A personal stylist has become a key part of any HNW’s entourage. Luxury travel, business and lifestyle writer Mark Southern discovered the true value of informed style from from London-based stylist to the stars, Gabrielle Teare.
Style; all of us want it, but very few of us have it. And yet it is so supremely important in our lives.
More than 70% of our communication is non-verbal, and the adage that you won’t get a second chance to make a first impression is absolutely true. In fact, research has revealed that we irredeemably judge the people we meet within the first three seconds, and the primary decision making factor we ascribe is how they are dressed.
Yet, with this in mind, most of us are still groping around in the dark, channeling the long-gone fashions of our youths, amidst a wardrobe of utterly ill-fitting and archaic clothing. Research amongst men, in particular, reveals the UK to be a nation at odds with style. We’re fighting a losing battle in an eternal sartorial war, and leaving a trail of poorly-dressed gentlemen wandering forlornly around the no-mans-land.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. You won’t learn have learned how to dress in your formal education, but help is at hand, and it comes in the form of the impeccably-attired elite individuals currently occupying the title of ‘most useful’ advisors to high net worths. They are the personal stylists, and their support can make the difference between you succeeding and failing, winning the deal, or losing out to the stylish competition.
London stylist, Gabrielle Teare is considered amongst the world’s best stylists, working from her Kings Road base. Teare is that missing link between the impression you want to make, and the one you actually do, and looks, predictably, perfect. Full of life and confidence, Teare has made a highly successful career from being the guiding light elite businesspeople and celebrities turn to to ensure they are represented in the right way.
We meet Teare in Chelsea, where we undergo a style analysis programme, which is both enlightening and a little terrifying. Sitting opposite a giant, unforgiving mirror, Teare and her team cover us in every colour and fabric combination you can think of, before a series of jacket fittings to establish a defined and personal look.
Once we have a plan, then it’s the part that this correspondent normally fears the most; the hostile and miserable battleground of the shop. We work our way up the Kings Road, into elite department stores, and around the Capital’s most chic boutiques, stopping only for lunch. But, whilst the rows of clothing seem as impersonal and uninviting as normal, it doesn’t matter, as we are simply escorted through to VIP changing rooms, and given drinks, until the items that Teare thinks might work are brought to us. Then, we try them on in private, keeping the ones that work. It’s a simple solution that takes all of the pain and misery from a shopping experience, and one that is exceptionally efficient too.
After a day with a personal stylist the notion that it is even possible, let alone desirable, to shop on one’s own again is blown out of the water, and the usual depressing sensation of getting home only to realise you’ve got bags of unusable duds is refreshingly absent.
If you’re one of the majority of high net worths still worrying about style, we have no hesitation in recommending the most simple and immediately valuable investment you’ll make this year, and say with certainty that every elite businessperson should have a personal stylist on their team. Forget about being a fashionable appointment – it’ll help make you the person you want to be, and you can’t put a price on that.
Main image above copyright: FreeImages.com/roberto tostes
