A Spiritual Approach to Connecting With Fashion

Images taken from the Saks Fifth Avenue app.

I was truly hoping to write a September piece, but wasn't really sure it would happen. The Spring 2020 fashion marathon started yesterday, so I was optimistic, but not entirely convinced. Then I had my first real moment of missing my job in fashion, just a few short hours after I completed the last day of my first month in my new job. I saw a picture of Kate Middleton , and I knew exactly a designer or two who I could have referred a client to, should someone have been wanting that "look" (and in some cases, even the designer label itself). After seeing the image I felt for the first time in 4 weeks that maybe I made a mistake leaving luxury fashion sales, but instead of letting fear overcome me, I decided to go onto the Saks website and see what was new. As I wrote in a  previous piece , there is an excitement in retail where there are many moving parts that work fast, and a little re-arranging even of floor plans or backdrops can lift the mood and foster inspiration,...

Today is the last day of the month of August and I decided this early evening to write a post. I was not completely comfortable not writing for the month of August as my goal for this blog and for my spiritual blog (linked in profile) is to write at least one piece a month. But on August 10th I left the fashion industry and in so well suspected the demise of this blog, my "journey through fashion". Two or three weeks prior to leaving the fashion industry I also apparently left my boyfriend. He was the proponent behind my industry writing. All of my fashion projects outside of my style advisor job was really him propelling me, encouraging me, and giving me strength to be more than an employee just doing my time, but to study, apply, be informative, and influence others. I will be moving into my fourth week in a new job that is such a fringe industry I don't even want to describe for it is not important at this time and in this fashion. Pun intended. But I do miss workin...

I’ve been feeling inspired after working with a first-time Saks customer who I am hoping will become a client, as we set out to find her a dress for a wedding where there will be complicated relationships and themes to adapt to. Often times when I am approached by a customer who wants to find a dress, I want to run the other way - especially when that dress is from the ball gown department. And something I realized last night while discussing my sales work and my fashion writing with this lovely beautiful woman is that a reason why dress shopping is so difficult is because of the emotions involved in the dress and in the expectations of the events for which the dress will be worn. I can sell denim no problem. I have reached such a level of blazing confidence with denim that I can even sell brands to women who are not familiar with that particular cut or wash or who were looking for their "comfort" style but I will hand them something originally unthinkable to them, and t...

I'm doing much better at my job as a Style Advisor. I have gained more confidence and am building relationships with my customers who are becoming clients. I am becoming much more comfortable with fashion and have been basking in my accomplishments of meeting my monthly targets and gaining more trust from management. So it's been a bit more difficult to come up with a new article this month since I haven't felt as much need to look ahead. I have been simply staying in the moment. So much so I have had no ideas of what to write! Therefore this piece is going to be a bit more personal: an update of my relationship with fashion over the past couple of months, and I hope it's relatable! My journey through fashion more recently has been up and down. The other week I finally started trying on clothes at work. It was a slow night and I decided it was time to get more intimate with what it is I'm selling. I tried on blouses, denim and dresses of my favourite designers, a...

"Fashion is part of the daily air and it changes all the time, with all the events. You can even see the approaching of a revolution in clothes. You can see and feel everything in clothes." - Diana  Vreeland After a difficult transition in sales from winter to spring, I noticed that by changing the floor plan of the store I work at, it lightened up the atmosphere dramatically. A little more than a month later, as I moved through the floors to get to my department this morning, I saw how the Easter-time display, a brilliant destination get-away theme, was getting old. Some of the clothing on the mannequins are now on clearance. And while the display is stunning and intricate, it's time to revamp. Upon reaching the top level, I noticed the racks spread out very nicely, with beautiful clothes neatly hanging from them. I thought, how blessed am I that I get to work in such a beautiful store, with beautiful merchandise. For the first time, I saw the fast turn-over in ...

Something that has been brought to my attention, that I would have never noticed otherwise (and an example of how societal programming works), is that models no longer smile in advertisements. I even saw an image of a scowling child for a hospital campaign in the mall the other week, an appeal to "Join the fight". It is an age of anger, confusion, uncertainty, and bullying, and this is now being expressed, or possibly perpetrated, in fashion advertising. While the public might have been growing tired of the images of fake smiles and strange enthusiasm of people in posters, this new direction is indicative of even more strange times to come. A time of complete falseness - a new breed of "false advertising". In my research I found studies have shown that while broad smiles show friendliness, they also depict less competency.  One article explains that in fashion or retail, it's okay to have less competency, whereas for a medical advertisement, it's more ...