Books & Literature

Book Review: Style Sessions, by Kristin Todd

How to find your own personal style and dress to your body type and lifestyle, featuring practical exercises, tips and lots of great pictures.

The overall message of the book is to have fun with fashion and not be afraid to take your style the next step.
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Kristin Todd is a stylist. She has worked with countless women assisting them style their outfits, to use their wardrobes effectively, and to generally look fabulous for more than a decade.

Her purpose in writing the book is to help women overcome their insecurities when approaching fashion and what looks good on them. It encourages women to not fall victim to trends and fads that might not suit their age or body type, but to create their own sense of lasting style, giving them confidence to feel comfortable in any situation.

Kristin has a unique style of her own, inspired by her aunt, Narelle, who seemed to ooze effortless grace and charm in her eclectic dressing and persona, and she is passionate about helping others find theirs.

The chapters in Style Sessionstake the reader through how to dress to best suit their lifestyle and taste, establishing a “core” wardrobe, and an entire chapter dedicated on dressing for specific body types. There are many tips on what to look out for when shopping, emphasising the need for quality over quantity, making each purchased piece work hard in the wardrobe. The book is full of sumptuous full colour photographs, sketches and drawings to illustrate Todd’s points about style and how to wear it.

It’s a little unclear as to exactly Todd’s target market in this book. Whilst she professes to aim the book at the average woman who is feeling unconfident about their image due to social media pressures, the book is dotted with references aimed at the upper end of society like laying out your outfits on top of the drawers in the centre of your dressing room, and purchasing accessories whilst travelling to glamorous destinations. We don’t all have the budget or space for shelving to display our shoes and sweaters or to rework our closet floorplan to included extra cabinetry.

At times there’s not enough detail given for the woman starting out in defining her own style, but nothing new to offer someone who is already quite established in their fashion journey. Unfortunately, the book also contains errors in grammar and punctuation and the page numbers in the Table of Contents are incorrect, which makes finding sections refers to in the book difficult to find.

Having said that, there are some great practical exercises to suggest how to use and organise your wardrobe to suit your lifestyle. The emphasis on shopping for key pieces that can be worn in many different ways and which will last for years, and incorporating pre-loved pieces is current and en pointe. The overall message of the book is to have fun with fashion, not to be afraid to take your style the next step, and to wear your look with confidence. It is a message that resonates with the reader all the way to the shopping centre.

Reviewed by Becky Blake
Twitter: @beckyblake8

Distributed by: New Holland Publishers
Released: March 2019
RRP: $32.99 hardback

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