Unique Style Icons: Yoliswa

This week, we head to the southern hemisphere to South Africa to meet a style icon who embraces high-fashion drama: Yoliswa.

It takes a lot of verve to pull off puffy sleeves, a blazer vest AND a dramatic hat, but Yoliswa can do it. She also loves voluminous ruffles, as shown in Exhibit B below:

Seriously, Christian Siriano should make her his muse ASAP - she loves to rock all of his favorite design elements (puffy sleeves, ruffles and dramatic hats). And, just like Coco so adeptly demonstrated last week, the accessories are always perfectly coordinated to the outfit (here, her white sunglasses match her bag while her red lipstick matches her hat).

Even when Yoliswa takes a turn towards minimalism, the effect is still somehow intensely dramatic:

So what can we learn from Ms. Yoliswa?

  1. Don’t be afraid to play with volume, even if you’re just hanging out by the pool. In today’s athleisure world, we are all wearing slouchy sweatpants and hoodies, but I’d love to see a turn back towards a crisply tailored silhouette.

  2. Amass a large collection of wide-brimmed hats and stand-out sunglasses. They’ll punctuate your outfit and save your skin from years of ageing to boot.

  3. Get a house by the beach and drown yourself in sunshine. Seriously, this simple trick will make any outfit look better.

While I don’t have the disposable income to buy myself a beach house, I do have access to some wide-brimmed hats and sunglasses, so I tried to re-create Yoliswa’s last look above on my roof in Brooklyn. I never thought that a monochromatic outfit could pack so much visual punch, but it does and I love it! I’ll just have to avoid red sauce, red wine and my period while wearing this look.

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What do you think of Yoliswa’s looks? Are you brave enough to rock voluminous ruffles and puffy sleeves in everyday life?

Unique Style Icons: Coco

This week’s unique style icon is Coco: a young fashion influencer in Japan who hasn't even graduated from elementary school yet, but has the disaffected attitude down pat.

And here she is paying homage to Cher in Clueless:

Just look at this texture play! Best of all, it's all vintage (except the shoes, which are Fendi, naturally).

What do I admire most about Coco’s style?

  1. She has the modelling thing down pat - I’m still learning my angles and trying to lose my self-consciousness in front of the camera, while she is just naturally overflowing with attitude. And she already knows how to display the merch like a pro - see how the brand-name bag is always displayed prominently in every shot.

  2. Her total and complete commitment to the look she is creating - every detail ties into the color palette and/or textures of the look, from the shoes, to the bag, to the hat, to the sunglasses. In the first look for example, the white stripes in the hat tie in with the black speckles on the sunglasses and the white stitching and silver hardware on the jacket, while the greys in the bag and shoes also tie together. I usually pull on a dress and call it a day, but Coco really puts in the effort to make sure every detail is perfect. I can’t imagine the number of accessories she must have at her disposal to be able to so perfectly match her accessories to her looks.

  3. Her ability to rock interesting flats. As a short person, I default to wanting to wear heels to look stylish, but Coco has figured out how to make use of a wide variety of interesting flat shoe styles.

I decided to take inspiration from Coco’s last look and copy the layering, texture play and black and white color palette. I paired a cream lacy dress from H&M with a white jacket that I refashioned from a thrift store find, then added a belt, black cardigan, the chain strap from a bag, and white sneakers. I think it works a lot better than I would have thought - I feel like I could walk into any hipster coffee shop in Brooklyn in this outfit with a straight face.

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Are you inspired by Coco’s style? What elements can you incorporate into your outfits? Let me know in the comments.

Unique Style Icons: FIGTNY

It’s time once again to scour the interwebs for the best, most unique, style icons out there. Today’s style icon is Michaela Babuskova of FIGTNY. This icy blonde is firmly committed to her black and white color palette, which pervades her clothing but also her home decor. Michaela loves a crisp white piece with a loose silhouette:

She is also a great source of inspiration for elevated athleisure looks - see for example the below looks where she mixes (1) a relaxed blazer with loose white pants and sneakers, and (2) a T-shirt with shoulder pads paired with joggers and sneakers.

So what strikes me after looking at FIGTNY’s style?

  1. Cozy fabrics such as sweater knits, fleece and wool can’t change the world outside, but they can make us all feel more comfortable while we’re all forced to stay home.

  2. Even sweat pants can be elevated with the addition of a shoulder padded tee or a blazer.

  3. Flouncy white cotton dresses might be my new style crush.

For today’s challenge, I decided to steal Michaela’s idea of adding shoulder pads to my basic white t-shirt. This was pretty easy - I just folded the sleeves in and stitched the shoulder pads in place. I will post a video tutorial on how to do this next week. Next step: nailing the pose that Michaela struck in her photo, which was super hard and left me with sore legs…

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RuPaul would be disappointed in my inability to serve face. While I work on that, tell me: what do you do to elevate your athleisure looks? Have you tried sewing shoulder pads into your t-shirts?