I spent years buying the right things and still not looking right. The clothes were good. The brands were correct. I'd done the research, read the recommendations, invested in the pieces everyone said to invest in. And yet something was always slightly off. A blazer that pulled across the back. Trousers that pooled at the ankle. A dress that looked perfect on the hanger and somehow wrong on me. I kept thinking the next purchase would fix it. It never did.
Then I started paying attention to the women who actually looked put together. Not the most expensively dressed women, not the most fashionably dressed, but the ones where something was just right. The clothes fit like they were made for them. Nothing was pulling or bunching or gaping. The colors worked with their skin. The shoes weren't new. The bag had a patina. They looked like themselves, just the best version.
What I eventually realized: they weren't doing something different. They were doing a handful of things that no one had ever taught me to do at all.
The Tailor
This is the single biggest difference between women who look polished and women who look like they're wearing nice clothes.
Almost nothing fits off the rack. The blazer is right in the shoulders but too long in the sleeves. The trousers sit perfectly at the waist but pool at the ankle. The dress bags at the back where your body curves differently than the fit model's. These aren't flaws in your body. They're flaws in the assumption that one pattern fits every woman.
The women who dress well have stopped expecting clothes to fit. They expect to alter them.
A good tailor takes in, lets out, shortens, and reshapes. A great tailor looks at how you stand, how you move, where you carry tension. She asks what you'll wear the piece with,
