Dina M Wilks

 

Having just moved from Texas, I did what any hermitted writer does; I fell back on my denim, an ankle length skirt. I paired the skirt with a cartoon-character t-shirt, coordinating red jacket and Liz Claiborne straw hat. I was comfortable, but comfortable is not a word in a stylist's vocabulary: modern, cutting-edge, classic, and chic are more in vogue with the image-makers. "DON'T YOU EVER DRESS LIKE THAT AGAIN!" The words seemed to come out of nowhere, blind-siding me.

 

Finding a style that fits your personality and career goals is like taking a long look in a proverbial mirror. You have to ask yourself what it is that you want to project and who you are inside; do you feel like a WWII rusting tank or a fast, red sports car?  Having lived thousands of miles away from my agents and managers, I wasn't prepared for the constant feedback and visibility that faced me in Hollywood. Managers and agents are all about style, image and illusion. They want you to look young, vibrant. They want you to walk into a room and have people notice you. Why wait for a manager to take on that sort of attitude about yourself and your style? Why shouldn't every woman and man, for that matter, adopt the Hollywood philosophy about presence into their daily lives?

 

Personal style is something that culminates over time, experimenting with hemlines, and textures, stepping out of the beige and black box and into yellows and oranges, reds. You don't have to be eighteen to wear a dress above the knee, pair it with black tights and a comfortable pump (patterned or patent leather) and those fifty year old legs look long, lean and fierce. And even in business, you are not relegated to the tailored, boxy suits to look professional and be taken seriously.  BCBG Max Azria did a spread in Elle this season, displaying long-sleeved sheaths paired with white hose and high-heeled booties on the feet, something any woman of any age can wear in any office in America but looks good on the streets as well. If you're suffering from knee pains and other aches or just prefer a shoe without a towering heel, try a plaid- or plain-colored Skecher. Think back to those decades past, when you were young and flirty, when you spent hours dressing in front of a mirror and twisting and turning to make sure all of your assets were appropriately displayed; that's the same attitude you should have, again. Sure you lost that attitude somewhere between changing diapers and chauffeuring the kids to soccer league, but those days are gone, now is the time to find yourself again. So go to the mall, take a long, deep look into that mirror and try on many styles; leggings and sheathes inches above the knee, let your hair wave long down your back, silver or colored, these next years are your best years. Turn heads when you enter a room not as a woman growing old gracefully, but as a woman with spunk, a woman who's not afraid to express the way she feels inside by looking the way she wants on the outside.