Improvability Blog

I just love this fabulous guest article from image consultant Sari Nieminen in Finland:

We are going to make you look 10 years younger!

This is what they claim on TV shows and sometimes do achieve the goal and go even further than just ten years. But I’d have to say it is mostly because of the TV presenter asking you to evaluate a person obviously dressed in her most ugliest clothes and sporting even dirty hair. How can you look under 100 styled that way?

Then when she is brought back, again obviously done up, people are bound to crack under pressure and guess her age much lower than what they honestly think. I have seen people looking so 50 been said to look 25 years old. I would suggest to the evaluator to get some prescription glasses, and fast!

Anyway, the most that has bothered me is the fact that the subject of this huge change has not been very happy about it. I have seen 2 shows this week and in both cases the lady was not very happy with the colours she was put into. To my opinion her change was too drastic and too fast. You cannot expect a person to digest that much information in such a short time.

In the first program the lady just hated colour, absolutely hated brights and prints. Yet these “experts” insisted she must have some. I could see in her eyes, “Just wait until this is over and I get home…” She will NEVER wear them. She will never do shopping according to their advice (good or bad). So, what was the use of the whole exercise? Just to make her feel uncomfortable and ridicule her on TV?

The other lady in New Zealand got so drastic a makeover that she was crying out of desperation. Again you could see in her eyes the cry for help and rebellion.This lady too will not ever put the information she received in use and I bet she has dyed her hair blonde once more and thrown away the hideous prints she hated.

Maybe in both cases though the ladies DID actually LOOK better to the viewer but THEY DID NOT LIKE THE RESULTS THEMSELVES!

My point is that all the makeovers, colours, style evaluations, hair cuttings etc. MUST be done so that the customer FEELS COMFORTABLE. She has to understand why this is good or better than the old one. She must be able to live with the new self. She must love the results. And most importantly she needs to do the changes in her own good time. Otherwise it is going to end up being “the fakeover”

Sari Nieminen
Finland

Join Sari’s colour and style club (in both English and Finnish) at http://www.fiiniks.net/fakeover/ for fantastic information about colour and style plus updates on current fashions and how to avoid fashion mistakes.

Before anorexia and implants,
there was something called SEXY

Here are some of the comments posted about this photo of the late Marilyn Monroe:

• Griselda says, “She was a size 12 (UK equivalent = 14) at the height of her career! If she were alive at this time in history everyone would have said she was fat.”
• Clementburga said, “Not everyone is naturally blessed with a figure like Marilyn’s, which is where people’s securities and hence eating disorders and plastc surgery obsessions come from. If every woman naturally had a figure as well proportioned as Marilyn’s, I highly doubt they’d be insecure.”
• Ermentrude wrote, “I wish guys still thought this was sexy because I have almost exactly that figure only a bit larger boobs and I’m what guys today consider chunky?”
• Morticia replied, “Ermentrude, you need to hang out with different guys then!”

Marilyn’s dress size

Some say that she was a size 12, some say 14, some say 16.

First of all, let’s establish that it depends what part of the world you’re in when talking about women’s dress sizes.

For the full Monty on this, take a look at this article about size differences around the world.

Marilyn was 5 ft 5 in tall. Her measurements were recorded by her dressmaker as 36-23-37 and sometimes fluctuated between that and 36-24-37.

Which means she had a tiny waist in proportion to the rest of her and had the archetypal hour-glass figure.

Compare that with a fashion industry description of the ideal size for a current fashion catwalk model:

The British Association of Model Agents (AMA) says that female models should be around 34-24-34 and at least 5 ft 8 in tall.

Vent your spleen

Now it’s your turn. Go on, get it out of your system and let me know what you think!

It’s called venting your spleen!

I highly recommend it at least once a week.

And I will be inordinately happy to read the contents of your spleen – just don’t send me any pictures, thank you very much!

Ladies’ Style in a Box Option 1

2 days left for 3 monthly payments of GBP 157 each

Or save 10% and pay full price!

Offer ends Monday 23rd January.

The prices will rise again on Tuesday, and steadily again after that back up to full price.

Full details and terms, content, video taken from the course itself, and descriptions of all 4 options for the Ladies’ Style Training Kit