Life Styles!

(Photo from http://www.polyvore.com)

Elegance, Modern, Romance, Explorer or Vintage? Determine your decorating personality by clicking on the images that evoke a positive emotional response. Enjoy!
http://www.ethanallen.com/style_quiz

What about your fashion personality? Do you know your personal style?

One of our earlier posts, ‘Image Inspiration’, describes a great exercise we use for determining one’s personal style.

Let us know if you have a group you’d like us to guide through an Image Inspiration. It is a fun and inspiring activity which will provide you with an essential visual tool to clarify your personal style and simplify your shopping excursions!

Tomboy Style by Lizzie Garrett

Tomboy Style by Lizzie Garrett from http://tomboystyle.blogspot.com/

We’ve just discovered a delightful website/blog dedicated to personal style, “Tomboy Style”.  According to the sidebar on the homepage:

 “To define a tomboy requires searching far beyond the simple notion of wearing boys’ clothing. Tomboys have influenced the expanses of popular culture including fashion, film, music, and literature. And although the tomboy is often identified by clothing, what makes her wholly so is an inherent sense of confidence, rebelliousness, and adventure.”

The blog by Lizzie Garrett is wonderful in its study of a spare and classic look – a refreshing change from the “frou frou” fashion that can often dominate the headlines. The mistress of the domain has an exceptionally accurate vision and shares great images that perfectly capture the style. We encourage you to also enjoy the blog and look forward to an upcoming book.

 

Take some time to consider your own personal style and how you might define it. Remember, as Lizzie has stated above, while clothes are important, style is from within.

Post a Letter Social Activity Club

“Imagine a day when every personal e-mail you receive is in the form of a piece of mail, in envelopes of different sizes, papers of different colours and textures, handwriting of varying degrees of legibility. Wouldn’t that be pretty nice for a change?”

A small writing campaign is gaining momentum on its mission “to promote letter writing as a social and political tool, as well as a powerful generator of love, surprises, anticipation, relaxation and fun!” and we think it’s a great thing! Post a letter social activity club is the inspiration of Angel Chen of Toronto, Ontario and beginning in early 2009 she has sought to organize a regular space and time to encourage people to come together and write letters in eachother’s company.  “Show up and write a letter or two with a group of other people also writing letters. By letters, we mean anything that involves the postal system: a postcard, a personal letter, a political letter, a package, a special occasion card, fan mail, mail art, prank mail, or something experimental.”   Events are presently taking place in Toronto, Montreal, New York, and Copenhagen and I’m sure new locales will be joining the list soon. Visit the website and learn how to start your own event. We`d love to see more handwritten communication and wish them well!

CBC Radio’s Sunday Edition featured the post a letter social activity club in its recent feature Mail Myself to You. (click to listen)

How to Perfectly Iron a Shirt

 

If you’re anything like me, you hate ironing so much that you dryclean your dress shirts just to have someone else do the dreaded chore for you. I know, it sounds awful, but I can’t help it – ironing is just not my thing. Busted!

But it looks like there’s hope in sight. Here is a video with some smart tips on how to perfectly (and efficiently) iron a shirt – it looks so easy, I might do this after all!

Click here: How to Perfectly Iron a Shirt (video from Globe and Mail)

Good luck!

 

 

 

 

When I Grow Up I Can Be Anything I Want

We’ve spoken in several posts about the power (both positive and negative) of advertising. We think you’ll agree that the following television commercial by Mattel for Barbie strikes the right note of inspiration.

Best of the Season!

 

All the best of the festive season to you and yours!

The Image Builders

Holiday Trends

Wondering what to wear for the holidays?

Opt for three basic trends:

– Sparkles (shoes, bags, pants, sequin jacket)

– The detailed Little Black Dress

– Bold bracelets

More details at www.theinstyleboutique.com – Holiday Dressing Video – This Season’s 3 Most Stylish Ideas

Enjoy!

Thank you for Stationery!

         

The holidays prompt many of us to express our appreciation for others be they family, friends or business associates. The tradition of exchanging cards is a long standing one which has evolved through the years to reaching a mostly electronic format in recent times. Many of us receive more e-mailed greetings now than handwritten and posted greetings. In response, there has been a growing appreciation for a beautiful, handwritten note; it is human nature to value a rare thing most.

This season, consider taking the time to select cards which reflect your personality (or corporate image) and which are made of good quality paper. Make the effort to hand write a short but thoughtful greeting. Pre-printed personal greetings or simple signatures without an accompanying note can be counter-productive and even risk offending the recipient. The card will appear to be a chore you’ve simply produced dutifully. Don’t lose the opportunity to make a meaningful connection. In reality,  the time and effort will be respected and lead to your message standing out from the commercially printed and electronic mail being received.

Here are a few examples of special stationery available now. These are relatively expensive but simple, less costly versions are just as impressive:

  

Crane Stationery                                                             Connor New York Stationery

 Vera Wang  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gift Giving in the Workplace – Tips

In business, gifts promote goodwill, demonstrate gratitude and enable us to continue good relationships. Everyone loves receiving a well-thought-out gift. When do we offer gifts? We give gifts when we close a business deal to show good faith and to demonstrate happiness that the arduous process has ended. We give gifts to demonstrate good will on an ongoing basis. We also give gifts to celebrate a holiday.

With the Holidays just around the corner, here are a few tips to consider before selecting a gift for the workplace:

 

• Before giving a substantial gift, investigate policies at recipient’s workplace. Know your own company’s gift policy and customs toward gift giving and receiving. May be tax or ethical implications.

• Select a gift from the perspective of the recipient. Do your research into the background of the gift recipient and determine what they would like to receive.

• Consider our global economy and different cultures when selecting a gift.

• Avoid gifts that have a sexual connotation or any form of lingerie. They are inappropriate at the office.

• If you consider giving food or beverage items during Christmas, make sure that your recipient is not allergic to that particular kind of food. Also, do your research make sure a gift of liquor would be appropriate.

• You can never go wrong with artistic, one-of-a-kind products. Look for creative, uncommon gifts.

• Keep in mind the concept of perceived value. What is perceived as valuable by one culture may not be valuable to another.  If you want to give chocolates to someone and you have found through your research that they are not allergic or on a diet, you still have to think about the perceived value of that box of chocolates. What message will your gift recipient take from this? Was this an afterthought or a last-minute decision?

• How much thought did you put into the gift? A gift could be very simple – for example, a corkscrew. To a wine collector that would have high perceived value, even if it cost five dollars.

• When deciding on the budget for the gift, look at the hierarchy. The higher up a person is, the more expensive the gift should be. If you’re giving gifts to an entire group of people, don’t give gifts of the same look and value to everybody.

• A gift for the boss is always best coming from a group. This provides protection from being accused of garnering favour or bribing.

• Promotional items are not always appropriate. They advertise your own company but they don’t acknowledge the accomplishments of the recipient. However, offer those types of gifts for the situations when they are appropriate.

• At Christmas, most gifts are sent by mail. At a celebratory dinner, gifts will be presented then. Westerners will usually open the gift, while Asians will not open the gift in front of others.  A retirement gift should be presented unwrapped at the retirement party.

• A good gift doesn’t have to be big – choose quality, originality or creativity over quantity and size.

• Risks are: too personal, inappropriate for relationship, wrong price range, culturally misunderstood.

• Be careful with meaning associated with flowers and colour. Red roses, white carnations…

• Always wrap a gift with care and attach a card.

• Enjoy giving!

• Acknowledge a gift by sending a handwritten note. Even if you don’t like the gift, it should be acknowledged that it was received. Even Christmas gifts should be acknowledged with a note.

Royal Wedding Attire

 There is a Royal wedding in the works and the excitement is already building in frenetic fashion. Part of the intrigue with a royal wedding is the formality – the age old traditions and protocol.  This royal  couple however, is known and admired for their ability to adopt a more casual, yet respectful approach to the traditions. William and Kate’s wedding is expected to reflect their own personal touch and as such, should be a romantic and relatively down to earth affair. 

As with most, if not all, royal events, the dress code will be clearly set. “Morning Dress” will most  likely be the code for the day: men wear a black cutaway “morning coat”  with black striped grey trousers, a buff or pearl grey waistcoat and shirt and tie (sometimes ascot).  William himself will be wearing his dress occasion military uniform.

The ladies always seem to have more choice which is both fun and daunting. “Morning Dress” for women is less specific but indicates a conservative dress or skirt suit. Pants suits are acceptable but must be in one colour with full length trousers but it is quite unlikely you will see them worn by women at a Royal wedding. Hats are de rigeur at a Royal wedding and pose an opportunity for some whimsy and personal expression. 

 Kate Middleton has attended a number of weddings herself in recent years and who better to show what would be considered respectful and stylish wardrobe choices for a formal daytime wedding … her choices all reflect simplicity and good taste and best of all, a perfect fit.