by Eoanna Petropoulacos

Created on: May 20, 2008   Last Updated: November 05, 2011

Style...that certain something that can hover about you like a haunting piece of music, caress you like the most luxurious silk, send shooting stars off your heels leaving a dazzled throng in your wake or makes the most subtle of statements that linger and provoke all manner of memories...style.

On the horizon there marches an endless parade of style sharks flaunting, posing, striding, slinking, skulking, looming, mincing, swaggering, flouncing and floating. Making your own mark among this intimidating gang requires a certain amount of courage, wit and a defiant sense of self. Of course, if the style you seek is the disappear-into-the-wallpaper variety, then a negative sense of self might be just your option. For others who desire to step outside the seething masses of monkey see, monkey do fashion, the decisions are much more complex and deserve careful attention. Developing your own individual style requires a certain amount of planting, cultivating, nurturing and occasional pruning for your project to reach the peak of its powers. Think of it as the garden of endless possibilities with the occasional poisonous shrub.

Explore new terrains of fashion. Complete and complacent acceptance of what style leaders tell you is a recipe for the expected and the unexceptional. Proclaim your individual sense of style with something that people immediately equate with yoube it fabulous one-of-a-kind jewelry, sensational footgear, dazzling scarves, constant experimenting with hair color, drop-dead belts, fascinating scent: anything that conjures up the essence of "you". If you like drama, take it to the edge and sample what's new, slightly dangerous and heady. If you desire to look like a trust-fund baby, don't overdo the preppy to the point of stagnancy. Give it a touch of panache that no old-school deb would ever have attempted and the style is your own. Establishing your own style should be about what you like, not what someone else tells you you should like. If you like to be outrageous, go ahead and do it: just try not to get arrested. Go against the flow, tread the unbeaten path, dive into that interesting lake that may, or may not, be filled with liquid chocolate. Alter the laws of gravity, find a new note in the music of the spheres. Your style can have the substance of precious metals or be spun from moonlight and fog. It's up to you which way your garden grows.

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