I was thinking about personal style yesterday when I went to my BodyCombat class at the gym. There were two women in the front row in heavy eyeliner (think Amy Winehouse in her heyday sort of thing). By the end of the class, which is a pretty ferocious hour of mixed martial arts-style leaping, their eyeliner was running down their red faces, mixed with sweat.
Each looked like she’d been crying for a lover, when in fact it was just the manifestation of hard physical work.
I thought they looked glorious.
This made me think about what makes for a great look. This is what I like.
- Stompy boots
Stompy boots look great whether you’re 3 or 103. My current stompy boots of choice also have a pointy toe, which comes in handy when you want to kick some ass. - Nose in a book
Actually, this is a great unisex look – who doesn’t look good with their nose in a book? If they are wearing glasses as well then it is pretty much Top Trumps. Nose in a Kindle is, sadly, not quite the same, and nose in an iPhone is substantially worse. - A friendly demeanour
You know, the sort of person who looks like you could cadge a hug off them pretty easily. I don’t have this. This is why no one speaks to me on the school run. - Breastfeeding whilst tweeting
You see this a lot at blogger events – women feeding their child in one arm whilst cradling an iPad with the other. I always think it looks amazing. Breastfeeding purists would probably have you believe that that you should be sniffing your child’s head and focusing 100% on them. But the truth for most mothers is that life is one big multi task. So I love it when you see people combining feeding their baby with simply getting on with their day. - Proud of who she is
This isn’t so much to do with what you’re wearing or how you’ve gussied up your hair – I think it’s more a question of body language and how relaxed in their own skin a person seems to be. And it’s nothing to do with body size either. It’s just one of those looks that you know when you see it, because you want to stand up and applaud as she enters the room.
Of course we could try and kid ourselves that how we look doesn’t matter, but it does. What I think matters less, is fashion, the size of your arse and when you last had a hair cut. What do you reckon?