I'm Winter!

Thanks to my very generous friend Kate, I received a gift certificate for a "Head to Toe" colour consultation, remodeling of my wardrobe and personal shopping experience with my friend and former neighbor Nina Smith who's a personal stylist.

The first thing Nina did was a colour consultation which involved sitting in front of a mirror and seeing how different swatches of colour reflected on my face. It was absolutely amazing how some colors (brown, gold) made be look totally washed out, pale and really just tired looking!  And then how colors like black, bright hot pink and royal blue made me look fresh, defined (vs. puffy), no tired lines around the eyes/mouth and glowing.  The final verdict - my colour palette is "Winter"!

Next Nina took a very thorough look at the clothes in my wardrobe.  Decimated seems like a harsh word, but it's fairly accurate in that about 2/3 of my wardrobe was deemed either dated (not modern, think sweater twin sets from the 1980s), not the right colour palette and when I tried some of my clothes on for Nina they didn't silhouette my figure in a flattering manner (all my jeans were deemed too baggy, some dresses just hung on me).

There weren't any real surprises as many of the clothes in my closet were from 5+ years ago (meaning I brought them with me from the US) and I hadn't worn in a long while so it really was time to let them go - I just needed that extra push.

The one surprise was "brown". I've often been told that I always wear black, so I tried to mix it up with brown.  After my colour consultation I now know that there are many other colors for me to choose from other than black that are better such as hot pink, navy blue, white, red (purple/blue red, not a tomato-red) and purple.

On the personal shopping trip, I had what I called my "Pretty Woman" moment (remember that scene where Julia Roberts had all the shop keepers helping her out). Nina was pulling several different pieces and having me try them on (things I wouldn't have thought to try on my own, such as fake leather pants) and then styling how to pull the whole outfit together (as well as how to mix and match it to make more than one outfit).

It was a fantastic experience and I was able to put my new knowledge to work on a weekend in Melbourne (March 21-24) where I caught up with friends and enjoyed the Melbourne Fashion Weekend.

Valentina and I had a lovely breakfast on March 23 then we headed to see a fashion show on High Street in Armadale which is at the cross-roads of Toorak Road, Malvern Road and Glenferrie Road which has a number of small boutiques.  I'd shopped Melbourne's famous Chapel Street Precinct before so it was a lot of fun to check out another area famous for its boutique shopping.

We had dinner at Miss Chu in South Yarra which was FANTASTIC!  It had the BEST slushy of frozen young coconut juice with mint. And the BBQ pork buns, salad and rice paper rolls were all yummy too!

The next day (Sunday) I went back to Chapel Street and purchased a beautiful black and white textured dress with black panels that are very figure flattering from Arthur Galan a Melbourne designer.  That morning I'd visited the Queen Victoria Market which was not all that impressive.  It was a lot like Paddy's Market and mostly made up of local fruits/vegetables and meat/dairy which was plentiful and if  I lived locally would have great but on the non-food side the market was mostly over-runs, Costco-like large quantity generic clothes and other random stuff.