Creating Confidence with Style!
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During this podcast episode, we talk to the lovely Suzanne Suthers, a stylist and professional colour analyst. Suzanne spent several years in fashion retail for various premium high street brands, dressing both men and women. She realised that she wanted to help clients further, so she trained to be a stylist with a leading image consultancy. For the last 16 years, she has been enjoying helping clients to discover and fine tune their own style to enable them to look and feel fabulous and confident whilst remaining comfortable and authentic. Suzanne offers her services in person and online for national and international clientele, as well as being a stylist for the Academy of Women’s Leadership.
LOOKING GOOD CAN BOOST YOUR CONFIDENCE
We begin by discussing the role that clothing and how we present ourselves plays in living a happy life. Suzanne points out that since lockdown what we wear to work is more relaxed, but we still want to look smart. She loves to help women over 50 who are facing changes in their bodies to look and feel good about themselves again. Sibby talks about how she felt as a teacher and how what she wore didn’t represent her personality. She was not dressing as her authentic self, because she didn’t feel she could be fully expressed in that role. We agree that what we wear affects how we feel, and Suzanne gives us some tips on how to brighten up our wardrobes to lift our mood and become more visible.
Suzanne talks about how we all have at least 30 colours that suit us best individually, our skin tone, eyes and even our hair. In our colour palettes, we can put together a capsule wardrobe and it even spreads to make up and glasses. At least 10 colours will give you the wow factor and these can really make you feel special, according to Suzanne. With her clients, Suzanne delves into their past and asks them what they used to wear, why that changed, and we talk about how young people seem to be better at expressing themselves through their clothing with less restrictions. Suzanne loves watching her clients leave a session feeling more confident and with greater clothing options.
Sibby points out that sometimes there may be a disparity between spiritual and physical – how when working in the spiritual arena, we may sometimes forget the importance of using our bodies and our clothing to express our authentic selves whilst in this 3D existence. Suzanne shares that in near death experiences, people often see themselves as beings made of light – so she says we are definitely not here to dampen ourselves down with dull colours - but to shine. We discuss how colours in nature are a manifestation of the divine, and honouring our bodies is part of a spiritual path. Sally points out that others receive the vibration of the colours that we wear. Also, we may feel we need to dress in a kind of “spiritual” way – but in fact we should be able to wear what we want! We don’t all suit flowing clothes and Bohemian outfits and we don’t also suit pantsuits and collared shirts.
Suzanne loves to remind people that they can express their true selves whatever age they are. She remembers always loving fashion and in contrast her mum was very practical. After being a nurse for a while, she returned to her love of fashion and opened a shop. When it closed, she trained to be a stylist and eventually founded her own company. We talk about how Suzanne’s energy as a stylist is nurturing and comforting for clients who are having a bit of an identity crisis with regards to their image. We talk about body shape and how we can accept ourselves even in the face of our insecurities and feel comfortable in our clothing.
Sally brings up the notion of order and decluttering and how our wardrobes can fill us with a sense of chaos or even, in Sibby’s case, gloom! Suzanne describes how to categorise our clothing and how to decide what we want to keep based on whether we feel good in that item. We agree that clutter and things you don’t use affect your energy flow and how you feel in that space. We talk about what we wear can change as we get older and what styles suit different body shapes. It can be hard to know how to dress when our bodies change whether due to weight change or hormonal influences.
We discuss how our skin, eye and hair colour, face shape as well as body proportions all play a part in the colours that we suit best. Suzanne believes that when we wear the right colours, everything about our appearance brightens. Yellow based is warm and blue-based is cool – we are born one or the other. We talk about going grey gracefully, and how dying our hair can affect our colour palette, as well as how we can use accessories to uplift your look. Suzanne shares a story about a client who worked in a very male environment, who completely transformed her image and even ended her relationship, as it affected her so profoundly.
If you would like some expert advice on how to express your authentic self through your image, you can connect with Suzanne at www.suzannesuthers.com, or find her on Instagram: @suzannesuthersstyling or on LinkedIn.