Fashion Wisdom: Shoes and Hosiery
I got another “Fashion Wisdom” steroid last Saturday when I attended a full day seminar on dressing to look your best with Nancy Nix Rice in Champaign, IL that my neighbor/friend/seamstress extraordinaire Tina Colombo put together.
The overall goal: You have to dress every day – so why not dress to look your BEST? WEAR your clothes – don’t let your clothes wear YOU! Anyone who has taken my ‘Frumpy to WOW’ or ‘What to Put Where and WHY’ seminars at sewing expos know I ask this question all the time as it pertains to creating wearable art.
I’ve been a fan of Nancy Nix Rice for years – integrating much of her book, Looking Good into my work. BECAUSE it verifies/agrees/substantiates everything I was taught in my color/style training back in the 80’s when ‘Color Me Beautiful’ hit the scene. At the time, my common sense said: “Wait a minute… it is NOT possible everyone (female and male) could be pigeon-holed into 1 of 4 color schemes (Winter Spring Summer Fall). With that conclusion strong in my knowledge base, and mixed with things I’d learned in my Home Ec/design degree, I went searching for color training that I felt was valuable and ‘true’. I found it in the Color Key System and had wonderful training from a gal (I even forget her name now), but it was just as much styling as it was color. I learned SEW much, that has been the basis of so much of what I’ve done since ‘way back then’. When I did a color analysis, it started out with sitting with my client and going through my notebook of how to USE her colors, to get to know her, to determine the best STYLING for her as well as then determining her best colors. Nancy could have been the one training me – or taking the training with me, we agree on so much – if not EVERYTHING. Which, by the way, DISAGREES with so much of what the ‘fashion police’ or ‘What not to Wear’ people or fashion magazines preach and so many take as fashion ‘gospel’.
Sew…anyway, I took lots of notes and photos and will share it here on my blog, and in some upcoming newsletters in bits and pieces – with Nancy’s permission – and linking you to her products and excellent services along the way. Nancy travels some doing her programs and services – so if you want to get in touch with her – find her at http://www.nancynixrice.com.
One thing that has BUGGED BUGGED BUGGED me in recent fashion is the huge, clunky, non-feminine shoes worn with even dressy dresses and formal wear. Ughhhhh!!!!! I think Nancy put her assessment of it right on the $ when she showed us the difference that showing more foot/leg gives versus a high vamp shoe makes. Which one makes the leg look longer? (And that is what we desire – long, lean legs!).