| Saving time and money with the help of a personal | | | | defeat and retreat to the car park. |
| stylist is not wishful thinking. Are you overwhelmed | | | | Once upon a time there would have been someone |
| every time you walk into a shopping centre looking | | | | there to help you - the shop assistant. She was |
| for clothes? Are the endless options so mind boggling | | | | trained, conscientious, experienced and there to |
| that you choose coffee and cake and then head | | | | assist (hence her title). She had a manageable array |
| home empty handed? Was shopping always so | | | | of product to present to her customers and she had |
| difficult? | | | | a wonderful ability to know what suited the body |
| Well, only you can answer the first two questions | | | | shape in front of her. Alas, those days are long gone |
| but as for the last, the answer is no! Shopping has | | | | and that breed of shop assistant is almost extinct. In |
| evolved into a very different experience to what it | | | | her place, we have seen the emergence of the |
| was midway through last century. Where once we | | | | personal stylist whose rise to prominence is in direct |
| shopped in a couple of favourite boutiques or 'ladies' | | | | correlation with the decline in the quality of in store |
| stores' in the centre of our suburban shopping strip, | | | | assistants. Where once department stores and |
| today we shop in huge, multi-levelled edifices | | | | boutiques provided service, these days we are on |
| crammed with stores stocked with low cost, | | | | our own. Now if we want help we need to provide it |
| imported product. Service consists of taking your | | | | ourselves. I suppose we could call it 'out sourcing'. |
| money at the check-out after you have rummaged | | | | For a long while women have been lost in the middle |
| through endless rows of clothes dangling from coat | | | | of this transition. Gradually, we are coming to |
| hangers or worse still, lying discarded on the floor by | | | | understand what is going on in our shopping centres |
| the previous faceless shopper. To make the entire | | | | and mega malls and gradually we are realising we |
| experience even more unsettling, every second night | | | | have to find a new way to do things. A personal |
| our favourite current affairs program is featuring | | | | stylist is not a luxury indulgence for the privileged |
| some gorgeous young thing prattling on about what's | | | | few, but a sensible investment in one's self. In |
| current, what must be worn by everyone this | | | | previous generations women could rely on those |
| season and how easy it is to create this season's | | | | trained and experienced in the fundamentals of line, |
| "look". Their words and accompanying images swim | | | | design and colour principles to be there in the stores. |
| around in our brain as we trudge the tiled floor of our | | | | It is different for women today. We need to find |
| nearest shopping centre. When it all becomes too | | | | another way to access that expertise. Fortunately a |
| much and our cries for help go unheeded, we admit | | | | personal stylist is only a Google search away. |