You can wear anything, as long as you wear it well. It just comes down to silhouette, proportion, and fit. At every age. But there are a few “rules” you should keep in mind. From Gunn’s Golden Rules by Tim Gunn, co-host of Project Runway
I love writing my fashion advice column for Marie Claire. Those are real questions. One question I received was from a woman who said she had a Hervé Leger dress in dark purple, which I assume was the famous Leger color aubergine. She was wearing it to a swanky Beverly Hills engagement party with a beige patent-leather peep-toe stiletto. Her mother said her clutch should match the shoes, and my questioner asked if that was indeed the case.
I began by saying I love Hervé Leger and I love aubergine, but why would you wear beige with that? Matching is hard. Make it easy on yourself. Go with a metallic! Beige dresses things down. Really, a good rule is no beige after five.
If it’s after five, people call it “nude,” but that’s not in my vocabulary because it’s a racist color name. Depending on what your skin tone is, that beigy color may or may not be nude.
Now, wearing a true nude, meaning matching your skin color, is a whole different matter. You usually look odd, I think. It’s like a body suit even when it’s a voluminous dress. Kirsten Dunst does that all the time, and I don’t consider her a fashion role model. (Sorry, Kirsten.)
You don’t know what colors work for you until you try a bunch of things on. If you’re pale and you look at Iman and think, That color’s fantastic on her. I’m going to get that dress, stop right there!
Dark women are blessed in many ways, because they have so many more colors that look great on them. Lighter women don’t know it, but there aren’t as many colors that work with fair skin.
So try to think outside the box and try on colors you would never consider. You’ll probably be surprised that some unexpected color — persimmon, coral, or teal — works like magic with your skin.
And don’t worry about the so‑called rules of colors. The No White after Labor Day rule was meant to be broken. But it’s true that white is not very practical in New York City. I have a pair of white jeans that the J. Crew catalog convinced me to buy. What I learned once I put them on: thin white pants need to be lined, because otherwise they reveal the line between your leg and your underpants, and that’s not my favorite look. The jeans have languished in my closet.
What’s another “rule”: Don’t wear black and brown together? That’s ridiculous. You do have to be careful about the brown. It shouldn’t be tan or some midtone, but chocolate brown is really chic. I once saw a woman on the street wearing chocolate suede boots with black opaque tights and a black dress. She looked fantastic.
I will say that I think it’s funny that strangers take my fashion advice when my own family completely ignores it. Case in point: During the holiday season, my family wears Christmas sweaters every single day. Christmas sweaters! Is there a bigger fashion don’t?
But for those of you who do listen to me, here’s my general advice about keeping your wardrobe fresh: It’s helpful just to drop into stores and try things on for information whenever you think of it. It’s essential to get a sense of what cuts and colors look best on you, and you can’t always do that when you have to find a dress for a wedding during your lunch hour. You can learn so much just by asking yourself objectively, “Does this look good on me?”
Size is difficult, because different brands run small or large. So you’re likely to have a range, 8–10 say, or 2–4, or 14–16. But if you don’t spend the time figuring out your range, you’re likely to be very frustrated each time you go shopping, because you won’t even know what sizes to pick off the rack.
Figuring these things out is just a part of everyday life.
You know how I am about all these matters. You can reject any or all of what I say, obviously. These are just the things that I think are good rules of thumb for enjoying your life as a social being. I also have no problem if you want to find a cave and have someone roll a boulder in front of it. To each his own.
In a recent memoir about filming Some Like It Hot, the 1959 comedy with Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis says at first he was resistant to dressing in drag for the role. He was a sex symbol and was embarrassed that he had to put on a dress. But then when he did, he had a new concern: He wasn’t pretty enough! He and his costar, Jack Lemmon, went back to the wardrobe people and demanded better makeup, higher heels, and bigger falsies. His logic: If he was going to be a girl, he was going to be a pretty girl, by God.
That’s how people should be about everything: whatever you’re doing, give it your all.
That’s one of the things I love about Project Runway. It’s about each designer being the best at whatever it is he or she wants to do.
Whenever I do makeovers, I like to bring out whatever it is in that person of which they are most proud. I hate almost all makeover shows, because they tend to make everyone look the same: still frumpy, but slightly more upscale and slightly more put together than before.
I like to learn about the person and to find out how she really wants to look, what energy she wants to put out into the world. You can see it in the eyes of the people at the end of the show: they feel like they had a hand in the process, and the look they end up with is really them. It’s not just a costume. It’s about who you are and how you want to be perceived.
When I did a photo shoot for More magazine, we had two female lawyers, very different body types. I asked one of them, Karen, “Do you think you’re Hillary Clinton?” All she had were these very masculine pantsuits. She looked so dowdy and off-putting. When I told her this, she said, “I’m fifty-four years old. Aren’t I supposed to be dowdy?”
“No! No! No!” I told her. I don’t believe anyone ever has to look dowdy, and it’s perplexing when they do.
But when it came down to what direction to take her in, I was confused. I took her sister aside and said, “Talk to me. Karen is working a very strong masculine look. In fact, is this who she is?” I didn’t want to put her in flowery prints if she was more of a truck-driver gal.
“I don’t think so,” she said, “but I’m confused by it, too.” This was interesting, because I’d half expected the sister to say, “Yes, she’s a diesel dyke.” And then we’d have worked with that. But that wasn’t the case here.
So I took Karen aside and said, “What’s going on here? Are these really the clothes you like wearing? Is this pantsuit you?”
“No” she told me, “but I don’t know how to be professional as a woman and not dress this way.” She was in court all the time and felt she had to convey authority. “I’d love to look more feminine, but I just don’t know how.”
In my first book, Tim Gunn: A Guide to Quality, Taste & Style, I talked about style mentors. It’s great to look around and find people in movies or books or pop culture whose style you want to emulate. Is it Audrey Hepburn, Debbie Harry, or Law & Order‘s Mariska Hargitay? It’s helpful to think of your icon when you are constructing your own personal style. But this lawyer was just looking to male lawyers to construct her look.
I told her, “You’re wearing menswear-tailored clothing. Matching jackets and pants. There are other ways to look professional, you know. Right now you don’t look professional. I wouldn’t be drawn to you — unless I saw you at a leather bar.”
Luckily, she was open to showing off her figure and trying new things. She instantly had a whole new world available to her. Well, the transformation was thrilling. She felt unshackled. She realized that it’s looking good that makes you comfortable and confident, not just wearing casual or shapeless clothing.
Now she has the courtroom in her pocket, because she looks so much more accessible and she’s so much surer of herself. And still she gets to wear her favorite leather pants on the weekend.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tim Gunn is an American fashion consultant and television personality, best known as cohost of the Emmy-winning reality show Project Runway. He was the chair of the fashion design department at Parsons The New School for Design and is now the chief creative officer at Liz Claiborne. In his book Gunn’s Golden Rules (Copyright © 2010 by Tim Gunn Productions, Inc.), he shares personal secrets for “making it work” — in your career, relationships, and life — and dishy stories of fashion’s greatest divas, behind-the-scenes glimpses of Project Runway‘s biggest drama queens, and never-before-revealed insights into his private life.
MORE ARTICLES BY THE AUTHOR
- A Dishy Tale of Outrageous Fashion Divadom From Project Runway’s Tim Gunn
- Behind the Scenes of Project Runway With Tim Gunn
- Celebrities Behaving Badly: Inside Scoop From Tim Gunn of Project Runway
- Why, When It Comes to Fashion, Comfort Is Overrated
LEARN MORE
- Read an excerpt from Gunn’s Golden Rules and find out how Tim Gunn’s “make it work” philosophy came to be
- Grab Tim Gunn’s book widget
PHOTOGRAPH OF TIM GUNN BY HENRY LEUTWYLER
