A platform about personal style and embrace our own uniqueness. Fashion and style, every day of your life, without overspending. Financial tips to be a conscious consumer and adopt mindfulness on our shopping habits and our lifestyle.
I need to spread the good word that clothes stiches are to be removed, after purchase. REMOVED.
They are purely there to keep the garment in it’s original shape and form, while in store, until the consumer buys the item.
The definition of tacking: “temporary stitching intended to be removed. Tacking is used in a variety of ways: To easily hold a seam or trim in place until it can be permanently sewn, usually with a long running stitch made by hand or machine called a tacking stitch or basting stitch.”
I can say that every day I see at list one person wearing a coat with stiches and it just look awful. 😣 Attention to detail is so important.
I was always a eccentric kid, running around with my mothers clothes.
After many years of trying to suppress my quirkiness, I finally decided to embrace it. Recently I started to get bored and restless about life, about colors, about personal style, etc.
I only follow 2, 3 fashion and lifestyle blogs. The rest doesn’t add anything new to my knowledge about fashion or personal style, that I can use on daily life. So as a new years resolution I decided to create my own thing and see where it takes me.
I want too show people, fashion can be: Fun, Affordable, Unique and Comfortable.
I am feeling good about this project and I can only imagine that something that is created from such a honest and loving place, can only create a positive impact. I hope you are interested in joining me in this new journey.
Let me be very clear in my first sentence, I am against it.
I work in the financial industry for the last 13 years, dealing directly with people in financial difficulties. This is my day job and I see everyday the consequences of overspending and poor money management on peoples’ lives.
The only situation I would tolerate using credit to buy clothing and/or make-up, etc, would be possibly, for your own wedding. And still, I would be very reluctant to do it and would set up a strict budget.
Let me also say this, using credit is not a bad thing, it is a very good tool when used properly. From my point of view, should be used to pay essential items and clothing is not one of them.
In the past, consumers had the option of paying for their purchases with their credit cards.
Later came store cards, that many consumers were mis-sold and didn’t even realize they were getting a customized credit card.
Nowadays there are new financial services that allow you to buy now and pay later, spreading the cost of your basket value in several smaller instalments.
The target consumers of these services are young millennials. Very easily a 20 year old can accrue a few thousand pounds in debt, spent in non-essential items, mostly clothing, shoes, bags, small jewelry, etc.
I think the financial industry is capitalizing on the fact that these consumers don’t have big priority expenses (yet), like a mortgage, with most of them still living with their parents.
Also the fact that millennials suffer the most with social media pressure and have low rates of self-esteem much earlier in life, than other generations born before the internet boom.
But I can assure you, that starting your young adult life accruing debt in non-essential items, is not a good start. Once an individual decides to move on to a personal relationship, I can assure you that your finances will have an impact on how your partner sees you and can be a determining factor if the relationship will move forward or not.
So if you are thinking of buying now and paying later, please stop for a few minutes and ask yourself this “Do I REALLY NEED this?”.
verb: need
require (something) because it is essential or very important rather than just desirable.
Weddings are expensive, period! And I know every bride wants to look a million dollars on that special day, but I get super excited when I find bridal options, that are affordable and beautiful.
On my way to work, I was delighted to see a store window, full of affordable bridal wear. And I was even happier when I saw so many different options, they have short & long dresses, pants, etc.
Have look on these beauties, most of them are under £300:
Every since I moved to London I started to realize how popular designer bags are, and how attached to them women are. There they go, in their early commute to work, holding their most precious thing, barely waken up.
Many of these women buy these second hand bags and they go around happy to own a XYZ bag, etc. But they are not acknowledging that the rest of their personal style doesn’t go along with the bag. Meaning, having a XYZ bag but your hair is messy, your tights are ripped, your nail polish is damaged, etc, you are not looking your best. It doesn’t matter if you paid £1K for a bag.
Personal style for me, is much more than what I can afford. The pressure is real, I get it. The amount of repetitive social posts and social media influencers, makes us believe that if we don’t own this, this and that, we are not relevant in this world.
The honest truth is that we are important and we are relevant. What matters is our personality and our moral code, all the rest are add-ons, that a huge fashion industry wants you to believe you are lacking.
If you have nice clothes, a safe home, family and/or friends, you are not lacking anything and you have a fulfilled life. Everything you purchase, are extras. Your bag doesn’t define you, you define yourself.
A few years ago I had 3 weddings, in 3 consecutive weekends. Yes, that’s right, you read it correctly, 3 weddings in 3 consecutive weekends. And so I bought 3 different dresses and consequently I bought new shoes, clutch, accessories, etc, etc etc.
I didn’t buy expensive dresses, but still, it was a lot of money to be used on 1 specific day. Obviously, I ended dressing the same outfits, on following years on different family events. Yet 3 weddings in a year, all so close together, it was a big blow to my personal budget.
Today, I would possibly have the same approach has Tiffany Haddish and not spend so much money. I would have bought less dresses, less accessories and then combine the items differently, to create different looks. I would still look amazing and I would have saved myself a few Euros.
For the ones who are not aware, Tiffany bought an amazing Alexander McQueen white dress that cost her $4,000, and she has been using the same dress on different occasions. I think this is super cool, for several reasons
1- In a society that demands women to always have new looks, to cater to the demand of an audience, Tiffany is actually saying “You know what, I am dressing for myself!”
2- She invested in a $4,000, she should be entitled to use it as many times as she wants. After all its a piece of clothing and as far as I know, clothing is not (yet) disposable. Should be worn several times.
3- Having an amazing piece like her white dress, is not fair for the piece itself. It should be seen, and above all it should be enjoyed.
4- In an industry where the majority of people are using borrowed clothes (nothing against it) she is using something she has bought with her own money. Money she worked hard to get and this dress is a reflection of her hard work. This is a good example that fashion is not necessarily vain and futile. This dress represents all the obstacles she had to win, to reach success.
Bottom line, my money, my body, my choice. I am definitely releasing the Tiffany inside of me, more often.
There are many things I pay attention when I am analysing people’s personal style, but I definitely look at the tiny details.
Fancy shoes? I will pay attention to your socks.
Expensive bags? I will look at your whole outfit.
Bling-bling watches and jewellery? I will look at your overcoat, your scarf, etc.
In my mind, the “full package” needs to make sense together. Your personal style needs to be cohesive, needs to be coherent and most definitely needs to reflect YOU, not some Instagram influencer.
In doesn’t make sense to me that you are wearing fancy shoes, but you are wearing old socks, or worst white socks (pet peeve alert).
In doesn’t matter if you are wearing a statement bag, if your tights are ripped.
My point is, our style should correlate with our lifestyle. Why are trying to be perceived as something else? If we don’t own a boat, maybe we shouldn’t try to look like an investment banker.
Like many other businesses, the fashion industry sales depends greatly on our low self-esteem and insecurities. Be smarter, be better, know your worth is not on what you own, but on how you behave as a human-being.
Here is a very interesting article about this:
“Bernays understood something nobody else in business ever understood before him: that if you can tap into people’s insecurities — if you can needle at their deepest feelings of inadequacy — then they will buy just about any damn thing you tell them to.”
Frances Mcdormand won the Oscar for best actress last actress, but for me she won the Oscar for “Do you your thing. Be You!” Yeeyyyy.
The Oscars are a parade of actresses wearing borrowed clothes & jewellery, basically being walking displays for big brands. This means that they, many times, don’t necessarily wear what they like. They wear what the brands wants them to use, what their publicist thinks their fans want to see them wearing, etc. While men wear suits, that’s it.
And then there are people like Frances, that refuses to comply with trends, that refuses to dress for the male gaze.
In a world full of copies and replicas, I praise people like Frances that do their own thing. They know what they like, they know what makes them comfortable and they just go for it.
Franca is a personal journey, yet I want to do it with has many friends I can find along the way. A journey of self discovery and self expression, through a busy busy world, that pressure us to conform. I don’t know much, but I know that I was not born to conform. I came to disrupt. You can come with me, you can stay and listen for a while, but never ever try to stop me. This is going to be FUN!
Franca Personal Style Consultancy 