Personal style isn’t something that just comes all at once, it develops & evolves with time.

I began early. I can remember dressing myself in the third grade. Sometimes being shot down by mi madre because I was mixing in my nice church clothes with my play/street wear. A HUGE no-no in my household.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to any one person’s look. Whether it be someone’s age, income, scene, “eye” for fashion, where they live, or other influences. It all comes together & serves a purpose, even if they don’t realize it.

You’d think with getting older & coming into your own, finding & presenting yourself to the world would get a lot easier, but for some, that isn’t the case. I have a very close friend, we’ll call her “Fanta”, that hadn’t purchased or worn a pair of high heels until the week before her wedding, last winter (even thinking of this now makes me slowly shake my head). While we were hitting the stores, hard, I was having her try on 2 1/2″-3″ heels. Training wheels. Out of nowhere, she asks the sales associate if she could try on a 5″ platform heel. Now, Fanta loves them. I had “Released the Kraken!” So never fear, all is not lost.

I’ll let you in on a two word secret that stylists, clothing & costume designers use: Look Book. You already keep a mental one. Time to get it down on paper, or keep it digitally! I like to physically hold a book, so I’m constantly ripping pictures out of magazines, news papers, & catalogs to add to mine. But with all of our technology, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be copy/pasting on to your smart phone, laptop, or  iPad. Use it as your fashion reference source! We even have TiVo now, just in case the scene on that show went by a little to quickly for our camera phones.