New Service: The Perfect Outfit

As I wrapped up my second month of doing The Subscription Service, I realized I had a gap of sorts in the services I was currently offering. When I came up with the idea of offering services, my first idea was to create three outfit Polyvores that would show you how your season and type dresses for various occasions. I found Hue & Stripe, which is a much better platform than Polyvore. I realized that getting to three outfits is a long process. I came up with The Complete Closet, and then The Subscription Service, which sends people things they can buy right at that moment.

But still, what I’ve found is that for more types, there’s that one situation that you have no idea how to dress for. It’s easy to figure out what to wear for a formal occasion if you’re a Soft Dramatic or a Theatrical Romantic, but harder to know what to wear to go to the store or meet up with friends. When you look at Pinterest boards for Flamboyant Gamine, it’s hard to see how you could make it work if you’re a lawyer and need to dress a certain way for court.

So my new service is called The Perfect Outfit. I’ll show you how to dress within your type and season for one kind of occasion. The end result will be something like this, a Polyvore I made to demonstrate how a Soft Dramatic who liked a more Natural look could dress to run errands:

casual_sd
(Source)

Of course, it will be in the form of a Hue & Stripe closet, not a Polyvore. The cost for this service is $15, and can be ordered on my Services and Store page. If you have an y questions, you can comment below or email me at hello@stylesyntax.com.

How to Know If Your Kibbe Is Right

Some people believe that the only way you can truly know if your Kibbe Image Identity is correct is if you visit Kibbe himself and he tells you what you are. Some feel the need to be told by any analyst what they are, and will go with that, even if it feels wrong.

I am not in either camp. To me, the point of all of this color and style stuff is really to make our lives easier and to feel better about ourselves. It doesn’t matter what an analyst says if the designation they gave you feels wrong. You are the ultimate judge of what works for you.

One thing I’ve learned from reading reports from people who have gone to see Kibbe is that there is no real way to distill his process. Some say it’s essence. Some say it’s lines. He sometimes seems to contradict himself. Whatever the actual process he uses to decide people’s types, the only way we’d ever really replicate it is by cloning the man himself.

So what do you do if you can’t spend thousands of dollars to go to New York and see Kibbe? I would advise you to go back to the real reason you got interested in all of this stuff in the first place. The point is that you want to look better, right? So if you can decide on your type for yourself and it accomplishes these two goals, I’d say you’re doing pretty well.

While you’re not confined to the recommendations for your type–I figured out how to make maxi dresses work for me, for example–keeping your basic silhouette and line requirements in mind while shopping makes shopping really easy and much less stressful and disheartening.

This is how shopping the right Kibbe type feels:

When I was in incorrect types, I hated shopping for the first time in my life. Being in the right Kibbe type does make things easier and feel better, even if your type isn’t found in stores all that much. You know exactly what works and what doesn’t. You know that you won’t hate what you see in the mirror when you try something on. The only stress is manufacturers who seem to really only want to design clothes for N types.

You don’t need reassurance from anyone in a group, or an analyst, or Kibbe himself. He wrote the book to enable women to do it for themselves. You are the ultimate arbiter of what works for you. Don’t worry about whether Kibbe would really make you this type, or live in a type that is wrong because someone else told you what you are and they’re the expert. You’re the one who has to live in a type–what is important is whether it feels right for you.

Dark Autumn Blonde, Part Six: Looking at Soft Autumn

In response to a fairly recent post, I got a comment telling me check out seasons called Deep Autumn Soft and Soft Autumn Deep, which I believe are part of the 16-season system, a system used by Lora Alexander at Pretty Your World.

This system, despite having similar-sounding names, is an entirely different animal from the Sci\ART-based systems. For one, draping is not required. Season can be discerned through the harmony of body colors–eye color and hair color are definitely considered. This is the issue I’ve had with people annoying me by insisting that I’m summer that I wrote about in my last post in this series.

So anyway, I knew that I would not be either of these seasons anyway, because I would be far too light to qualify. But it did plant a little seed of doubt about Soft Autumn in my mind. Could I be Soft Autumn? It would seem more logical, sure. Right as I was pondering this, a Russian-language blog on color and style did a post breaking down the different colors in Soft Autumn. (You don’t need to know Russian or even use Google Translate to understand what I’m talking about in regard to this post, since the visuals accompanying the text make it pretty clear). The lights, neutrals, darks, and brights of Soft Autumn have been separated. This gives me a very different impression of what Soft Autumn looks like than what I normally think of it looking like, which is this:

saleaves
(Source)

Compared to other palettes, it has always seemed a bit dull to me. All of the colors seem watered down and a sort of murky green or coral. But it’s true that in order to appreciate a palette, you have to see the colors. You have to see them in a context other than square boxes of color lined up to represent a seasonal palette. You need to see the clothes. And in Color Harmony’s interpretations, the dark and the bright Soft Autumn colors look pretty good to me. They look like things I could wear easily.

But the neutrals and the lights… This is where it falls apart. My winter jacket, for instance, is a Soft Autumn olive green. Does it have awful effects on my skin? No. But does it do anything special for me? No again. Out of curiosity, I decided to how I’d do in a lighter Soft Autumn color. I have a coral towel that seems to be SA’s coral. So I draped myself with it, and immediately noticed redness around my nose. I do have some, but when I put on a Dark Autumn color, it’s not noticeable. In fact, in Dark Autumn, I usually just put on lipstick and don’t bother with anything else. I also saw some reflection around the sides of my face that I didn’t like. While seeing the Soft Autumn colors together like they are in the blog made it seem more logical as an option for me, somehow, real life showed me otherwise.

Sometimes you need doubt to really confirm something for yourself. And while I might see what happens if I swipe a few of SA’s brightest and darkest colors, I have again come to conclusion that DA is where I belong.

What Happens with Services After August 1st?

As I mention on my Services and Store page, I have some special deals running until August 1st. So after August 1st, there will be some changes in what you get if you order.

1. The workbook will continue to include a trial of The Subscription Service and access to the future Facebook group. What will not be included, however, is a $10 discount if you decide to purchase the 6-month subscription to The Subscription Service.

2. The Subscription Service will no longer come with a pre-order of the workbook. I have also decided that since the focus of the Facebook group will be the exercises in the workbook, purchase of The Subscription Service will no longer include access to the Facebook group. I will offer a new combination of the workbook + The Subscription Service for $35 that will include the workbook, six months of The Subscription Service, and access to the Facebook group.

Also, I would like to clarify what The Subscription Service is versus what The Complete Closet is. The Subscription Service is meant for people who already have a handle on what their style looks like; they just want help finding exact items. When you sign up, I will send you a survey–and the more detailed your answers, the more the clothes and accessories I pick for you will match the image you have in your head. As you provide feedback on items I’ve selected, I’m able to refine your profile and pick out better and better things. The purpose is for you to see items that you can purchase right away, in your budget and in your size.

What I don’t do with The Subscription Service is engage in a back-and-forth with you as I pick out items. It is not like the three-outfit Polyvore service I originally imagined when I decided to start offering services on my site. If you want help fine-tuning or defining your personal style, The Complete Closet is the service that is meant for you. When I do The Complete Closet, it is a totally collaborative process, with lots of communication. It’s basically me doing what I outline in the workbook for you, with real clothes as examples and lots of input from you.

If you have any questions, you can comment below or email me at hello@stylesyntax.com.

Workbook Rough Draft: Done

I have finished the rough draft of the Workbook. It includes six chapters:

  • Your Type
  • Expressing Yourself in Your Style
  • The Three Levels of Dress
  • Using Your Color Palette
  • Wardrobe Rebuilding
  • Curating the Essentials

    The first two talk about how to use the information you have about yourself to come up with a unique style that expresses who you are. The rest of the chapters focus on how to use what you came up with for yourself in your real life.

    Each chapter has an accompanying exercise, so by the time you finish with the workbook, you’ll have a clear guide that will help you shop for and create a personal style going forward. You’ll also have access to an exclusive Facebook group for people who have purchased the workbook. You’ll be able to discuss the topics covered in the book and the exercises with other people who are working on them. And I’ll pop in to answer questions as well, of course.

    Right now, you can pre-order the workbook here. If you pre-order it before August 1st, you’ll also receive a free one-month trial of The Subscription Service (and if you sign up for The Subscription Service, the workbook is included with your purchase if you place your order by August 1st).

    I expect that it will be sent out by the end of August (PDF format, so you can print it out or do everything digitally without needing a special device or program). Then I will start work on my next project: a workbook for DIYing your type and season.

  • Dark Autumn Blonde, Part Five: Dealing with Naysayers

    One thing I try never to do is question someone else’s season or type designation unless it appears that something is really off, or they think they’re testing a certain type but it’s really another. Almost everyone in our little style and color community abides by this rule. This journey is a personal one, and even if people are in the wrong type or season, they usually discover it on their own eventually, and the information they get by discovering this themselves is usually very valuable.

    But there is a certain clique that seems hell bent on questioning everyone’s seasonal designations and telling other people how wrong they are. Even if someone has been draped and has been living in a season successfully and happily, still they will consistently bring up their own point of view on someone’s season, a point of view they arrived at solely from snapshots and from arbitrary rules from a non-Sci\ART system. The trained analyst in another system was totally wrong, and the only true way is their own.

    I had an experience with this over the weekend, and it really stuck in my craw. I dared to post a quick, taken-during-a-thunderstorm-on-my-iPhone snapshot of me in this lipstick for comparison purposes. On me, this lipstick does not look like a “warm, rusty brown” at all. It turns into a medium-deep red with some rose tones to it. It is my favorite red. Actual reds look clownish on me. Another person had posted a picture of themselves in this same lipstick, and on them it looked straight-up dark brown, so I just thought it was interesting that the same lipstick could look so different on different people.

    But since the other person was a member of this clique, it brought out of the woodwork what can only be described as trolls. And all of these trolls felt the need to tell me that, although I was not seeking feedback on my season, that the fact that I turn dark lipsticks with brown in them less brown and lighter that I must be a summer.

    I am sure that any actual summer who is reading this clicked on the link above and imagined themselves wearing that lipstick and shuddered.

    Anyway, what we struck me is the sheer rudeness of it all. It takes a lot of nerve and a lot of, well, jerkiness to think that you can definitively contradict a stranger’s seasonal designation from a hastily snapped iPhone shot in poor lighting, and that arbitrary rules like “Dark Autumn lipsticks should be applied with at least three passes of the bullet” are real things that should apply to everyone in a season.

    I understand that in systems in which Dark Autumn=dark person, I wouldn’t be a DA. I am a Dark Autumn in the way I understand the season, which is that the colors and makeup just seem to work for me and work better than all the other seasons I’ve tried. And it’s faintly ridiculous to tell someone who can wear a dark lipstick like Emotional and not look like they just walked out of a Hot Topic that they must be a summer because this dark lipstick looks too LIGHT on them. Yes, that’s just what I need, lighter makeup so it can look chalky or clownish on me.

    Anyway, I fully believe that this journey is a deeply personal one, and that’s why this is the one behavior I can’t tolerate. Even though I understand that the leaps these people were making were not only in a different system, but illogical, it still planted that little seed of doubt in my mind. And that’s just annoying.

    So yeah, this is one of those behaviors that will cause me to ban someone from a group or get into fights in the comments or ban someone from commenting on this blog. Unless someone asks for help, let them get there on their own.

    Workbook Preview

    I thought I’d share a little more about the format of the workbook, which I currently have available for pre-order and hope to have out by the end of the summer/early fall. Remember that if you order the workbook by August 1st, you’ll get a free trial of The Subscription Service, so if you have been curious about that, it’s a good opportunity to test it out and get a useful tool in addition to that.

    What makes the workbook different from other similar publications? It is specifically designed for people who already know their type and season and have an idea of what works for them, but need to take the next step in putting together a truly cohesive and original personal style.

    The workbook will explain and have exercises for many different aspects of creating a personal style, including:

  • combining type and season
  • self-expression
  • wardrobe planning
  • dressing for various occasions
  • capsule wardrobes and essential pieces
  • accessorizing


    Another important element of the workbook is that purchase of the workbook includes membership in a group only for people who have purchased either the workbook or one of my services. Obviously, I’ll be in the group all the time, answering questions anyone might have. And you’ll also be able to share your process with and get feedback from other people who are doing the same thing.

    If you follow me on Facebook, you may have already seen this, but here’s a partial screenshot of one of my examples for an exercise.

    exampleworkbook

    The workbook, for me, is really what Style Syntax is all about. You have the syntax already with your type and season; this workbook will help you develop the style part. And in addition, you’ll have created a practical guide for yourself that you can use when clothes shopping or when putting together an outfit.

    So anyway, I hope this post has helped you to understand what the workbook will contain. Also, don’t forget that a pre-order from now until August 1st will include a free month of The Subscription Service–if you order by July 7th, you’ll get it in July, and later than that you will get it in August.

  • Why I’m NOT a “Curvy FG”

    Update, 11/5/19: Please read this post. I no longer consider the ideas presented here to be valid.

    70th Annual Golden Globe Awards - Arrivals
    (Source)

    Sometimes I consider deleting old blog posts that no longer represent how I see Kibbe’s system. I try and go through my posts every few months and add notes to posts that I feel represent an idea that I’ve “archived,” so to speak, and that no longer factor into how I see Kibbe’s system. But I keep on seeing these posts referenced in other places regardless, and I feel like I’m confusing people, despite my clear note explaining that I no longer agree with what I wrote.

    One of the major ideas that falls into this category are the ideas of a “curvy FG” and “g-leaning” and “f/n-leaning” FGs. Seeing these terms now make me twitch. I’ve come to realize that I am not a curvy FG. I am simply an FG.

    Part of this confusion is, of course, due to the idea that Kibbe has gotten rid of the middle types. Gamines and Flamboyant Gamines have different body shapes. Gamines are narrow and straight in addition to being angular, sharp, etc. and Flamboyant Gamines are broadly angular. “Broad” is the key word here, because it’s the major idea that gets lost.

    The broadness is what makes the Flamboyant Gamine recommendations possible. If you want to hang a boxy top off your shoulders, you need broad shoulders to do it. All of the things that define Flamboyant Gamine as a separate type require a more significant bone structure than G has to pull them off.

    So I’m not a “curvy FG” at all. I’m a regular old FG, no special changes necessary. I’m fleshier, because I’m a little overweight, not because I’m “curvy.” “Broadly angular” is how I would define the overall theme of my body shape. I have broad shoulders and wide, flat hips with angles in between. The Flamboyant Gamine recommendations as written respect this.

    The issue arose when Gamines who are a little more yang were folded into FG. This does both groups a disservice. Suddenly the overall picture of the FG body shape gets a lot more narrow. Those of us who have the bone structure as described in the book somehow become the outliers.

    I don’t think that FGs should be split into “N-leaning” (broader) and “G-leaning” (narrower, aka Gs). This is just a workaround for a supposed change that actually over-complicates Kibbe’s system. When I say “I’m an FG,” it should be understood that my wardrobe is built around the Flamboyant Gamine recommendations. Yes, Kibbe says you should also read the chapters for Dramatic and Gamine, and that Gamine is more important for the overall picture. At thinner weights, I think FGs can pull some things from Gamine. When I was very thin, I even sometimes dipped into SG (although of course at that time I had no idea SG existed). If you are broad enough to carry off FG, you are not going to need Gamine to make FG work for you; it may just be a possibility to expand your wardrobe possibilities, and one you may not always have at all times in your life.

    Where I would use “leaning” is for Gamines themselves. I do see that there is variation in facial features that shows that the balance between yin and yang is not 50/50. But these Gamines should still base their wardrobes on the Gamine lines. Where they can pull from FG or SG is in things like pattern, jewelry, and even, in a way, “essence.” A Gamine that leans yang can easily pull off the mod and punk looks often associated with FG. And a yin-leaning Gamine might have even more of the “sweetness” and ingenue qualities ascribed to, sometimes mistakenly, to SG. Think Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby.

    Rosemarys-Baby_Mia-Farrow_Breton-hat-CU.bmp
    (Source)

    Unlike FG’s ability to steal from Gamine, this is something I don’t think would change over the course of your lifetime with weight gain and body changes. In my observations, it is mainly derived from facial features.

    So, in closing, I’d like to retract the entire idea of “curvy FG” and the idea of there being two kinds of FGs. When I say “Flamboyant Gamine,” I am referring to the Flamboyant Gamine described in the book, one that is not mixed up with Gamine. I consider myself to fit in this group with no exceptions needed. If Flamboyant Gamine had been presented this way to me to begin with, I would not have wasted months in Soft Gamine and Soft Natural because I felt I wasn’t skinny and lanky enough for FG. In the end, isn’t simplicity and clarity in a system like this what we need?

    Dark Autumn Blonde, Part Four: DIYing a Zyla Palette

    My views on color analysis have changed drastically over the past few months. I used to believe strongly that Sci\ART and Sci\ART-based systems were the absolute Truth when it comes to color analysis. Stuff based on energy or body colors, or even the 16-season system, rang false to me. I believed that the absolute best results possible could only be found in the accomplished hands of a trained Sci\ART analyst. I believed that anyone who did not go this route was doing themselves a disservice, that they would never unlock their true beauty.

    But after spending a lot of time in the online color and style community, I’ve learned that Sci\ART is just one way of looking at it. Some people don’t like the look that the Sci\ART result gives. Some strongly prefer their Zyla or Beauty Valued or 16-color result, and their Sci\ART palette sits and gathers dust. Some get a draping result they don’t like or don’t agree with, and spend hundreds more dollars getting redraped or getting custom palettes in other systems.

    As someone who hasn’t been draped, I’ve come to a place where I feel like getting draped isn’t something I need. I was reading a blog post by Light Marigold Spring today. This blogger has been draped in Sci\ART/12 Blueprints twice, has a Beauty Valued fan, had a Zyla consult, and has some other fans. Anyway, she made the point that it comes down to personal preference, and in the end, you just choose which approach and which result you like best. No one way of looking at coloring is more right than the other. No system is “more correct” than all the others.

    My approach to my own colors has been haphazard at best, and would probably make a professional color analyst shudder. I’ve simply deduced, from trial and error, that some colors are really, really bad for me. Too light and bright I turn red. White makes me puffy and gives me a fuzzy beard. I need some darkness. These factors have led me to Dark Autumn.

    Would I be draped Dark Autumn? Maybe, maybe not. But the very worst thing that happens to my skin in Dark Autumn is that the line between my chin and my neck fades a little, and if that’s the worst thing that happens to you in a season, you’re not doing too badly. I can look at my fan and pick out my body colors. It connects with me energetically–maybe Dressing Your Truth is on to something with colors and energy, rather than draping. I love the colors and feel like myself in them.

    Another advantage to using a palette like this is that the colors all work together. So I can create a wardrobe where everything matches, and I don’t have to think about it. That was what kept me in black for the past ten years or so: I found color selection intimidating. Now I just look for the slightly burnt, rich, and slightly warm colors of Dark Autumn, and everything looks good together.

    In the interest of minimalism, I got to thinking about capsule wardrobes and color. Zyla is a system where you get a series of colors to use in certain ways in order to achieve different aesthetic goals. I decided to take my Dark Autumn palette and use it to create a Zyla palette. As I mentioned, my body colors are found on the Dark Autumn palette, so pulling the correct colors was pretty easy. Of course, Zyla could potentially give me something totally different if I ever do see him. But I think this is a pretty good approximation. (I didn’t do metals or pastels because I don’t know how to choose them, and I feel like pastels are something I wouldn’t be able to use much anyway.)

    Untitled

    The colors are not true to fan, obviously, but here is the list of what I used from the Classic True Colour International fan:
    Essence: 1.1 FN
    Romantic: 6.2 A
    Dramatic: 4.9 A
    Energy: 3.8 A
    Tranquil: 2.5 A
    1st Base: 5.10 FN
    2nd Base: 3.5 FN
    3rd Base: 2.3 A

    Some of these colors, like my Energy color, are ones that I know are special on me. My Romantic is a great lipstick/blush color on me. I love the 2nd Base. And I managed to get these colors by following Zyla’s instructions, no cheating to get my favorites on there. (Although I think in my Dramatic “extension” I’ll give myself one of the purples!)

    To me, my Dark Autumn palette is simply a way to make my life easier. I’m not seeking my absolute true beauty. Simply put, they seem to work and I like them, and that’s good enough for me.

    The Workbook

    As I’ve said on my Services page, I’m currently working on a workbook. This is a workbook aimed at people who already know their Kibbe type and season, or whatever system of combination of systems they want to use. The goal of the workbook is to help people take what they know about what works for them, and translate it into a personal style that works with their real life.

    To me, this is the most important and most challenging part of any style system. Figuring out your type or getting typed by someone else is really only the first step. The real work begins when it’s time to take all these recommendations and you have to figure out how to put them together in a way that still expresses your individuality and personal taste. Kibbe briefly details how he’d help Shirley MacLaine do this, but this key section of the book is woefully short in comparison to how difficult and important this work is.

    With the workbook, I hope to fill this gap. It’s the same kind of work I do in The Complete Closet, but the DIY version. It takes you through creating an entire picture composed of a synthesis between your lines and your colors, figuring out what you actually need to wear on a regular basis and how to come up with outfits for different occasions, through putting a wardrobe together that expresses who you are.

    The price of the workbook also includes membership in a private Facebook group for people who either bought the workbook or have signed up for one of the services. (The group will open when the workbook is released.) You’ll be able to work through the workbook with others who are also doing it, and I’ll be there to answer questions and dispense advice.

    The Style Syntax Customization Workbook is now available for pre-order for $10. Until August 1st, anyone who signs up for either of the services will also receive the workbook for free when it is released. If you purchase the workbook before August 1st and later purchase one of the services, the price of the workbook will be refunded.

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