Why you need a stylist.

“Did you just say what I think you did?”(yes I did, allow me to explain)…

“What did you say to me you cheeky bitch?”  (Ouch)…

“How dare you suggest I need a stylist.”  (It’d be kinda fun though and it’s not about what’s wrong, but about what could be sooooo right)…

“If my husband brought me a styling package, I would be so offended.” (But would you really?)…

All of those are valid thoughts and feelings, but I wanted to the chance to reply on why you need a stylist…

1. Do you stand in front of your wardrobe and a) yawn b) come over with a headache from the lack of inspiration? c) think you have nothing to wear?  d) all of the above.
2. Do you walk into a store and walk right back out again, not seeing anything that you like, or you feel intimidated by the shop, the shop girls or the sheer amount of clothes to try on.
3. Do you have items in your wardrobe that you haven’t worn, because you don’t know how?
4. Do you feel like you want to show off your fabulous inner self a little more on the external? You have a passion for fashion but it doesn’t love you back? Do you hate clothes and only wear them because it’s illegal not too?
5. Do you want a bit of a change, a shake up from the norm?
6. Are you returning to work after a baby?
7. Are you trying to get back into your wardrobe after an eighteenth month absence from having a baby, then a toddler and only wearing active wear?
8. Would you love to have an impartial style sister by your side when shopping and in your wardrobe, giving you a completely refreshed style?

If you answered yes to any of these and you may have other reasons too,then a styling session could be just what you need and want.

My passion for the Sisterhood of Style is to boost women’s confidence and raise women up and help them to feel fabulous in themselves and how they present themselves to the world.  It’s not about pointing out the negative, but totally and utterly enhancing the positive.  It’s about challenging you to see yourself in clothes you have never thought to try and to build up a fabulous capsule wardrobe, so that you have go to pieces for when you have the dreaded “I have nothing to wear” moments.

Rather than being offended that someone buys you a styling voucher, why not ask for it for Christmas and jump to the front of the queue.  One of my repeat clients has recently asked her hubby to get in touch with me to buy a voucher for her :-).

You can read about what a wardrobe detox is like right here and you can find everything you need to know about a personal shopping session here.

Sisterhood is the number one reason I started this biz, style is just a really lovely complementary companion.

So my dear sisterhood, I hope you see that booking a session with me as your stylist is all about you and feeling fabulous, providing a boost to what you already have inside. If you need more evidence, just read my client’s testimonials.

Email me at emma@sisterhoodofstyle.com to book a session or grab a voucher for Christmas. xxxxx

Mmmwah, love EJ, Mother of the Sisterhood xo 

 

How to rock a hospital mumu & handle curve balls.

Sisters, don’t be alarmed at the mumu, it’s totally appropriate and in fact, the only thing I want to and can be wearing right now, because this mother of the sisterhood had a bit of a curve ball thrown at me this week.

I went into battle with a rogue ovarian cyst, that had decided to grow some mutant qualities and wanted to take down a fallopian tube and my right ovary while it was at it.  I have pictures, but I don’t want to put you off your brekkie.

So this is me this morning, in all my glory, hospital mumu and DVT stockings,  to keep those blood clots at bay. It got me thinking how curve balls can have the propensity to steer us so off course and we can often find it hard to get back onboard.  The reliance on others is suddenly intensive and extreme, you are thrust into the care of others and cannot control your own pain or the next steps and that is scary. So I am doing my damnedest to not let it cut me down, but instead, fill me up with gratitude and a story to tell. There’s always a great story to tell.

When my husband took me to the emergency room I recalled vaguely how I had never been to an ED before.  I have only been in hospital once as a teenager to have a nearly erupting appendix out and then twice to have my babies.  But never emergency, never in a wheelchair, crippled in pain.  So this was a new one. I even did a TV-like shout out “please, someone help me, something is wrong”.  YES, that was me, on Wednesday afternoon at 4.45pm.

The nurses and Dr’s were great, telling me to breathe through it and hold their hand and then they tripled the morphine and realised that wasn’t even touching the sides.  So surgery was suddenly on the cards.  Never-mind, that I knew about the cyst already, just not that it was also taking an ovary or fallopian tube with it.  I was due to have it out next week, in a private hospital and not be dragged into emergencey surgery.  I was scared and a bit daunted and shocked that I had left work at 2.30 to collect my kids and was crippled in pain by 3pm and in hospital soon after.

But you see that’s when I just had to let go and for those that know me, they know that that’s hard.  I organise for a living and I was even bossing my husband  around about what I needed him to do, after surgery, no memory of it, but also able to sing “I like big butts and I cannot lie”. 

Suddenly it was all out of my hands and friends stepped in to grab the kids, then my dad took over looking after them that night.  My husband paced the halls of the hospital, waiting for news of me, the cyst and it’s darstedly deeds (that’s a book title if I ever heard one).  Then friends and family started to hear the news and sent texts, made calls and offers of help and food for my gaggle of boys.  They came to visit with flowers, even when I was too woozy to get my head off the pillow.  Flowers and good cheer followed.  Work rallied like the champions they are and am grateful for their amazingness.   While I had to cancel a planning day for Sisterhood of Style today, with an epic business mentor and I won’t be able to speak at a women’s group event on Sunday about style,I know that I will have the opportunities again, I just need to spend the time now recuperating.

When I got my wits back very early this morning, after a second night in hospital, I felt compelled to write this down. This feeling of gratefulness and gratitude.  Life may have thrown me a big fat curve-ball but I’m determined to catch it on the full and run (well maybe walk right now) with it and just be at one with the sucker.

So thanks rogue cyst, you kinda did me a favour, because I see my cup is full of awesome.  I’m gonna rock this mumu and white DVT stockings while I still can, because normal life will resume soon enough and sometimes, a mumu is all a girl needs.

Thanks for letting me share sisterhood.

Love EJ, the mother of the sisterhood. xx

Gucci Gucci Gooo

I gotta chill and it’s multiplying. I have Gucci envy and it’s been lingering for a while now. I think the envy might be love and I want to go steady and go all the way.

The latest few seasons of Gucci is amaze. This collection of women wearing their Gucci pieces mixed with their other wardrobe pieces is everything. It hasn’t helped that Gilda Kirkpatrick was throwing down some heavy Gucci love, every week on Real Housewives of Auckland and my adoration grew.

New Zealand was so slow to get any designer stores, but since we did, I have only entered Gucci once. No one helped to serve me, so I just stood looking at the shoes like a dog salivates under the table for the last piece of roast chicken at Christmas. New Zealand now has Louis Vuitton, Dior, Prada, but it’s Gucci that gets me all hot under the collar.  The other time I entered their store, was in Sydney, on a girls trip, where I just about sank into the gorgeous prints, fabrics and shoes on display. I had to be carted out of the store, knowing I wanted more.

In my head I rationalised that $885 for a pair of Gucci gold shoes was totes do-able, if I didn’t buy anything else, no other purchases, probably have to flag eating and drinking too, but hey, Gucci shoes, they’d be worth it right? I walked away empty handed but I simply couldn’t stop thinking about them (still haven’t).

Then the next shop I walked into (it was Zara, Queen of the look-a-likes) I found a gold pair of pumps, unadorned like the Gucci babies, but gold, low heeled and I thought perfect. So similar, would it quench my thirst, I thought so.  But it wasn’t to be.  I haven’t worn them since.

So the adoration continues.  Every bit of Alessandro Michele’s (Gucci’s Creative Director) designs just make me swoon.  I am like a magpie drawn to the trompe-loeil (an artistic illusion), the colours,  clashing prints,  crazy designs (there are shoes in the latest collection with tails), the extravagance and even the nearly practical nature of it all.

I have never aspired for designer clothes, it’s not in my nature to want something, just because it’s expensive or society considers it to be a status symbol.  But this stuff, this is like my crack. Can I say that?  Cause you know sisters, crack is whack but Gucci got me high.

So rather than just moan to you about it and think it’s not possible,  I’ve started a Gucci fund, based loosely on Sugar Mamma.TV’s  The $1000 Project.  I’m not dabbling in shares yet (that would be far to Gucci of me) but I’m looking to save little by little and in turn, potentially turn that saving into an investment and use the returns to purchase me the Gold Shoes.  Like Cinderella, I really wanna go to the ball and my glass slippers better be gold.

While I wait and save and salivate, keep me company and share your salivation starvation stories of the sartorial kind.  Or you know, just let me know if you’ve ever coveted a piece of fashion royalty and what did you do about it?

Yours in a Gucci haze, mmmmwah, EJ, the mother of the Sisterhood of Style. xo

Images all from http://www.gucci.com (bookmarked favourite x)

What to wear on your first day of work

I’m starting a new job on Monday.  I’ll be the new kid on the block, at 42, that’s no mean feat.  I’ll be making friendly chit-chat and skulk out on my own at lunchtime.  I’ll have to ask where the loo is, how to make the coffee, what the kitchen etiquette is and how soon can I bring in my dog.  Yes sisters, you heard it here first, it’s a dog friendly workplace. Winning.

But I know that all of that will be a whisper in the wind by the end of the week, once I’ve worked with these awesome new people for a few days and I get the hang of the place.

What I am becoming super preoccupied with though, is what the hell do I wear?  It’s not a corporate, but I’ll be working with corporate clients, it’s not a big company, but I’ll be working with big companies.  It’s not shorts and jandles and it’s not suit and tie.  It’s the…..dum duh num dum……the inbetween.  Aggggggh (think 1950’s screen siren scream here).

Is anyone else like me and on their first day of school, a new job or a wedding and you absolutely have to purchase a new outfit?  Or is that just me?  Well, it is me, I have to own that.

So, I have a pair of Zara nautical styled (more on that style theme in another blog post soon) trousers I purchased in Sydney recently, that I haven’t worn.  I am having them taken up right now, cause I’d look like Groucho Marx if I didn’t.  But that’s as far as I’ve got.  Bugger.

I don’t want to go full nautical, corporate or too casual.  I am in a quandary.  My old clothes from corporate-ville are maybe a little too tired, but I only need a top,  now I have bottom half sorted.  So it’s a top, oh and some shoes.  I got my nails done last week by Pop Nails and they are fab-u-lous.  So that leaves me needing just a top and shoes, maybe some earrings.  Oh shit. Ok, breathe.

So, work with me sisters,  maybe I suck it up, wear a top I already have and then add some cool shoes.  Wanna know the shoes I’m trying to decide between?  You do? Ok, check these puppies out from Gorman and then these gorgeous ones from Kathryn Wilson.  Swoon much? But I can’t have both.  I have also been coveting these ones from Augustine, but they frustratingly sold out over the weekend.  I need to up my game, as I keep spying things I love and missing out by waiting too long.  Anyhoo, I digress.

What’s really exciting about starting a new job at this particular place and in an advertising and marketing environment means I can wear a T-shirt to work and it not be a major faux pas.  Call me crazy, but that is just beyond amazing.  I’m not talking simple T-Shirt and no bling.  I’m talking blinging that sucker out with a necklace and jacket and some mules and some other stuff and things, but just the mere thought of wearing the T-Shirt, with adornment, has got me all hot under the collar.  It probably means I should make more of an effort to find that elusive perfect white T  that I’ve been hunting for then shouldn’t I.

So wish me luck sisters, the ideas could all change tomorrow, but I reckon I am pretty darn excited for what I have in store for me in this new role.  I can’t wait to learn new stuff, meet new people and get some serious shit done.  I am chomping at the bit.  It’ll make for some exciting satorial adventures again too.

If you want to see the whole look come together, make sure you follow me on instagram @sisterhoodofstylenz and check out my Monday morning post.

And sisters, remember, if you need help styling YOUR first day of work at a new job, contact me today to book a styling session,  I would love to work wtih you.  Email me at emma@sisterhoodofstyle.com today.

Mmmmmwah, love EJ, the mother of the sisterhood of style xo

Hi, my name is Emma and I don’t like small talk.

I popped my cherry for the Sisterhood last night.

Get your mind out of the gutters sisters from other misters,  I popped my biz networking cherry to be exact. Part of starting your own business is about networking, meeting new people, influencing others on your business and trying to figure out how to make sense of this crazy thing called entrepreneurship.  I was bricking myself. I even shot to the toilet as I arrived to calm my nerves. I gave myself a stern talking too and got my big girl panties on and headed out into the unknown and into a sea of chattering networking women biz owners.

For those that know me, I don’t have a problem with talking to people.  I was known as gabby-jaws by my pseudo godfather (my real godfather was an absentee reverend who fell off the wagon) but I digress. In fact I freaking love talking to people.  I love people, I love what they have to say, I try to be curious about them and I generally walk into parties feeling very confident in myself, knowing I won’t have a problem finding someone to talk to.  This is because a party is likely to be for someone I know, a friend.  I have connections with those friends, they know me, know I am no wallflower, know I love a wine or three like to spin a good yarn. We cut through the small talk years ago, we just shoot the shit, straight from the start of the night.

But networking, that’s different, that’s hard that requires small talk and me explaining what I do.  That makes my tummy do flip-flops and my teeth freeze in my mouth, with a demented smile plastered to my face.

Even though I’ve worked for years where networking was an important part of what we do, this was different, I was flying solo.  You see what I did there, I said “we”. Because 100% of the time that I have ever networked, it’s been about what we do, about a business I work for, a project I am working on.  This time was hugely different, it was about Sisterhood of Style and no one else can talk about it like I can – and that’s so scary I felt a little bit sicky uppy.

But you know what sisters, as soon as I grabbed my drink (non-alcoholic) a gorgeous sister come straight up to me and introduce herself – thank you Fiona Hall.  She had recognised me from Facebook and Instagram and immediately put me at ease.  Then I felt my nerves slide slowly away and anyone I mentioned my nerves too, they all nodded in agreement with me, imparting their own cherry popping moment for networking or how they like to handle it.  One very sisterhood-loving difference about a women’s networking event – you hug hello – heart to heart.  That’s fucking cool. You don’t get that at a male dominated network night.

So I thought some of you sisters may be feeling the same way about networking and I could help with some tips I learnt tonight. I’ve also included some gems that I learnt from the speakers, who were kick-arse awesome and who each spoke on purpose and perseverance, timely given I was struggling to persevere with networking.

This story has a good ending, a great ending.  I sucked up my scardy-cat and gave myself a good talking too.  I mixed and mingled and started to hand out my newly minted business cards.  Women asked me what I did, we hugged, we were introduced to new people, we laughed, we agreed to meet up and possibly even collaborate (that got my creative juices flowing) and I left at 11pm freaking happy, so buzzed I couldn’t sleep, so I sat up and wrote this.  I hope your next networking is as successful, try my tips & tricks below to help you. If you’ve got any advice on networking, the sisterhood would love to hear it, please share.

SISTERHOOD OF STYLE NETWORKING CHERRY POPPING TIPS

Tip 1: Don’t drink.  Despite loving seeing a glass of wine waiting for me at an event, I appreciated that I didn’t drink. A large group of women in a room have a an incredible energy (and noise) and don’t need alcohol (sometimes we do) to fuel it.  Without the booze (it was a dry event) I had no dutch courage, I just had me and that ended up being ok.

Tip 2: Force yourself, whatever you do, to introduce yourself to someone you don’t know.   I was a bit giddy to meet a lot of women I’ve only known via social media and coaching groups I am in.  So to meet them in person, to realise that some of them knew of Sisterhood of Style, was incredible and mind-blowing and just bloody awesome.  But I wouldn’t have found that out, unless I had forced myself to be brave in the first place and buy a ticket to the event and then say hello to strangers.

Tip 3: I can’t let a tip and trick slip by without sharing my style advice.  Wear something that makes you feel fantastic.  Don’t wear anything that you need to pull, push or alter during the evening.  Wear colour.  Stand out if you can.  Women appreciate good style, they know when they see it.  You are in a room of like-minded business women, all putting their best selves forward, you should too.  Wear something that someone will comment on – its a great icebreaker.  I fell in love with a million pairs of shoes at the event and spoke to the women wearing them, telling them so.

Snippets of kick-arse awesome advice from the speakers:

JFDI – Just fucking do it – Belinda Tuki from Honest Food Company

Shed your shit and shine – Dr Martha Nessler

Life is about stepping stones and stopping points – Dr Martha Nessler

Set a bold money goal – Catherine Newton 

You can’t unlearn that – Amanda Betts from Bridge the Gap 

I don’t want to be famous, I want to change the world  – Natalie Cutler Welsh from Go to Girl NZ and the event host

Mmmmmmwah,

EJ  xx  The mother of the Sisterhood.

 

This is the outfit I wore to the event.