Find Your MCM Style For 2013!

I am not really one for resolutions, but January feels like the beginning of a year long blank canvas that you can fill as you like. You don't have to reinvent yourself entirely, but you have to be aware that a new year is like a 12 months long style playground. Ask yourself a few simple questions that will help you go in the best possible direction: who are your style icons (and are they realistic - true to your body shape etc)? Do you have a lot of tidying to do in your wardrobe? What's your signature style? What are your key items? 

Who are your style icons?

Finding a style icon isn't the easiest task. Take me, for example: each time I watch a film I love, there is at least one character in there whose style I want to emulate. Over the years though, style crushes have come and gone but a chore few have remained the same: Audrey Horne from Twin Peaks, Katharine Hepburn and much, much closer to home - my own grandmother. If you are going to emulate someone's style, you want them to have a body shape at least vaguely similar to yours or else you will end up disappointed by the results! 

Fashion blogs are a good place to look for style icons - pictured above bloggers from our UK Makeover (L to R Mademoiselle Robot, Peony Lim, Wish Wish Wish, Style Slicker)

What's the state of your wardrobe?

How are you supposed to get dressed in the morning if your wardrobe is a mess? You can't! Every six months, make sure you sort through all your clothes and accessories and make mental notes of what you own. I know that for me, bags and shoes are the building blocks of all my outfits, so I like to keep them in a prime position in my closet. The bags I use the most are hooked on the inside of my cupboard doors and the others are arranged nicely on shelves (in their dust bags to avoid damages). Assess the space you have for new pieces.

Bags & accessories available from Saks, Harrods, Forzieri, Bloomingdale's and Wardow

What's your signature style?

Sometimes it is much easier to come up with a concept of personal style before actually putting outfits together. The concept for your personal style can be as crazy as you want as long as you understand what it implies. For example, once my style was described in an interview as "Offbeat WW2 wife meets Japanese prepster". While I wouldn't have described myself in that way, it stuck with me and helps whenever I am short of outfit inspiration.

Some of the outfits I built using MCM bags as a starting point

What are your key pieces?

There are some items you go back to over and over again. Maybe because they fit particularly well, or because they make you feel great or simply because you adore them. As I said earlier, bags and shoes are the building blocks for most of my outfits, so most of my key pieces are bags. 

My favourite MCM bags aka my key pieces

Traduction - Le mois de janvier est le moment reve de se reinventer, ou au moins de reviser son look a la hausse.

Love from Mademoiselle Robot