How to be elegant ?

Step 1- Understand What Makes a Woman Elegant

Elegance is defined as ‘the quality of being graceful and stylish in appearance and manner.’ Therefore an elegant woman can be defined as someone who carries herself with poise in a sophisticated and fashionable way. The purpose of this guide is not to give you a step by step by step tutorial into carrying yourself with grace and poise. Rather, my purpose is to take you through the simple steps of finding the perfect style for you in order to accentuate your natural grace and poise, enabling you to present yourself as an elegant woman.

Audrey Hepburn, one of the most elegant women who ever lived once said, ‘elegance is the only beauty that never fades,’ and she was absolutely right. Being elegant ensures a timeless appeal to your clothing and having an elegant wardrobe allows you to hold on to classic investment pieces that are guaranteed to never go out of style. Look at the most elegant women in history, Grace Kelly, Jackie Kennedy, and Coco Chanel for example; their classic styles are still emulated today due to their elegance. We aren’t inspired by the fashion icons who fell in with trends because ultimately, trends are temporary. Elegance, therefore, is the one ‘trend’ that never goes out of style.

Today elegance doesn’t have to be a trait only associated with the rich and famous. By following the steps laid out in this guide you can be an elegant woman as well. The kind of woman who always looks good and well put together, no matter the time, place or situation.

Step 2- Evaluate Your Needs

If you want to be an elegant woman there is no one size 􀂇ts all approach. While it may be nice to have the Duchess of Cambridge’s wardrobe it may not be practical for every person. You don’t want to end up with a lot of clothes that you don’t even wear.

If I made this guide with rigid rules and an inflexible approach a very small number of people reading may be able to create and sustain an elegant appearance for themselves. However, the vast majority of readers would end up with a wardrobe that they never wear. My aim is to give you tools to understand what you need to be elegant, stylish and sophisticated.

The first thing I want you to do is a small exercise. Write down details about your lifestyle, what you do every day? Where do you work? How many hours do you work in a week? What does your work entail? What are your hobbies? Do you have kids? What are your personal goals? Then for each of these activities write down exactly what clothes you need for each of these situations.

For example, you may be working your way up the corporate ladder and therefore you need some tailored blazers and suits, or you may be a student and need some comfortable clothes to get you through those long hours of studying.

Then, write down details about what you like. Do you prefer trousers, skirts or dresses? Do you prefer heels or flats? Do you like to accessorize? What is comfortable to you?

Finally, write a list of all of the items that emerge from this evaluation.

Step 3- Finding Your Colours

There are four main color palettes that I want to walk you through. These are warm clear, warm muted, cool clear and cool muted. Realistically you can wear any color just as long as you keep the ones that don’t suit you away from your face. You just have to make sure that the colors you pair together don’t clash, which can be a case of trial and error.

Examples of warm colors include reds, yellows, oranges and yellowish-green. Cool colors can include blues, purples, greens, and violet. Clear tones are of a higher saturation whereas muted tones are of a lower saturation.

Warm skin tones typically have green veins in their forearm, whereas cool skin tones typically have blue veins. Clear skin tones have shiny luminescent faces (not referring to oily skin!) whereas muted skin tones have matte skin. While this can be hard to determine just remember, colors that don’t suit you will wash you out and make you look older.

Elegant women typically have a few chief colors (no more than three) in their color palette. A good idea is to have one primary color that encompasses the majority of your wardrobe and two secondary. This doesn’t mean that you can only wear three colors only that you should predominantly stick with three colors so that you can create more outfits that match.

Step 4- Knowing What Suits Your Body

Being elegant encompasses being graceful and poised, one element of this is having a certain flair with your overall demeanor. Let me tell you something, you can’t have an elegant and graceful demeanour if your clothes don’t 􀂇t, they look boxy or they are completely wrong for your body shape.

The first step to knowing what suits your body is understanding your body. Stand in front of a full-length mirror and look your entire body up and down. Draw your eye to the widest part of your hips and notice whether your legs and your torso are of a similar length or if one is more prominent than the other and note this down.

Draw your eyes over the rest of your body and notice which of your physical features are the most prominent. it may be your arms, your bust or your shoulders for example. Then ask yourself why they are the most prominent parts of your body and how this makes you feel. After this notice what isn’t prominent, and what you would like to emphasize.

This table below provides a guide to what best suits certain body types.

Step 5- Going Through Your Wardrobe

If you are reading this I assume it is because you already have an interest in appearing elegant which probably means that you already have some great elegant pieces in your wardrobe.

One important thing to remember is that most of what we have in our wardrobes is stuff that we don’t wear. We are creatures of habit and when we are overwhelmed by our lives and responsibilities it becomes less important to think about the clothes that we are wearing. We all have a couple of pieces that we seem to wear constantly. I certainly have many items of clothing that I wear on constant repeat and I found going through my wardrobe to be useful in minimizing this problem.

When you go through your wardrobe you want to have three piles. One for the things that are definitely yes, one for the items that are definitely no and another for the items that you’re unsure of. For this exercise, the maybes are the most important items.

Try all of the maybes on and ask yourself five questions, is this the color I want? Does this fit me? Does it achieve what I want with my body? Do I like this? And most importantly will I wear it? If all of these answers are yes throw the item onto the yes pile, if not it may be time to say goodbye.

Step 6- The Big Shop

Before you go Shopping

• Set a budget (and stick to it.) When you have a limit this prevents you from impulse buying and encourages you to think critically about your purchases.
• Set a price limit on singular items
• Settle on your colour palette (remember step 3)
• Come up with a shopping list based on the recommendations based on your body type (see step 4)

When Trying Things On

Don’t be afraid to experiment a little, if you’ve wondered whether something may suit you take the time to try it (you have nothing to lose in the changing rooms).

To Know If Something Works

Check if it 􀂇ts correctly, this includes making sure shoulder seams align, making sure the fabric doesn’t gather where it’s not supposed to. REMEMBER TO CHECK THE BACK. Make sure the garment 􀂇ts the bottom and back correctly. Also check the colors, the general rule if the color you’re wearing makes you look aged or makes your skin tone look dull and greyish it’s not right. If a color works it should brighten your skin tone. Also, ask yourself whether the fabric feels right?

Think About the Future

Can it mix and match with what you already have? Does it 􀂇t in practically with your lifestyle outlined in step 2? Is it within your price range? Think about garment care, does it need to be dry-cleaned and if so are you prepared to do that?

If the garment ticks all of these boxes take it to the checkout.

Step 7- Integrate Into Your Wardrobe

After your shopping trip its time to take your new purchases home and start integrating it into your wardrobe. The aim of this exercise is to make it easier for you to get outfits quickly in the morning so you can be an elegant woman every day with ease.

Suggestions

• Organize wardrobe by color. Remember my suggestion to have three main colors? Also, keep the items that aren’t your primary and secondary colors closest to the main color it suits best.
• Spend a couple of minutes creating outfits combining your new purchases with items you already have. Perhaps even organizing your clothes in this way.

Step 8- Dress This Way Every Day

It’s important to remember that it doesn’t take much to be elegant remember these key suggestions

• Don’t over accessorize
• Stick to two colors maximum
• Less can be more
• When dressing mix fitted and flowing (e.g. fitted top with flowing skirt) try to avoid pairing fitted and fitted and flowing and flowing. The Key in appearing elegant is balance.

follow us on

Facebook

Twitter 

Pinterest