Yeleu's story

For years I 'opted out' of fashion.  From a young age I struggled with knowing how to dress for my body shape. Feminine, floaty, floral outfits didn’t suit. Figure hugging dresses and tops just highlighted all the wrong bits, but baggy clothes didn’t do me any favours either.  Trousers had too much extra material at the hips to suit more shapely figures, and shirts just seemed to gape at my bust.

So, in my mind, the best way was to avoid fashion and really just try to find clothes I could put up with wearing.  This was a strategy with hit and miss results...  I very rarely felt like ‘me’ in the clothes I was wearing, and the clothes I really liked, I never had the confidence to wear.

Shopping was less of a leisure activity, and more a frustrating waste of time – unless I was shopping for shoes… never a problem!

Going to events like weddings was exciting but equally stressful as I had no idea what to wear, or where to buy it from.  What would be appropriate to wear? What style should I choose? What colour suits me? (Hint... not a white trouser suit... Doh!)

In more recent years I realised that I am not the only one who felt like this. As I opened up to others, I found that family and friends also felt the same way about their body shape too.  What a revelation – I thought everyone else had it sorted! 

Towards the end of 2019, I had decided I’d enough of feeling frumpy and knew I needed to do something about it. The teacher in me decided that if I learnt to do style assessments, I could help not only me, but also others as well.  Then along came 2020 and everything that goes along with it, but ultimately it focused me to qualify with a Diploma in Women's Personal Styling, as well as a Diploma in Colour Analysis.