Accessorize Like a Pro!
Accessories 101: Beauty Bundles
Add Instant Polish to Any Outfit!
Happy day, reader dear!
I’ve had some requests from various platforms to talk about accessorizing. Like: How do you choose what to include in a #neckmess? Or: What do you think about when layering necklaces? And: How do you decide when you’re going to wear a scarf or necklaces, or both? Let’s get you started accessorizing like a pro in no time! (And at little to no cost!)
Like all style questions, the answer to all three starts with knowing your primary personality styles and the fashion elements that make your heart sing. For example: Jewelry is one of the places I get my trend fix on. Which means I will tire of it rather quickly. Hence, I don’t want to be shopping at Tiffany’s for my jewels. On the other hand, if you keep AND wear your jewelry forever, then investing is a good idea. Now, my attitude towards scarves is exactly the opposite!
The place to start answering all the above questions is with the Beauty Bundle (BB)! I’ve written before about our dearly missed Brenda Kinsel and her Bundles–A bundle is three or more accessories that go together. Often: Shoes + Bag + Something Else. This past year, there’s been a whole lot less Bag to my bundles and more other accessories. The pieces of the bundle share related qualities, most commonly color. When you grab-and-go or throw-and-go your bundle, an outfit transforms from plain to finished. Beauty Bundles are a shortcut to getting dressed. And who can’t use a shortcut? (One that doesn’t get you lost, I mean!) Let’s call the Beauty Bundle an #instantstylehack.
Accessorizing with Beauty Bundles
Yes, the video is a bit long, but you’ll see four different bundles “in action!”
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Here are those Beauty Bundles up close and personal:
And a few more, I couldn’t resist pulling a cream Beauty Bundle and brown Beauty Bundle together! Neutral BB’s are a great way to ground colorful outfits!
If those aren’t enough to get your creative juices flowing, here’s another post about Beauty Bundles that includes some themed bundles. That might just be the next post…
How About You?
Is this the first time you’ve heard about Beauty Bundles? Do you style your outfits with bundles? It’s elegantly simple and dead easy! What color bundles could you pull together? Have you ever pulled them together for reference? Do let me know in the comments below! I love to hear from you…
Stylishly yours,
4 Comments
Sally in St Paul
Terrific, I’m looking forward to more posts on this topic. I referenced your discussion of BB on my “Kiwi” blog post today because I think you do an amazing job of breaking these things down for those of us who are not professional stylists and do not have the training and knowledge you do. There are a lot of people showing great looks, but I think many of them either work on intuition or have the principles so ingrained that they can just do it without thinking it about it. I appreciate that you are more explicit about what you are doing to get the effects so we can apply it to ourselves and our own wardrobes (rather than leaving us to think, Huh, if I want to get that look, I guess I need to buy the identical pieces that this person is showing us).
100% YES to accessories mini-course!
Liz K
Note to self: Check out Kiwi! Thank you for the feedback, Sally. I’m thankful for my image and color training. It gave me words and clarity to explain what I did naturally. And teaching in the classroom made me so much more aware of *you don’t know what you don’t know*… Always a valuable adage for me to hold when talking to (which means learning from) others!
Sally in St Paul
Liz, this is a great follow-up to the statement shoes post. I’m sold on the idea! I had seen it before on Brenda’s blog and Imogen Lamport’s blog, but it hadn’t quite gelled for me before. It was like, OK, I can see that those things go together, but I don’t understand why necessarily or what to do with them! I think seeing a variety of example color BBs in action in your video, put together with a variety of outfits, made all the difference. And these examples really reinforced how chic a BB can look when the pieces are in a color family with related characteristics (e.g., the pinks being soft and muted and cool, at least to my eye), but not the exact same matching color.
So I think the color idea is making sense for me, but I’m not as clear on the theme bundles. I have a start on a Tough bundle that I like to wear with girly garments. But otherwise I’m feeling a little at a loss. What are some example theme BB? How would you use something like a polka dot BB? Are there other print or pattern based BB for us to consider? If I were up to speed on my art/design principles, I could probably generate a list of different ways that things can relate…by color, by shape, etc…and maybe that would give me a starting point. But other than color, I’m not sure how to think about groups of accessories “going together.”
Liz K
Theme bundles are next, Sally! You’ve got the gist… Color is the easiest to find, and you are spot on about shape. In this case, it’s the shapes of the items AND the shapes in the patterns. It’s coming… I’m thinking an accessories mini-course would be fun! Accessorizing is the one thing almost ALL clients ask about. Let me know if that’s something that piques your interest! As for the polka-dot bundle, it’s like the old joke. You have to use it very carefully. Theme bundles can look kitchy or contrived when you go too far. But if go to far is your personality, then it works perfectly. Look at Iris!