The episode you’ve begged us for

0:07This episode of Stylish is brought to you by Fenton & Fenton, helping Australians create homes with personality through thoughtfully curated furniture, homewares, lighting and art.

0:19Hi guys, you're hearing my voice for the first time. I'm Zoe, the producer of Stylish. For this Friday's episode, we've actually decided to give you what you've been practically demanding in our DMs on Instagram. You've all been asking for this for a little while, but listener Minnie wrote to us last week and summed it up pretty perfectly. Hi Stylish, I love your episodes about style advice. I love fashion, but don't always have these things come to me naturally. Is there a way to collate all of the best advice over the years in a bit of a style bible? I've found myself in a bit of a wardrobe rut lately.

0:54That's exactly what we are doing today. We've found the best tips and tricks for getting dressed that we've shared on this show over the years. It's all here in one beautiful big audio package for your listening convenience. NIMA will now guide you through it, so enjoy.

1:09Naima Fatema:First up is a tip that often gets overlooked, get your clothes tailored. This tip comes from our episode with stylist Elliot Garneau, where Mads asked him everything you've ever wanted to ask a personal stylist. This was just one of many helpful fashion and styling tips that featured in that episode. So I'd recommend going and listening to that full episode, which you can find in our show notes. It all comes down to the fit. So you could do a high-waisted straight leg if you're a shorter girl because it will elongate your leg and it will shorten your torso. So you create the illusion of more height.

1:39Taking notes, taking notes, taking notes. That one was specifically for you. Five foot three. If you want something more boxy and relaxed and oversized and a bit cooler, you can buy a men's blazer and have it really deconstructed. If you want something really fitted to create a beautiful hourglass silhouette, even take it to a tailor and get it taken in. I'm just going to circle back on a segue on that. Tailoring is one of the most important things for anybody getting dressed. It is the differentiation of buying something off the rack and having it look like it's off the rack and buying it off the rack and having it look like it was custom made.

2:09Taking in a jacket two centimeters to give you a waistline is the most beautiful thing in the world. It's like magic. Getting pants taken up so that they fit you correctly, getting the waist taken in so you create more of a waistline. All these things, little nips and little tucks to your clothing from a great tailor is super important. If you've got the time and you can be bothered, obviously. I think that's a really good tip though, because there may be things sitting in our listeners' wardrobes that they're going, that doesn't suit me or the cut's not quite right. Exactly. And before you're selling it.

2:35Totally. Or donating it. Get it altered, give it another life. I love that. Absolutely. I get everything altered. Everything. It's actually kind of annoying, to be honest. So like, don't get everything altered. Because then you lose it for like two eggs and then you're gonna get blah blah blah but it is actually really worthwhile yeah really really worthwhile and again like trends come and go and things are so cyclical like I've had blazers where I loved that like big oversized boxy vibe and then I don't necessarily love that as much for myself anymore and so I've taken a lot of blazers to get taken in and I've created this beautiful silhouette and I actually feel amazing in them because I feel like really snatched

3:09Naima Fatema:next up is actually a tip for me this one came from my what else episode it's actually one of my hot takes. I believe that copying people's styles or outfits is not always a bad thing. In fact, it can really, really help you develop your own sense of style. Copying people is not bad. This is so good, Naima. Copying people is not bad. I agree. No one owns one particular style. Things look so different on other people compared to you. Everyone, when they like put something on, it like has a different flair to it. How someone stands in clothing, how they like interact with their day in clothing is so different to another person.

3:49Naima Fatema:There's nothing wrong with, I don't know, being inspired by other people. I genuinely come into the office and everyone in our office is so well-dressed. And sometimes I come in in an outfit and I'll go, oh, this is a bit of a re. Oh, this is a bit of a Lucy. And I think there's nothing wrong with taking inspiration from the people around you. It's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing and it's almost like a Venn diagram in our office. It'll be like, let's say you, Zara and I, it's like the overlap can be so different, but then there's like a slight little bit that's the same. Like Zaz and I overlap tiny, tiny bit, but we also have huge appreciation for each other's style.

4:26And likewise with you, I think you and Zara overlap quite a lot, I would say, in terms of like the brands and what you like and the creativity that you have with style. But then you and I overlay in like structure.

4:37Naima Fatema:But also it's like if I was to buy like literally the exact thing that you bought or Zara bought, we would wear it so differently. And it would look different. Yeah. Up next, styling tip number three. This one was also from our episode with personal stylist Elliot Garneau and it's to harness the power of method dressing. In this episode, Elliot talked about how often he'll think of a character when getting dressed in the morning and use that as a guide for how he styles himself. I've always used clothes as like, it's fun. Like when I get dressed up, it's very costumey for me. It depends what I'm doing.

5:10It depends where I'm going. Let me think of an example. The NGV Gala every year always has a crazy, fun, colorful, fabulous theme. So I fully lean into that. So for me, it's more like having fun and bringing up aspects of my personality through those clothes. Do you want to talk about even our phone conversation this morning when you were like, I'm chatting? Do I? Which part? When I said to you, are we turning a look today? Oh, we're turning a look. Yeah, I've gone Ace Ventura coded. So I'm in like Ace Ventura cosplay. So yeah, I've gone like Hawaiian Ace Ventura, but like hopefully in like a chic way.

5:38Like I'm not wrangling dolphins in this. But I love that you do have that cosplay element. We talk a lot about method dressing as well. Yes, absolutely. And I know that you really love leaning into that as a styling element for your clients as well. Big time. Yeah. I love, there's a massive movement in the international fashion industry at the moment being spearheaded by stylists like Law Roach, who looks after Zendaya. They will go back to old school references of Sophia Loren or I don't know why she came into my head first, but I think because I'm thinking about something for Beck Harding, where I want to recreate this feel and look.

6:07But anyway, they'll go back and they'll take inspiration from the past, from history. Yeah. They're obviously very lucky in the way that they then have access to those original garments. In Australia, that's obviously few and far between. But to mood board things that you love is a really great starting point to subtly recreate. Like again, me today, Ace Ventura, lol. But I love Ace Ventura and I watched it on the weekend and it kind of inspired me. I was like, all right, Hawaiian shirt, tank, jeans. And so if there's something that you love or there's a person that you love or there's a film that you love a television show that you love i call you blair waddle for the time so like you know what i mean yeah take inspo from your favorite film characters take it from your favorite celebrities take it from your favorite magazine editorial like whatever it might be they're great starting points for inspo and i do it all the time yeah like sometimes i'm in the shower and outfits come into my head and other times i'll see something that really inspires me and i use the building blocks that i already have in my wardrobe to then recreate something similar

7:04we spend a lot of time on this show talking about finding your personal style but that conversation doesn't stop at getting dressed homes have become such an extension of who we are the most interesting spaces aren't the ones that look like a copy paste job they're the ones that feel collected lived in and full of personality for more than 15 years Fenton and Fenton have been championing that exact feeling thoughtful interiors that celebrate individuality their collection of furniture, lighting, rugs, art and homewares is filled with pieces that feel distinctive without being intimidating. They're the kind of timeless pieces you build a home around and love for years to come.

7:40Whether you're looking for one statement piece or you're slowly building a home that feels like you, explore the world of Fenton & Fenton online or if you're in Melbourne, visit their iconic brand showroom. And thank you so much to Fenton & Fenton for making this episode of Stylish possible.

7:59Naima Fatema:Now for our fourth styling tip, and this one's one that actually came from one of our first episodes all the way back in 2024. This is the three word method, which is a styling framework that was created by stylist Alison Bornstein. It's all about finding the three adjectives that best capture your style, but I'll let Mads, Joe and Annika explain. The first category of word we pick is practical and realistic. In Alison's book, Wear It Well, she describes this practical word as being defined by your regulars. This is where your style is currently. It's your comfort zone, a place where you feel confident and at home.

8:32It's your safe space. She tells us to look through these regulars and write down words that relate. What is the through line? What connects the dots and creates your style? Annika, what's the word for you? I had to think long and hard about this and then I was like, wait a second, just look in the mirror. Like honestly, my practical word is boyish. Everything is oversized. The more oversized, the baggier the better like that's really what I lean into I actually asked my group chat to do this for me because I found it really challenging to do myself I like that you know you just can't really perceive yourself in the same way that others do so I had them all send their words into me and I ended up with my first word being minimalist I started as simplistic and then we went to minimalist because I'm not really one to wear a lot of accessories most of my stuff is quite plain.

9:19I don't really wear pattern or bright colour. But I also tossed up whether I should go functional because I wear a lot of active wear because I wear Pilates almost every day. So I do wear a lot of active wear and I work from home. So I wear that almost every day. And I actually like wearing my active wear every day. Like I buy nice active wear so that I feel good about myself. Yeah. It's also so fine not to like or to feel uninspired with this practical word. That's why Alison has lined us up with the second word, which is the aspirational one. So this is making us question, where do we want to be going with our style?

9:53Not necessarily where we are. This is our North Star going forward within our sense of style. I found this word easier than the other two because I know what I'm aspiring for. Like I know what I want to look like. So I found this the easiest one of all three. Again, in Wear It Well, Alison tells us the word represents a scintillating place where creativity, curiosity and growth come into play. This is the point where we head to our Pinterest boards, the saved TikTok outfits. I know I've got about 482 sitting in mine and the pages of all of the content creators whose outfits we always adore and question, what do I love about this?

10:30Here we have to question what are the common colours, silhouettes, themes, might even be decades. Alison makes it clear it doesn't always mean rejecting your original practical word. So this isn't an invitation to discard your whole wardrobe if you're looking for a clean out excuse, but rather a chance to question how can I use this word to guide my outfit choices. Mine's classic. It's not uncommon to find me in white t-shirts with jeans and a blazer, but I really wanted to make a conscious decision about a year ago to start buying things that I wouldn't hate in two or three years. So I'm really trying to lean out of trends a little bit, still engage and dabble so that I feel like I'm having fun.

11:09I still want to dress in a way that feels really timeless and considered for me and my wardrobe. And I also think that means that I'm buying pieces that are an investment and that I'm still going to love for years to come. I love that. Timeless is literally my word. Fantastic. What a perfect segue in. And everything you just said then, whatever Maddie said is exactly what I wanted to say. Control C, control V. Yes, exactly. Annika, what's yours? Honestly, I have quite a few. And I think because I work in the industry and I'm constantly around like beautiful clothes and upcoming trends and lots of pieces, sometimes I think it does heavily influence my style.

11:43So when I look to what I aspire to be like, I want my style to align more with being quite refined. I think pulled back, I've got a few words, consistent and effortless. I think my practical word obviously being very boyish, it's more oversized, slouchy, exaggerator, et cetera, et cetera, the better. so with where I'm heading I still want to keep elements of like boyish in my looks but just pull it back so I am more refined and just remind people there's a woman under all these clothes you know. I think what's so important when you're doing the aspirational one is that you don't have a single person or creator or fashion figure in mind for it this is really about you so I think when we're encouraging people to go and discover what their own aspirational word is my magic tip is not looking at a particular creator or person or celebrity to help establish your aspirational word.

12:34It's really about what you're aspiring to personally. So take elements of what you love about their style and maybe think about what the common theme is across everything you love. But I think what's so important is looking inward at what you're personally aspiring to. That's a great tip. I love that. Now it's time for the emotional word. The word asks, how do you want to feel in our clothes? And I think this is a really important one because how you feel when you get dressed is so, so critical. So it could be something that you want to feel. It might be sexy or powerful. You might want to feel playful or casual.

13:08You might, like Michelle, want to feel hot. So this one is actually quite fun to think about and can inspire a bit of inward thinking. Annika, what would your third emotional word be? Okay. So in complete juxtaposition to boyish, I want to also feel more feminine. So I think something about how I dress every day is very much, I think, depicted by like comfort dressing because that's when I do feel most confident is when I'm comfortable. But I do also just want to make sure that I feel femme and I want to kind of start adding bits and pieces into my outfits that do kind of heighten that. So like even today, I kind of went boyish with my big oversized trench.

13:45I think maybe felt probably quite refined because I'm wearing duffel denim, sure. And then I felt a little bit more femme with like some ballet flats on. And what about you, Jo? What's your emotional word? Mine is elegant. Oh, I like that. The biggest compliment I can receive is when someone says, you always look so put together. You do. That's what I want to achieve. And that's how I want to feel. I want to feel really elegant and put together. And that's just how I want to feel emotionally. So that's what I went with. I love that. That would actually be the first word I would describe you as as human as well.

14:18Oh my God, that's so nice. I was going to say elevated, but then I thought someone else would choose that. so I went a little bit different. Well, I'm going to go a total contrast to elevated and my emotional word is comfortable. And I know that sounds like you're going to see me in my sweatset, my noo-noos down the street, which there's every chance you very well could. But comfort to me is really about dressing in a way that makes me feel most me and empowers me for my day. And I really wanted to say powerful or sexy because I don't think I've ever been called sexy in my life but I'd really love to feel empowered and sexy.

14:51but I think ultimately when I feel comfortable and feel ready for my day that's when I feel powerful and sexy so I think comfort is always at the core for me. Homes are at their best when they feel collected over time rather than copied from a trend cycle. That's what we love about Fenton & Fenton. From statement furniture to beautiful lighting, rugs, art and homewares every piece is thoughtfully curated to help you create a space that's full of personality. Explore the collection online or if you're in Melbourne, visit the Paran showroom. Thank you so much to Fenton and Fenton for making this episode of Stylish possible.

15:31Naima Fatema:And on to our fifth and final styling tip, finding the balance between your wardrobe workhorses and show ponies. This was created by New York-based fashion editor Becky Malinsky, who first outlined the concept in her newsletter, Five Things You Should Buy. Now, workhorses are the items you wear regularly that form the backbone of your day-to-day style. And then the show ponies are the more playful pieces that inject personality into your outfit. So Malinsky thinks that too many of us end up with a wardrobe of workhorses, you know, your reliable, versatile items in neutral colours, I feel seen, because we're scared of putting money towards show ponies, which I think is really true.

16:10And that's very true to me as well, because I

16:13Naima Fatema:don't want to invest in colourful clothing that I know I'm not going to wear or that I don't get a chance to wear very often. But she says without a little bit of flavour in the closet, we run the risk of becoming walking beige Pinterest boards. It's true. Attacked again. Yep. Physically and emotionally attacked. She encourages people to find ways to incorporate their show ponies into their regular outfits, but also invest in pieces that are a fusion of the two aesthetics. So for example, a brightly coloured skirt or a shaggy coat with your, you know, your basics. And I don't think there's anything wrong with being a basic bitch.

16:43I need to put that out there. If you want to be a basic bitch, do it. 100%. Preach on, sister. Yeah. There's such negative sentiment online now about everyone being two same. And I feel like we say to be on this podcast, designers are doing same, same. It's also fine. If you want to dress the same because you like how that looks, live your life. Totally. I honestly, I had a little giggle when I was reading about this one because I actually had not heard of this theory before and it only kind of came to mind about show ponies in the workplace, you know, the people who prance around and like maybe aren't doing as much work as the people who are actually rolling their sleeves up and getting dirty.

17:16I actually, when I kind of thought about it a bit more, I was like, this makes so much sense. I've never thought of myself as truly a practical dresser, but I am a denim and top girl through and through. And even today, it's like I'm wearing my denim, which is my workhorse. I've got a bodysuit on and then I've got some fluffy little kitten heels on. So there's my show pony. Yeah, but your whole outfit is interesting in different ways as well. I am a basic bitch. I would not call it a basic outfit. They're not the words I would ever use for you. Guys, I'm trying to be relatable. I like this theory though, because I was even saying when I walked in the office today, I'm just super uninspired getting dressed at the moment.

17:51I don't know if it's like this season change or like, yeah, yeah, I know. Say less. I'd like to borrow the fluffy collar. It really spoke to me. But I like this idea that there is everything having a clear role. But devil's advocate, Jo, I'm like, we all look the same all the time. It's like, God, we're all walking around and I'm seeing like 52 variations. And I'm like, it feels like we're all doing the same thing, wearing the same thing. And I do miss little pops and whether the show pony is a red lip or a fun sneaker. I think about when Sambas were like really having their moment and then the gazelles and everyone was getting like a little fun poppy colour.

18:23Like it was just that, it's like that 10 % quirky or different piece. I just miss a little bit of that in getting dressed at the moment. And it really made me look at my own wardrobe and go, aside from the red knit that was basically stapled on my shoulders all last year and a couple of hairs of fun sneakers. I don't really know that I have enough show ponies and I think I've got a lot of mainstayers, but I need to have a little bit more show pony and a little less wear course. But I think to your point, a show pony doesn't need to be a whole bright dress that you're only ever going to wear three times because then you get sick of it.

18:55It can be a red lip. It can be a detailed bag. It can be a poppy shoe. And I think that's the important thing to remember with this concept. And that's why I like it as someone that typically dresses like a basic bitch. I like that I can add these little bits of things that maybe I'm not feeling like I'm wasting my money on. Because if I bought a bright yellow blazer, I'm not going to get as much wear out of that as I am from a neutral brown tone that I'm going to wear every second day. Let's be honest. But if I invest in something like my whimsy bag, I spoke about the other day, little beaded bag, I can add that to an outfit and it just elevates the entire thing.

19:29And that doesn't make me feel like I'm stepping too far out of my comfort zone with my own personal style either. Totally. So I don't think you have to change your personal style to do the show pony and workhorse theory. I think you can absolutely lean into your own style and use it to just elevate your outfit.

19:44Naima Fatema:And that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Stylish. We'll pop a link to each of these episodes in the show notes and we'll be back right here next Wednesday to chat all things fashion, beauty, lifestyle and brand. This podcast was recorded on Wurundjeri land. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.