Ever dreamt of having a personal stylist? I have. Don’t have a celebrity-sized income? I may have a solution for you.
Introducing personal stylists, the Style Doctors
Style Doctors are personal stylists based in the Fashion Lounge at Westfield London shopping centre. I was lucky enough to win tickets through a giveaway run by the fab Herts in Fashion, to a Style Doctors Speed Styling event.
There were only 30 tickets available, and when I arrived I could see why. It’s an intimate set-up in the Fashion Lounge. We were greeted with a glass of Prosecco and asked to take a seat on one of their stylish sofas.
Learn to style yourself
The Style Doctors gave a presentation on how to quickly style yourself each day when you don’t have much time. Advice all us mums could do with! Have you just put clothes on to cover your body, or have you actually styled yourself? It’s mostly the former for me!
The Style Doctors raised a really interesting question which made me think. How much of your wardrobe do you actually wear? Honestly? 50%? Maybe even less?
The job of a stylist is to make sure you wear 100% of your wardrobe on a regular basis. Think what a waste of money it is if most of your clothes just stay on their hangers. What about the occasion dress you bought for a wedding but haven’t worn since? Perhaps there’s a way you can style it to make it more casual and wearable, so it doesn’t just hang there gathering dust.
Consider your whole outfit
The personal stylists shared the key staples you should have in your wardrobe (a good pair of jeans, a black dress, etc.) and demonstrated how to mix and match to create different looks. You’re encouraged to consider your whole outfit, from your underwear to finishing touches such as jewellery and shoes.
Another great piece of advice was to always take a full outfit into the changing room, even if you are only thinking about buying one item. You need to see the item you like in the context of an entire outfit, otherwise it will be really hard to tell whether it is actually right for you.
Shop ’til you drop with a personal stylist
After the presentation, we headed to either Oasis or Warehouse, with a stylist, to shop! It was a fun experience to shop with a personal stylist – it’s so good to get an expert’s opinion and it can give you confidence to try something new.
I was looking for new jeans, and Style Doctors recommended Oasis jeans for their deeper cut, which is more comfortable to wear. I ended up buying a pair and I’m really pleased with them.
Once we were all shopped out, we were told we could head to Guerlain in House of Fraser for a free mini makeover and free samples.
Putting it into practice
This was such a fun and interesting event, and a lovely bit of me-time, so a big thank you to Herts in Fashion for the tickets, and of course to Style Doctors for all their helpful advice! I’ve learnt a lot of great styling tips, although I am still dreaming of having my very own personal stylist to sort me out every day. Come on lottery!
Please make sure you follow Mums Off Duty and Herts in Fashion on Instagram, where we’ll be trying out some of the Style Doctors’ suggestions. I’m definitely on my way to getting my fashion mojo back!
Find out more
You can check out upcoming Style Doctor events here.