Reality Dressing

Excerpted from
How to Be a Budget Fashionista: The Ultimate Guide to Looking Fabulous for Less
By Kathryn Finney

The most important tool in uncovering your personal style is to practice reality dressing, which is dressing for who you are physically, emotionally, and financially at this point in your life-not who you were in college or how your favorite celebrity dresses. It's about knowing what looks good on you and understanding why it looks good on you. This is a basic concept that any budget fashionista can implement in her daily life. Throw out the fashion talking heads and use a little common sense. If you work as an administrative assistant for a busy executive in New York City, wearing four-inch Jimmy Choos is probably not the best idea. If you live in Minnesota and it's winter, who cares if pantyhose are "out"; there's nothing fashionable about frostbite. Don't wear short-short minis if you feel uncomfortable showing your legs. Don't wear dresses if you like to wear pants.

It can be difficult for normal women with very normal budgets to practice the concept of reality dressing at a time when wealthy celebrities with perfect bodies dominate all our images of style and beauty. Remember this: It's the job of stars to look great. If you had three hours a day to train with a high-end personal trainer named Gunnar, had your own South Beach-trained chef, and could afford to pay $18,000 for shiny white teeth, you, too, would look that good. The goal of reality dressing is to develop the BEST YOU, not turn yourself into some celeb clone.

Regardless of my size, I've always practiced reality dressing and take an honest look at my body because being honest with myself helps me look better. Like most women, I struggle with maintaining my girlish figure and couldn't be a size 2 if Dr. Atkins himself were my personal physician. Frying to wear a size 10 when you're really a 16 may make you feel better, but, trust me, it doesn't make you look better. Stylists have been known to request that designers change the label on a dress to a smaller size so that their customers will think they are smaller. Unfortunately, as your own client you need to check delusions of size grandeur at the door and practice a little reality dressing for yourself. Buying an item because it's a designer piece or because it's really cheap isn't worth it if it makes you look like a member of the Addams family. .Make fashion tit your style.

Contrary to popular belief, fashion and style are not synonymous terms, Fashion is commercial, whereas style is personal. Fashion is what is "in." and style is how it is worn. Fashion is pants; style is culottes versus capris. Fashion is boot-cut jeans; style is Seven jeans versus Wrangler jeans. Good stylists use their incredible sense of style to interpret fashion to fit their clients.

Every style does not look good on everyone. With the exception of Lance Armstrong, there are very few people who look good in a pair of biker shorts. Not many women can rock a cone-breasted Gaultier corset like Madonna. Budget fashionistas not only know the top designers and the latest and classic trends, but they also have what makes you feel like a million bucks is as important as buying the item at a low cost.

Finding Your Body Shape

Measuring yourself is about as exciting as getting a root canal, but it is important to help you uncover your general body shape and to direct your focus toward styles that look good on you. To quickly assess your body type, do the following:

Kind a measuring tape and measure yourself in the following three places: bust (around the fullest part of your chest), at your natural waist (not where you wear your low riders), and at your hips.

Color: The Cheap Fix

Colors can have an extremely positive impact on your appearance and save you tons of money. You can get away with wearing black, white, and other neutral colors as often as needed without drawing attention to your limited closet. Color is also the cheapest way to camouflage figure issues. It is significant!) cheaper than plastic surgery and carries few health risks.