How to dress like an A-lister
A beautiful collection of clothes
A beautiful collection of clothes, like we think an A-lister would wear, must be something that we all long for. Judging by the number of articles written on creating a perfect capsule wardrobe or on clearing out the clutter, women feel that the clothes that they have in their wardrobe and what they wear could do with either some fine tuning or the services of a bulldozer.
What we wear is fundamental to our life-experience. Our clothes and our emotions are closely intertwined, in a close dance with each other day in day out. We know this because when we sigh, “and I don’t have a thing to wear,” it is usually the final straw in feeling out of sorts with oneself, which started earlier in the day with something else entirely.
How our thoughts trick us
It may be that you feel that a beautiful collection of clothes is only available to the A-lister group, royalty, heads of state and of large international companies. I can understand that. It’s convenient to think that somewhere else someone has a better life than you, evidenced by their wonderful wardrobe full of carefully chosen clothes that all suit each other, shoes for every occasion and the perfect accessory for every outfit.
This is not true though. It might be a story that you are telling yourself because you don’t feel you deserve better. However it is totally realistic to expect to have a beautiful collection of clothes to wear whatever your age, income level and life situation.
With a few tweaks to what you are buying and your attitude to your purchases, you can easily have a wardrobe that anyone would be proud of. Even the A-lister clan. A wardrobe that you can’t quite believe is yours each time you open the door. Instead of that sinking feeling when you are looking for clothes to wear, you’ll be calm and relaxed and excited about what you are going to choose.
Curious? Yes! Then read on.
Wake up every day to a beautiful collection of clothes
Would you like to wake up every day and have beautiful clothes? I have a question for you. What is a beautiful collection of clothes to you? What does it look like? Just stop for a moment and imagine it. Now write down what you are thinking. Here’s mine.
- white silk shirtdress
- trouser and a matching hip length top with a self tie belt.
I can picture the jewellery too: a jade bead necklace, for the dress and a long length bead necklace with a tassle on it. Gold earrings. Large Murano glass ring.
What was yours? Write it down. Then ask yourself, if you could wear anything today, what would it be? For me, it would be a fun dress (full skirt, bright colours, sleeveless, a bit of net in the skirt to make it move when I walk).
How much time do you give to planning what you want to wear?
We will use these examples later on. But this is the reason I asked you this now: Is that the most amount of time, in a long time, that you have consciously given to thinking about what you would like to wear? I bet, for most of you, it will be. We don’t think positively and proactively about our clothes and then we wonder why we don’t have anything to wear, or don’t like anything that we do have.
The good news is that is is perfect possible to turn your random selection of clothes into a beautiful collection of items you love and wear.
You just need to follow these easy steps
For A-lister chic: Stop buying clothes intermittently and ad hoc
We are all tempted to do this. Random, online purchases; items you’ve bought from catalogues when you’re bored; clothes you’ve bought in shops when you want the thrill of the purchase but can’t find anything you really want to buy. I can guarantee this leads to large piles of clothes, most of which you hardly wear, if at all. That large pile of tee shirts that are all the same? The jackets which don’t fit. The ten shirts all in the same shade of blue and you only wear 2 of them. This is why. You’re buying intermittently and ad hoc and it needs to stop.
For A-lister chic: Buy for the long term
One of the great secrets of wardrobe and clothing success is understanding that buying long term will reap you so many more rewards than panic buying. Planning in advance gives you confidence and authority. Do you ever see the Queen, or another female head of state appearing in public looking like they are not prepared? No. When you see an actress or other A-lister on the red carpet appearing in public looking amazing and you think, “Oh my goodness, they look amazing. If only I had her team of people”, do they look unprepared? No.
And what you need to realise is that there is no difference between someone you might admire from afar, and yourself. None at all. All those women who look well prepared and beautifully put together have worked hard to look like that.
Yes, they may have a team of people to help them get dressed. But you can do it on your own every day. Day in day out. And you will probably really enjoy it. It’s like a game.
Plan your wardrobe like a military strategy. Have fun with it. Be in control of it. And buy long term.
A-lister chic: Plan ahead, plan seasonally, and plan for events
In addition to buying long term, learn to plan ahead. Plan seasonally and plan for events.
For example, you’re going on holiday.
You plan all of the holiday: the itinerary, the tickets, who will look after the dog, who will keep an eye on the house
You pack your bags, prepare the house to leave it, put an auto-responder on your email.
Then with half an hour to go, you realise that the taxi will be here shortly and you think, Those jeans, they’ll do
That top, it’s comfy
That jumper, it’ll double as a pillow on the flight
Those trainers, for practicality at the airport.
Then you arrive at the airport. And there is this woman in amazing clothes, that you would love to wear. She looks happy and relaxed. You think, I’d love to have her life.
She obviously has very little to do, that she can look so beautifully prepared. With all those children. And all those suitcases.
But actually you could have planned what to wear.
That’s just a small example, but it illustrates the point.
It’s the same at Christmas. It’s such a busy time and often the last thing we are thinking of is what we are going to wear over the holiday season. So when it comes down to it, you haven’t planned what to wear, so you don’t show up like you could. It makes you feel regretful, as if you are lacking in some way, or that you have failed. But you haven’t failed. You just didn’t plan.
I have previously worked for a woman who had a semi-public role with her husband for a while. We planned her wardrobe in advance. It’s great fun. Give it a go. But make no mistake, plan to look good. It won’t happen by chance.
How to look like an A-lister: Keep a wardrobe list of items you have and items you want
If you are going to have an organised, A-lister type wardrobe, it’s going to start with knowing what’s in your wardrobe, and what items you might be looking to buy in the future.
I think it’s definitely worth keeping a tally of what items you have in your wardrobe and what items you want. I don’t think it’s overindulgent or self-obsessed to do so. We plan for all other purchases, I think our wardrobe purchases should be carefully thought out and budgeted. If you want to look as good as you can, and not break the bank, get used to budgeting. Set your budget and find the best quality that you can for that budget.
It’s really not an issue if you can’t currently afford to buy the level of quality you would like. The important aspect is the planning, the organising. It is perfectly possible to shop at charity shops and in the sales and look impeccably turned out.
What items do you need next? A winter coat? Write it down and use the sales time to search out a really good reduction on a perfect wool coat, rather than fritter it on smaller items that you don’t really need.
A-list women have a great selection of accessories. What accessories are missing, or could do with an update in your wardrobe? Gloves? wool scarf? silk scarf? Write it all down. Then you have a focus of what you are going to look for when you do shop, whether it’s on-line or in person at the shops.
A-list chic: Refine your style
Look at any A-lister woman and they have a particular style that is all there own. For some women it is a style that has evolved out of practicality for their role. For other women their style is an expression of their personality. For other women their style is a reflection of the life they are living, their work, their passions.
You can choose any of those styles and adopt it as your own. Just pick one. Then go all out with that look.
Is it sleek and sophisticated? Trendy? Modern and pared down? Classic? Bohemian?
What is it about you that makes you uniquely you? That is the look that you need to make you own.
Don’t mess around with just wearing a pair of jeans and a tee shirt and not being intentional about what you are wearing.
What you’d like to wear…
Go back up to the section where you wrote down what you would like to wear. My choices were:
white silk shirtdress and trouser and a matching hip length top with a self tie belt. The jewellery that I pictured was:
A jade bead necklace, for the dress and a long length bead necklace with a tassle on it. Gold earrings. Large Murano glass ring.
Looking at what I wrote I can tell that I want to dress in a more sophisticated way than I have in the last couple of years. I already wear dresses, but the fact that I thought of the most impractical white silk shirtdress and trousers that weren’t jeans indicates to me that I’m entering a more grown up style of dressing. So that’s the direction I’m going to head in.
Try that exercise now if you didn’t do it before. Just take a few minutes. See what you’d like to wear.
Spend a little time thinking about how you want to look and go for that. And that only.
We are all A-list women
The reality is, cheesy as it sounds, but we are all A-lister women. Whether this fact is acknowledged by the media or not is irrelevant. Your life is equally as deserving as the woman next door and as the A-list celebrity or public figure. We have the same opportunity, every day, to turn up and look and feel our best. Life is for living. Get out there every day and do your best. Create your own A-lister life that you want to spend time in every day. That’s all any of us can do.
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Have a great day.
Sarah
