Reboot your style ...from your own wardrobe
TV stylist Kat Farmer believes we don’t need to buy new clothes to have a makeover – the secret is to wear what we already own in a different way. Here, she helps Margaret Hussey rediscover her fashion mojo
Post-lockdown, how many of you have suffered a style crisis? I know I have. I’ve spent the last few years working from home, living in jogging bottoms and slippers.
But now, when I look in my wardrobe, my old office attire of dresses and skirts seem dated – like they’re from another time. And in many ways they are.
“As much as we think we have gone back to ‘normal’, life feels very different now,” says TV stylist Kat Farmer, 49.
“So this is a great time to think, ‘I can reinvent myself ’.” And, she says, most of us don’t even need to go shopping to do it – our new look is already right there in our wardrobes.
A stylist on BBC’s You Are What You Wear and ITV’s This Morning , Kat is on a mission to get everyone feeling their best after two years of drabness.
“Style doesn’t need to be frivolous, or something that only other people talk about,” says Kat, who has amassed 276,000 followers on Instagram with her no-nonsense and accessible fashion advice. “It’s your representation of who you are to the world. But right now people just don’t know what to wear.”
This month sees the launch of Kat’s new book, Get Changed: Finding The New You Through Fashion, which is written like a recipe book with chapters on preparation and ingredients.
And with my own sartorial choices being more recipe for disaster than recipe for success, when I’m offered a session with Kat I jump at the chance. We start with the colour test. “Put your clothes in colour order to see what pops out,” says Kat. This is how to work out what your staples are – the building blocks of your wardrobe.
Everyone has a capsule wardrobe – the clothes you’ll come back to time and time again. These are the items any new clothes should complement, says Kat.
Laying all my clothes out, my predominant colours are white, black, navy and orange, and my basics are jeans, trousers and striped tops. “Think about your style icon and your body shape. Whose look do you covet, and what do you want to be?” says Kat. I deliberate. Am I minimalist elegance (like Audrey Hepburn and Victoria Beckham), classic chic (like Michelle Obama and the Duchess of Cambridge), boho (like Lisa Bonet and Judi Dench) or androgynous flair (like Diane Keaton and Grace Jones)?
After culling my old dresses (you should get rid of anything that doesn’t feel like you any more, advises Kat), I pack them up ready for the charity shop.
I’m left with high-waisted trousers and pussy bow blouses. Very Annie Hall, I think, and decide I’m veering towards androgynous flair.
Kat says having your look in mind when shopping, or dressing from your wardrobe, is key as it gives you something to aim for.
Think of the power of three, she says. “Think of three occasions and three outfits for every item you own – or are going to buy,” she says. I pick up a high-necked sequin top.
I could wear it with jeans, black trousers and under a jumpsuit.
“It’s about thinking outside the box,” says Kat. “You’ll find you already own plenty of things that can be worn in different ways.”
Although I now have less clothes, I bizarrely seem to have more outfits.
Kat nods. “It’s preparation, like with cooking. If you have all the basics you can knock something up very quickly.”
Kat’s book came about after she felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff she had accumulated.
“I was at a point where I had lost my way. I needed to go back to the beginning, first of all acknowledging there was a problem and secondly thinking about finding my style.”
Today, Kat, who lives in Kent with her husband David and their three teenage children, is the epitome of boho chic in a jersey NRBY jumpsuit, Alexis Amor glasses, and a beautiful Hermes enamel bracelet from Oxfam online.
“I always say it’s just as easy to put on a great outfit as it is to put on a rubbish one,” she says.
“If you look in the mirror and think ‘I like this’, then you will automatically stand taller and exude a subconscious confidence.”
And with my new-found wardrobe, I find I couldn’t agree more.
■■Get Changed: Finding The New You Through Fashion by Kat Farmer (£20, Mitchell Beazley) is out now
You’ll find you already own plenty of things that can be worn different ways