I have had mixed results with stylists. For many years I have envied those with a definitive style – be it retro or Goth or anything at all really! My style has tended to be comfortable clothes that ‘flatter’ me. Mainly jeans!

My first styling session was with a woman who was able to help me find flattering clothes. I purchased 5 tops with her in a 1 hour session in Myer. Sadly I was so excited by the fact that the tops looked good on me that I forgot to decide if I actually liked them! I returned 4 of the tops the next day. 

Many years later I met a lovely stylist at a 2 day course about presence, influence and finding your voice. She said wonderful things about me and how to dress to better flatter my shape. I set up a session with her about 6 months later. We did a full wardrobe review and then a shopping session to fill specific gaps in my collection. I had a wonderful time and added a lot to my wardrobe. But diets were mentioned more than once. And the shops we went into I was wearing the biggest size they had. I had great clothes, but I didn’t feel wonderful. I also had a new set of ‘rules’ to follow when I dressed. No white shirts (too much white across my body to be flattering), for example.

Fast forward to 2019, and at the SheEO summit I met Blaise from Hear us Roar. HuR is an online clothing store featuring plus size designers. My heart sang, and then sank. I am terrible at online clothes shopping. Most plus size models are tall, and I am at the shorter end of average height. Things rarely looked the same on me! Then Blaise gave me a ray of hope… they were looking at doing a pop up styling shop in Melbourne!! 

I think I only asked once (maybe twice?) if they were still planning the pop up store… and I was reassured it was still a possibility. 

My excitement when I saw the dates on Instagram was enormous! I immediately asked to be signed up. 

Finally the day arrived, I was filled with anticipation, mixed with dread… what if I didn’t like anything? What if it didn’t look good on me? What if the stylist and I had different taste? 

And, just imagine, what if I loved what they showed me. 

I set two budgets – sensible and stretch. 

The hour of trying on clothes with Karina was joyous. Not only were there clothes I liked, and liked on me, there were so many that I was able to be picky! Not once were the words flattering or minimising used. I was not dressing to look smaller; I was dressing the look (and feel) fabulous. 

The end of an hour saw me sorting my haul into 3 categories: definitely, maybe and sadly no. Karina priced the definitely pile while I wandered, ate cheese, drank wine and looked again at the maybe pile. Feeling like a million dollars. Which was definitely not my budget! 

The good news came back – I was within my stretch budget (just!). The bad news was I had decided there were two items on the maybe pile I could not live without…  I may have stretched my stretch budget a tiny bit… but what price can you put on feeling stylish, and not small in any way?