arashmazinani

Personal Stylist Leeds - Personal Shopper Leeds - Image Consultant - Arash Mazinani

Shopping

The Secret To Boosting Your Style IQ: Shopping Slumps

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Go on admit it! You suffer from shopping envy don’t you?

If it’s not advertising it’s magazine editors or bloggers telling us about their latest purchase, what we should or shouldn’t be buying. It’s everywhere, on our social media feeds, on our televisions, in the magazines we read. The most covetable items, what’s hot for summer, ‘lusting lately’. All phrases to get our sartorial juices flowing and whet our fashionable appetites.

Our eyes widen and stomachs flutter at the alluring thought of ‘the experience’. Bloggers tease us in a peepshow like manner, slowly revealing their latest ‘haul’s through a seductive collection of instagrams, tweets and pins. The desire of the shopping experience in everyone of us piqued.

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How You Can Easily Dress Designer For High Street Prices

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Have you ever coveted a designer piece, but had to settle for the high street alternative?

Today I’ll explain to you how to think like a really savvy shopper. One that opens their closet and is greeted by all their fave, luxe labels. They’ve traded in their Topshop and now their rails wouldn’t look out of place on the international floor of a Harvey Nichols. A real life Carrie Bradshaw.

Ready to trade in that Primark for Prada?

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5 Myths About Personal Stylists

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I just got back from a trip to Nottigham to see some of my fabulous, fellow stylists; Cleo Lacey and Keeley Stone. That’s the reason this post is a little behind my usual Saturday posting schedule. Don’t blame me, blame them, ha ha, joking ladies. Today I wanted to talk about myths surround personal stylists and image consultants. When I explain to people what I do it’s often met with intrigue followed by a stream of questions. Everyone seems to be familiar with the terms, but for most there is an air of ambiguity around what we do. You see, their only reference point is what they see on TV or read about in magazines. This is usually a far cry from the reality of what we do with our clients. So what I wanted to do was shed a bit of light on the world of a personal stylist and dispel some common myths about us.

#1. We Get You Dressed Every Morning

I don’t know where this concept comes from, but whenever I do a search for the term ‘personal stylist’ on twitter the results are full of the above. Some people think we act as their maids and dress them every day before work or school, usually school. I’m very confident that no one really needs to be shown how to physically put on their clothes.

#2. We’re Expensive

I want you to do a little experiment for me. Open your wardrobe and go through anything you haven’t worn in the last year, anything that you bought, took home then realised it didn’t look ‘right’ but kept because you may change your mind or lose that extra 10lbs. Have a look for clothes that you’ve fallen out of love with since buying. Any clothes that have been damaged but you’ve not had the heart to throw away. This includes accessories and shoes as well. Once you’ve got all your bits together lay them on the bed and add up how much this little stash originally cost you. You’ve got a figure right? Well, whatever that figure is I can assure it’s much more than what we cost and with us you can kiss goodbye to expensive mistakes.

You don’t need that Hollywood money

#3. You Need A Lot of Money For New Clothes

I often get asked “but won’t I need a lot of money for new clothes?” The answer is no, not really. While I can’t comment for most personal stylists, the philosophy I stand behind emphasises working with what you already have first. Many people think the answer lies in more, more clothes, more money, instead of assessing what they already have. If there is a need to buy new clothes a good personal stylist should be able to work with whatever budget you give them.

#4. Only Celebrities Have Personal Stylists

I think this partly links in with #2 but even after dispelling that myth, yes some celebrities have personal stylists. But if you look at your regular average joe or jane they wouldn’t try and fix the plumbing in their house themselves, they would get a specialist to come and do it. The same is true of someone’s style. As in most cases there are exceptions, some people just have an almost innate sense of style and would probably never require our services. But for many, certain aspects of shopping or putting outfits together is an absolute minefield for them. That’s why most of the people I work with are normal just like you and I, no celebrity status, no excessive bank balance.

#5. We’re All About The Fashion

Yes we need to know what is happening on the catwalk and what is currently hot on the high street. But that doesn’t mean we’ll be forcing you to look like you’ve just touched down from Paris fashion week. It’s all about working with the individual and making sure their new style is reflective of their personality and life style. Not kitting you out, head to toe in the latest trends, after all… if it was that easy you’d just copy what you saw in the glossies.

Paris Fashion Week

I really wanted to put this out there and hopefully lay to bed some common misconceptions around personal styling. I hope I’ve done that in this short space of time and maybe it’s answered some questions that you may have had but never really sought to ask or find out.

As always I love hearing your thoughts, this article is no different…

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5 Ways To Get Designer Quality With Out The Price

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I go through stages where I love designer clothing and loathe the high street then it swings back the other way. I was recently checking out quite a few high end designer pieces and comparing them to mid price point high street and low end high street pieces. I tend to do this when doing a preselection for a personal shop to get a feel for the different pieces that are out there. I have to say that in some instances the high street trumps designers in terms of quality and price. Often you associate buying designer goods with automatic superior quality, but depending on what you’re buying it’s not always the case. There are still pieces where spending more does guarantee you quality, that tends to still be true when it comes to tailoring. But keeping your mind open can often lead to getting both great quality from the high street without paying designer prices. So if you want to make sure you’re getting the best quality for your money check out my tips below.

Designer Quality On A Budget

  • I wrote a post about fabrics last year which I really recommend you read. You see, one of the key ways you to compare quality is looking at the fabric. Certain fabrics usually come with a higher price, most notably knitwear. If you’re comparing cotton to cashmere then you know the latter is going to be expensive because it’s a more luxurious fabric. But if you look around you can easily get comparable lambs wool pieces that would normally cost £100+ with a designer name for around the £35-£60 price mark.
  • Another quality usually associate with designer pieces is the overall cut and fit of the garment. You pay more money because the fit is going to be better. But that’s not always the case, getting any piece of clothing in the correct size is always going to do wonders. So regardless of whether it’s from the high street or designer make sure you try on a few different sizes. Again, paying more does not guarantee a better fit. Take the results of my recent shopping trip for example; I was looking at white shirts comparing one from TM Lewin for about £35, Reiss for £80 and D&G for £135. In terms of quality there was no difference, in fact I actually thought the TM Lewin one was slightly better. In terms of fit the D&G shirt was slightly better than the others, but not enough to warrant £100.

  • Which brings me onto my next tip, don’t forget about alterations. If the level of quality is the same as the equivalent designer piece then paying for an alteration will still work out cheaper. Take the shirt example above, I could easily have paid an extra £15 for the body to be adjusted if I had felt like it and I’d have still paid less than the same item from Reiss and D&G.
  • Learn to thrift. I’m no expert myself but by simply following a few fashion blogs it’s taught me that if you put the time in you can easily find some amazingly great quality pieces from thrifting. I’ve never had the time to really get into thrifting, but I’ve heard that once you’ve had a few great finds it can become really addictive.
She knows good quality when she sees it, do you?
  • The final way to is consider all of the above and wait for sale time, and take advantage of the money that is slashed off the recommended retail prices. If you have a clear idea of what you want and again are happy to take your time hunting for it during the sales, then it’s a great way to get great quality at cheaper prices.

Well I hope you’ve found this useful, if you have any questions or care to share some of your own tips on how you ensure you get the best quality pieces, leave a comment after the break.

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Sale Shopping: Why It Costs More Than You Think

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I’ve been absent over the Christmas period taking a nice long break from everything, consuming lots and genuinely chilling out. On Christmas Eve I was ill due to manflu, although I think it was really just exhaustion as I woke up on Christmas Day feeling really refreshed, not a single sniffle in site. Boxing day I woke up and checked my twitter timeline, you know, as you do. It was filled with really contrasting opinions on the sales, some people were up and ready to hit the shops. Others, like me, were still in bed or sat in front of their TV eating chocolate for breakfast and watching Christmas movies all while tweeting their detest of sale shopping.

My own lack of enthusiasm for the sales stems from my time working in retail. When you have to go to bed early on Christmas Day to  get up ready to work on Boxing day it doesn’t really fill you with festive spirit. That along with the fact you know you’ll have to break up a few fights, 50% off Jimmy Choo can cause a lot of women to loose their common sense…50% off Christian Louboutin can cause a lot to see red 😉 (that was not intentional ha ha).

The whole idea of shopping in the sales is that you grab yourself a bargain, you get something for less than the normal retail price. But have you ever stopped to consider that just maybe… it’s not that much of a great deal? Let me explain why…

First of all do you actually ‘need’ what you’ve just bought? If you’ve just gone out and bought something that you don’t actually need then you’ve not saved any money at all.

A lot of people will find themselves buying something just because it’s reduced then try and ‘fit it in’ to their wardrobe. What I mean is; if they’ve bought a new top they now need to buy a new pair of trousers to go with it or pair of shoes to go with it. Now you’ve ended up spending even more money than if you had just gone out and bought something that actually works with what you have for full price. Sometimes it’s worth hanging on if you genuinely need to add some pieces to your wardrobe and checking out the new season stock.

If you are desperately wanting to hit the sales then check out my 5 tips to help you survive the sale season post and see how I managed to get a pair of Louboutin’s for £30.

Are you a sales junkie or do you loathe the sale period?

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