Before working in fashion, I believed that fashion editors were born, not made. They arrive fresh-faced into the industry and dazzle us with their innate sense of style and magical abilities when it comes to foreseeing trends. Joining the industry myself made me realise two things.
One, that is complete bullshit. Two, that I fell victim to this very myth. Most of us newbies were flops.
Clumps. Dressing disasters who just happened to pay enough attention to learn the rules.
I landed my first job at a big-name fashion magazine fully confident I could tackle the fashion world with my chic wits about me.
For my interview, I wore a trusted blazer from university (elbows were slightly rolled), a pair of high-waisted trousers that hovered halfway down my ankles and pretty much the comfiest pair of shoes I could find.
My soon-to-be boss surveyed me and let out a sigh. Not a melodramatic, ‘I-can’t-believe-you-showed-up-like-this?’ sigh.
A quiet, you-have-literally-no-fashion-insight kind of sigh. “I’ll buy you coffee tomorrow morning,” she said, grabbing her coat on the way out. “Come by early. Before everyone else arrives.” The next morning, we met in the Pret downstairs and spent an hour discussing my lethal crime against style. “See how your clothes aren’t actually wearing you?” She sipped on her skim latte. “You’re drowning in fabric baby, it’s basically vomiting.” She wasn’t wrong. And she wasn’t trying to be mean.
She was trying to teach me. That coffee date was where I learned my first editing lesson. Fashion editors don’t just wake up knowing how to dress.
Sure, some of us may have had an epiphany in an Abercrombie & Fitch aged 14 and came to work dressed likeJessica Simpson every day since. But for most of us, it took years of training (and, let’s be real, ridiculous amounts of free clothes) to figure out how to dress ourselves. Years later, I still use lessons I learned that morning nursing that skinny latte as my editing style Bible when it comes to dressing myself.
Lesson 1: FIT IS EVERYTHING I’ve watched talented stylists take celebs in affordable-fast-fashion monstrosities and turn them into headlines at a shoot simply by switching their outfit. They arrive in couture dresses that would bankrupt the average Joe, but the second they step into my stylist’s wardrobes they come out wearing a plain white t-shirt and jeans that would cost you less than a Starbucks frappuccino. “Trust me,” she’ll say to the now side-eyeing star as they eye up the plain garments. But when they step back on set wearing that simple shirt and jeans, you could’ve swore they had magic fairy dust sprinkled on them.
Sure, they looked great before too, but the clothes actually FIT them now. And once that revelation clicked for me, I began to see it everywhere. I’d never put much thought into the fit of my clothes.
Trousers? As long as they fit my waist, I was cool. As I stood mortified in front of my stylist friend watching her work her magic on our tragic victim of the morning, it hit me.
My trousers didn’t actually fit me. I didn’t bother with the rise, the hip width, the length. Of course, they looked like giant tubes of awfulness around my legs.
I went home that day and tried every pair of trousers I owned on. Standing in front of my bedroom mirror absorbing the horror that was my wardrobe I realised that roughly 80% of them made me look shorter/wider/smaller. It was like my clothes were wearing me.
Lesson 2: DIVIDE YOUR UPPER BODY INTO THIRD I’ve worked with senior editors who could pull the most avant-garde pieces off the runway and make you believe you could actually wear them too. They had a talent, an intuition. I thought it was sorcery.
Turns out they’re just really good at maths. “One thirds, two thirds,” my editor friend laughed when I finally conceded and asked her how the hell she always got it right. “You know how the eye is naturally drawn to asymmetry? When you split your body into third instead of half, everything looks more intentional.” Say what? ! *I divided myself in half for how many years? With tucked in shirts and mid-rise jean gaping at my belly buttons like unkempt Dickensian orphans.
The realisation hit me as she spoke. My proportions were all wrong because I was splitting myself in half, not thirds! High-waisted-bottoms paired with cropped tops or low-rise-jorts topped with long layers solved all my problems.
My body suddenly looked more proportional. More put together. I’ll never forget walking past a fashion designer’s desk one day, too star struck to say much more than a quick hello.
He caught me eyeing up his suit collection and asked me what I thought. “I love the structure on this jacket,” I said, running my hands down the sleeves of a black blazer. He nodded, “Feel how it falls at the shoulder.” Skepticism + distractions = I did not do as I was told. “The shoulder is everything,” he said, catching me as I moved to shut-down-robe like behaviour. “It’s what everything else hangs off.” Are you serious? !” I thought. Clearly I wasn’t asking that out loud because he was already launching into a mini sermon about everything jackets before I had a chance to leave.
That night, I spent hours pulling apart my jacket and coat collection. I tried them all on, front to back. The ones that made me feel powerful had one thing in common; they fit my shoulders perfectly.
Not clingy or billowy, just perfect. The ones that didn’t flatter in any way had either too big of a shoulder cap or too small. Ever since that day, I’ve been obsessed with the shoulders and sleeve-details of potential wardrobe purchases.
Is this jacket creating a nice line from shoulder to hip? Does this collar compliment my face? Do these sleeves hit at the right spot on my arm?
All these questions started pouring through my mind the second I entered Zara. Which brings me to my next revelation… Lesson 3: IF YOU DON’T LOVE IT, IT’S A ZERO! One of my editors used to run us through this little motto whenever we were spiraling in our own minds about what to keep and what to get rid of in our closets. “If it’s not a nine or a ten, it’s a zero!” Meaning if you don’t look in the mirror wearing that outfit and feel ABSOLUTELY incredible, you shouldn’t own it.
Crazy talk, right? I thought so too when I first heard it. But, the more I embraced her Editing style, the more I started thinking that maybe she was onto something.
Why was I holding onto pieces that only made me feel sort-of good? Why was I making getting dressed in the morning stressful by forcing myself to wear things I didn’t absolutely adore? Life’s too short to wear stuff you don’t love.
Lesson 4: THE MAGIC NUMBER IS NOT 6 Trust me; I went there too when I first started. Thing is, when you start paying attention to how clothes look on you (and others), you begin to realise there is no magic number. Yes, women of all shapes and sizes can dress incredibly well in a size 6.
But that doesn’t mean we all should, or that’s where our proportions naturally autumn. It took me a good year of staring at my poor reflection pre and post-buying clothes to realise that there was no magic number for me. I actually needed to delve deeper into what worked for my body instead of looking at a tag and assuming low-cut fitted shirt + high waisted skirt = magic formula!
I still to this day remember pulling my favourite silk blouse out of my closet one day, only to realise that the smaller I went in size, the worse it looked on me. Why? Because while the pieces were literally tagged ‘similar’, the fabrics of the smaller size were cheaply made and didn’t hang correctly on my body.
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Sure they were trendy, but also clingy and thin. Nothing about that shirt worked unless it was an extra-large. Expensive doesn’t always mean better, but nothing will ever look as expensive as something that fits you perfectly and is made of good-quality fabric.
Lesson 5: TREND ARE SUBJECTIVE, GREAT BASICS ARE UNIVERSAL Trust me when I say I thought I needed to revamp my entire style when I first started working in fashion. News alert: I didn’t. I just needed to shop smarter and invest in pieces that flattered my body instead of fighting it.
One of my favourite editors had this incredible ability to look completely different every time I saw her but still stay true to her STYLE. How? She invested in an arsenal of perfect basics she could rely on year after year.
From the perfect black trouser to the white shirt to DIE FOR and the cashmere jumper that actually stays cashmere season after season, she built her look around them. Season after season fashion would throw trends at us and guess what? She bought into them.
Only, she did it by adding amazing statement pieces to her *neutral wardrobe instead of throwing out everything she owned to keep up withthe times. Want to know the best part? All those so-called trend pieces still looked editorially stylish on her years later because she SLEPT IN A GREAT BASIC every time.
Lesson 6:STYLE IS PERSONAL. “Ignore trends. Work on your aesthetic.” Sound familiar? It’s because every stylish person who has ever lived has told you this at some point.
Personally, I love this sentence so much that I’ve plastered it all over my Journal where I write down my outfit combinations before leaving the house (yep, I’m that person). But this advice can’t just apply to clothes you choose to wear that day. If you want to dress well, you need to exude an editing style that focuses on YOU.
What looks good on me might not look great on you, and that’s okay! I once had a legendary stylist eye up my outfit and ask me, “What are you trying to say?” Now obviously I responded with some half-ass answer about how I’m following the trends, duh. She laughed and said,”No!
What does this say about YOU?” She wasn’t being rude, but she was making a point. If the clothes you’re wearing don’t speak to the person you are when you put them on, then why wear them? Identify your aesthetic and try and wear clothes that embody that.
Yes, they will evolve as you do, but you’ll always know if a piece works for *your style. Lesson 7: EDIT LESS, KEEP MORE This may sound counterproductive to what I’m saying but hear me out. When I first started my fashion career I felt like I needed to wear EVERYTHING.
More shoes! More bags! More belts!
More bang for your buck? ! When in reality, the most stylish fashion editors I knew did the exact opposite. Take something off before you leave the house.
Challenge yourself to wear less and you’ll realise how much more you actually NEED. Does that necklace really need that second necklace to hang alongside it? Probably not.
Take one off! Your bold top doesn’t need those statement earrings. Pick one!
You’ll thank yourself when you’re forced to edit down to the essentials. Lesson 8: KNOW YOUR BODY You can’t edit your wardrobe if you don’t actually know what you’re editing. When I first got my editing job I had to force myself to really look at my body.
Not at how I wish it looked or how I could manipulate it to look a certain way but actually know my body. What I liked about it, what I didn’t, what fit me best and what was a no-go. I had to stand in front of full-length mirrors and actually assess my shape.
I could not present myself as a stylist if I didn’t even know how to dress my actual body. I hated this step the most but grew to love it the most. Once I truly accepted my body and ALL its inconsistencies I was able to shop for myself and not for the image of what I thought I should look like.
What silhouettes made my happily accepting thighs look flattering? What skirt length made my legs look longest? Once I answered these questions for myself shopping became WAY less daunting.
I could instantly rule out pieces that I knew wouldn’t work for my body simply because I knew my body. Interior design teachers always say you should start decorating your home with a blank canvas and start with the floors. Know what sucks at being stocked?
NOTHING. Lesson 9: CONSISTENCY IS KEY Some of the most stylish editors I know dress GREAT everyday. Why?
Because once they identified their #aussieuniform they stuck to it! I’m still perfecting mine, but I have come to understand which colours suit me best, which cuts flatter my body and what trends I should only wear for trendy reasons.
As soon as I can narrow down my go-to looks for work, casual and everything in between, I’ll share them with you!
But knowing this about yourself allows you to shop with less judgement.
You know your colours, your cuts, your style. See something that doesn’t fit those parameters?
Move along. Learning how to dress yourself isn’t some big mystery. You just have to know what you’re looking for.
Editors might have a leg up on us mere mortals when it comes to dressing well but trust me when I say that anyone can look like one with a few adjustments. Next time you get dressed, ask yourself: Is this the right proportion for my body? Does my fit honour my shape?
Will this fabric do what it’s meant to? Am I saying something with this outfit or are you just saying? Most importantly, who’s wearing who?
You or your clothes? !
