Stuck in a style rut? Fashion stylist and Instagram star Kat Farmer gives Katie Wright her top tips for getting your groove back at any age.
Kat Farmer believes clothing can be a powerful tool for increasing your confidence and expressing your individuality and now she’s distilled her wardrobe-honing skills into a new book.
“It’s not about dressing to be on-trend,” she says. “It’s about dressing for your shape, style and lifestyle to end up with a wardrobe of clothes you love and you will actually wear.”
Farmer’s Instagram account DoesMyBumLook40 has 276,000 followers and her guidance is particularly useful if you’re feeling stuck in a sartorial rut:
1. Find your style icon
This “gives you focus”, says Farmer. “Otherwise it’s like walking into a supermarket and saying, ‘What should I cook?’ You need to hone it down.”
Identifying people whose personal style you admire will help determine the kind of colours, silhouettes and garments to wear yourself.
2. Dress for your lifestyle
It’s great to take inspiration from celebrities, but you need clothes to suit the lifestyle you have and not the lifestyle you want.
3. Have a wardrobe detox
Get rid of clothes that no longer fit (and can’t be altered), you never wear anymore, or you just don’t like.
4. Be open-minded about shops
Try some new places – you may be surprised at the absolute gems you can find.
5. Be careful with online shopping
When you can’t try things on, you may end up filling your wardrobe with clothes that don’t fit.
6. Use the ‘bleugh’ test
This is your instinctive reaction, when you look in the mirror while wearing it and go ‘bleugh’ as opposed to loving it.
7. Invest in wardrobe gems
Because everyone’s taste is different, Farmer doesn’t believe in fashion ‘essentials’. But she is a fan of wardrobe gems, meaning “something you could put on with any of your outfits”.
“A wardrobe gem could be anything in leopard print, or a statement jacket. They’re eclectic things everybody has, that will really pimp your wardrobe.”
Get Changed: Finding The New You Through Fashion by Kat Farmer, Hachette, £20.
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