainty details, which instantly takes me back there. On the other wall I have a canvas overlooking NZ harbour where Andy asked me to marry him. I would never have a shop bought a canvas of somewhere that I had ever been for example! Most of the little bits around my house have a great deal of meaning to me and I am always really upset if I lose a bracelet, which was bought for me or on my travels. So when Claire softly approached that maybe I wasn’t this ‘natural’ personality I thought I was, it suddenly clicked.

Claire has the perfect personality for this job. If she had come in all bold and said ‘no, you are wearing all the wrong clothes’ I think I would have asked her to leave, but her soft approach of getting to know me first and chatting things through soon gave her a clear understanding of me. Looking at the mood board for ‘natural’ looked similar to me, but just didn’t feel right. I couldn’t point out things on there that I actually wanted to wear. It all looked very unexciting. No little nice bits of details. I would never dream of leaving the house in jogging bottoms, even if it was just the shops. However if you asked me yesterday I would say I am easy going, just wear relaxed items of clothing that I feel comfortable in and don’t really care to be honest. I do love my heels, but still being comfortable is important to me. It’s a really refreshing great feeling of excitement to feel happy in my own skin and know what I want to be wearing now.

The next stage is to work out what clothes, colours etc I should be wearing to complement my ‘wardrobe personality’. For me after years of backpacking and being a Mum to Jessica, age 3, I think I got ‘lost’ in what my personality was. When I was backpacking all my clothes had to fit into a 20 kg bag and there wasn’t much room for style. Chatting to Claire made me realize even though I thought I was a ‘hippy’ (but not meant in a nice way) actually I do really like my girly things. I used to backpack with a little tiny box for my jewellery, the safe black dress and a pretty scarf to liven up my outfit. I feel like I am repeating myself a little now, but it’s really is a lovely feeling to feel now confident in which style of clothes I actually like instead of when backpacking for example what had to be brought to almost to suit the situation.

I really wish I had met Claire prior to my wedding as I really didn’t have a clue what I wanted to wear for the day. I knew very much what I didn’t want, but didn’t have a clue how to put it all together and find the ‘perfect’ dress. I had a bit of a nightmare with my dress that I went to get made, but because the lady wasn’t a ‘style coach’ I had the completely wrong dress made for me and ended up buying the dainty, lace finish dress I wanted from Phase eight. I knew I didn’t want a long satin dress and ended up with this because neither me or the seamstress knew how to coach me around to understanding what exactly I wanted and what would look good on me. A wedding dress is the most important (and expensive) dress you will probably ever buy, so I can’t imagine why I didn’t think about getting this done before my wedding instead of going in blind! If I had met Claire prior to my wedding I think the whole dress experience would have been completely different and a lot less scary. It was awful getting a dress made without a ‘style consultation’ first as I just felt worried the whole time that I would hate the end result, which in fact I did. I felt hideous and unsexy in it. Even after the seamstress took it in 4 odd inches to make it more feminine, it just wasn’t me and something I would never have bought off the shelf. After the seamstress told me I couldn’t have my fabric backed buttons of the same material as the dress and instead I had to have these plastic pearl buttons. I remember feeling really upset, which to most people may seem silly. However, I think Claire has me spot on as a ‘romantic’ it really is the attention to detail which matters to me.

Claire has now gone home to write up today’s wardrobe personality, which I can’t wait to read. I normally do my blog posts around 300 words, however I can see that this blog is nearly 1000, so as you can see I am feeling very empowered and excited about my next meeting with Claire. Image consulting personally to me seems more like life coaching as you really get to know the person doing it and get to understand yourself better.

Image consultant & coach Norwich