In Blank’s work, she’s also observed that “people in general want to be who they are”. Her job is to enhance, not change, her client. That is, unless they ask for a closet and personality overhaul.
This begins with simply understanding the person she’s working with, she said. “What are their challenges, what are their dreams, what is the industry that they’re working in, what is their lifestyle around them – before we even start working with selection of the outfits.”
That’s because “style is not just clothing, but a layer of language that we wear”, added Tan. Most people “forget” that the clothes we wear have a “very personal relationship with us”; clothes are not “external to our body”.
“The more aware consumer understands that when they present themselves, they are carrying semantics. They have meanings over everything attached. If I’m talking to you with Chanel earrings, an LV choker and a Dior hairband, I will definitely give you a certain impression, like it or not.”
Tan and her co-founder Chan aim to build a “visual story” for each customer, which Tan describes as “how they want to express themselves without having to speak”.
In other words, it’s totally fine that you only wear any of your 10 black T-shirts to work, stick to wearing Uniqlo bra tops everywhere, or have seven AIRism cotton oversized T-shirts in different colours for different occasions – if you are aware of the impression you may send from repeating certain outfits.
So buying multiple pieces of the same item in a different colour or pattern is not just about, say, being practical or low maintenance, but it’s letting others sense that you are, especially if those values are key to your identity.
When people are intentional about the looks they put together, it can make a huge difference including in the way they carry themselves, Blank noted.
“I meet people from different walks of life with little (to) big budgets, but the feeling they get from having the right outfit is irreplaceable; when they look themselves in the mirror and they think, ‘Yes, yes, this is it. I love it.’
“When the outfit fits great, they know it, they can see it, and it almost gives them that spring in their step to say: With this outfit, I know I have the confidence to push the door open.”
