The Girl In Green Scarf - Beat the summer heat : Go trendy with colours!

Those dull, cold and gloomy days are gone, it’s time to welcome the summer fashion trends that brighten up your closet and make you glow in vibrant colours. Few tips for this season to help you set your own trend:

Coloured Bottoms: Bring back your carefree self and refresh your day out with coloured bottoms and floral tops. Notice your sweet 16 effect coming back your way all over again with this new look styled up with a top knot pony.

Floral Tops: Think summers and the soothing image that comes to your mind is bright and colourful flowers. So, your fashion statement should be no different. Be it denims, shorts, Bermudas or skirts, floral print tops are the best companion for any fashion chic. Get the most out of it with a dark tone lip shade and vibrant nail colour and let your lips do the talking!

Transparent is the new click: Apart from the floral tops, what’s hitting the trend is plain transparent tops that give a classic appeal to your casual bottoms.  Available in vibrant colours, these stylish tops add life to the boring blacks and blues.

Scarves to complement you the best: Twist up your new look and add some stylish and cool scarves to your collection that lend elegance even to the simplest of outfits. Random prints are the most talked about in town. Complete your look with a pair of designer sunglasses.

Aviators and Wayfarers are the new trend: If you talk about choosing the right sunglasses this summer, pick nothing but aviators or wayfarers for that girl next door look. Whatever goes out comes back with a bang. And that’s true of aviators too, say a signature type by Ray Ban. A staple with most brands, the best ones to choose from are Oakley, Idee, Opium, Park Avenue.

Ballerinas to bring out your casual best: To complement all that is mentioned above, all you need is a pair of ballerinas that bring out the peppy you.

P.S: Right size is the steal when you shop online. So, don’t forget to see the size charts. Happy shopping. 

Priti Thakkar
PG - A 55

The Girl In Green Scarf - Real difference between fashion and style

So what is the real difference between fashion and style?
Here’s my definition:

Fashion is the relationship to the external.  It is concerned with “what’s out there” (fashion items, in the stores).  It’s a matching process between what’s out there (fashion’s primary interest) to what I’m wearing.  Is what I’m wearing a ‘match’ for what’s ‘out there’, to what’s been deemed ‘in fashion’?

Style is the relationship to the internal. It’s about “what’s in here” (my sense of self, my identity, my perception of who I am).  The matching process is between what’s in here and how that is reflected and expressed in what I’m wearing.  Does my clothing ‘match’ my sense of who I am, at least for today?

If we go with that definition, it’s easy to see that there’s a huge difference in the orientation of our focus if it’s on fashion vs. style.  Fashion takes our attention away from ourselves, style brings our attention directly to ourselves.

This definition also recognises where the emphasis is placed.  With fashion, it’s on the clothing, the items deemed to be fashionable.  With style, it’s on the person.

Fashion can be away to distance yourself from yourself, which may be a desirable thing for some people at some points in time.

Style is a way to make closer your relationship to yourself, as its focus and orientation is on the self and how it’s informed and expressed by clothing choices.

"I think it’s all about truly, Truly knowing yourself, loving yourself – not just modifying, covering flaws, etc. – but loving yourself exactly the way you are right now – and dressing to honor that."

 I love that definition and how it orients our focus toward building our self-esteem and confidence.  I believe that fashion has the capacity to erode our self-esteem and confidence because by its very nature it assumes a gap between where you are and where you should be.


Fashion is always shifting – even if something you’re wearing is deemed in fashion today, it likely won’t be very soon, possibly as early as tomorrow (and if not then, then next week or next month – whenever it is, it’s soon).


Style has a dynamic nature, too, but its dynamism has to do with the expression of who you are and your sense of self.  It’s about honouring your uniqueness and having your outsides match your insides.

So that’s my take on the real difference between fashion and style.

The Girl In Green Scarf - 33 ways you can cull your closet

What other ways could I come up with to help people sort through their closets, to determine what should stay and what should be let go of?

Well, my challenge to come up with ten categories was easily achieved.  I zoomed past ten and found myself getting up to 30 categories.  These categories range from the very practical to the (cough) charmingly esoteric, and my intention in pulling them together is to give you a range of choices.

If you are currently culling the items in your wardrobe, choose 1, 2, 3 …. as many of these categories as appeal to you, to help you decide what you’ll keep, and what you’ll let go of.  You can use all 33 if you like – it may just take you hours to apply it to a handful of clothing items.

The whole idea with this list of 33 ways to cull your closet is that you are in the drivers seat – you get to determine the basis on which you decide what is working, and what isn’t, in your wardrobe.

Don’t just head into your wardrobe and start sorting.  Without some overarching thinking, some strategy, some criteria on which you will assess each item, you’ll end up confused, fatigued and even more frustrated than you were before you started.

Have a look at these 33 ways you can cull your closet:

1. Timeline Past: how long has it been since I have worn it?

2. Timeline Present: am I currently wearing it?

3. Timeline Future: can I imagine wearing this item again in the future (near or unspecified)?

4. Memories: do I have happy/pleasant memories of wearing this (which are either significant in their own right, or mean that I will wear it again in the future)?

5. Practical: do I wear it?

6. Fit: does it fit me?

7. Feeling: how do I feel when I wear it? At the least, does it make me feel good or bad, fabulous or frumpy, when I wear it?

8. Visual: how do I look when wearing it?

9. Touch: how does it feel on my skin and my body?

10. Condition: what condition is it in? Does it need repairing, or revamping and upstyling to make it wearable?

11. Versatility: how many other things can I wear with it?

12. Variety: does this piece add variety and interest to my wardrobe?

13. Personality: does it feel like “me”?  (how do I know?)

14. Sentimental: does it have a connection to something significant or meaningful in my past?

15. Care: what is it like to care for? Does it require special cleaning?

16. Attractiveness: do I feel attractive when I wear it?

17. Energy: what happens to my energy when I wear it? At the least, do I feel energised and ‘up’ when I wear it, or do I feel enervated and ‘down’ when I wear it?

18. Storage: is it easy to store or does it have special storage requirements?

19. Money: did it cost a lot of money and therefore I feel I should keep it, or was it so cheap it feels easy to dispose of?

20. Proportion: does it have the right proportions for my particular body?

21. Line and shape: is the line, shape and construction of this garment right for me?

22. Colour: is it the right colour right for me, or at least is it in the right ‘colour family’ for me?

23. Texture and fabric: do I love/enjoy the feel of the texture and fabric of this garment when I wear it?

24. Pattern: do I enjoy wearing this patterned garment, and does it feel like ‘me’?

25. Access: is it easy to access, is it in plain sight and easy to reach?

26. Logic: does it make sense to keep this?

27. Emotional ‘weight’: does it feel lighter or heavier to keep this item, or to let it go?

28. Magic: I don’t know why I keep it, but I’m happy waiting for something to happen so I can wear it again

29. ‘Enoughness’: does it feel like just enough, not enough, or too much if I keep this?

30. Uniqueness: is this piece unique in some special or meaningful way, that means I should keep it?

31. Lifestyle: does it suit the lifestyle I currently have (not a previous lifestyle, or a potential future one)?

32. Obligation: was it given to me and I feel obligated to keep it? (and is this a good enough reason to keep it)?

33. Gut instinct:  What’s my gut instinct when pondering this item – let it go, or keep it?

The Girl In Green Scarf - Dressing Yourself

The moment we hear "A Girl in Green Scarf" it reminds us of the movie "Confession of a Shopaholic"

Clothing, and getting dressed, should be fun. I believe this passionately with my whole heart and soul.

The truly stylish people I’ve ever seen dress for themselves – to express themselves, to wear something that just makes them feel good. And they have an attitude that it doesn’t really matter what other people think. I love that – to dress for yourself, and to dress in a way that makes you feel good.

You know my favourite style icons are those women bold enough to be themselves fully. Those ladies of Advanced Style, those Fabulous Fashionistas.  These women don’t play it safe, and they don’t play by the rules either.  They are their own people – utterly original.

Dressing for yourself

To dress for yourself means discovering for yourself what style means.  Discovering for yourself what style is.  And discovering for yourself what ways you express yourself through your clothing choices.

It doesn’t mean copying someone else, or following fashion trends (which are turning over so quickly you could get dizzy trying to keep up with them).

Dressing for yourself, to express your unique self, is by definition, an act of self-expression.  It means putting together an ensemble in a way that nobody else would, or could.

Perhaps dressing for yourself means combining items in new and unique ways.  Perhaps it means combining novel colours together.  Perhaps it means combining clothing from different eras. And hopefully it means combining ‘good’ items with everyday items.

The secret to getting the most from your closet and finding your own style

It comes down to playing around in your closet and discovering for yourself, through trial and error, what works, what you love, and what makes your heart sing!

It comes down to never ‘dropping anchor’ on what your style is, but remembering how dynamic style is.  It tweaks, it morphs, it expands.  Sure, you may have a strong base for your style, but it doesn’t need to be expressed in the same way for your entire life.

And it comes down to trusting yourself more than anything else.  To believing that the essence of your style lies within yourself and not without, that you are beautiful (flaws an’ all) exactly as you are, and that nobody but nobody knows you better than you know yourself.

My top tips:

Fossick in your closet.  Your closet is your playground, your workshop, your studio.  Your own closet is where the pieces of your style puzzle are housed, where your muse is, where the magic lies.  So spend most of your time in there, playing, experimenting, being daring, being different, being the woman you thought you wanted to be but were afraid to, being the woman that “when your feet hit the floor in the morning, the devil says ‘oh crap’” (thanks to Starts at Sixty for that postcard).  You get to choose who you’re being and what you’re doing when you play around in your closet!

Find the space and place to ponder what style is for you.  Liberate your style insight - it’s unique to you, and can’t be copied from anybody else’s version of style.  Spend less time reading about somebody else’s style, or ideas about style, and spend more time connecting to yourself.  True style is an inside job (as I discussed in my post about the real difference between fashion and style) so spend less time “out” and more time “in”.  Learn to trust your instincts, and make it okay to sometimes ‘get it wrong’ – it’s all part of the fun of getting dressed!

Choose your style icons carefully, and consider ditching those that are dished up to us in the form of celebrities and quasi-celebrities, whose style I hazard to guess is not even their own.  Perhaps your grandmother is your style reference point (there’s a lot of style lessons from our grandmothers we can learn).  Perhaps it’s the fabulous fashionistas or the women of advanced style (referenced earlier in this post).  Perhaps its nobody in particular, but you choose instead to pick up dollops of inspiration from a few select sources, and throw it into the ideas pot to see what brews.