Dressing Your Truth by Carol Tuttle

Carol Tuttle

I was once told by someone (can’t remember who) that Self Help books were a little like cocaine, the first hit is always the best, after that you’re always trying to recreate the joy of the first exposure. I can’t speak for the drugs but checking with my sister, we reckon our first self help book was Vogue’s Body and Beauty Book from around the mid 70s and that did make a huge impact.

It got us into making our own cosmetics and beauty creams (MAC and SpaceNK were a long long way off) which resulted in trips to Boots to buy gallons of rosewater and witch hazel and practising beauty routines I still stick to today. I have it tucked away in the garage and remember thinking it was THE best book in the world when I was 17.

Now Self Help books are everywhere and available on every subject, including fashion. Professionally I remember the Colour Me Beautiful books having a massive impact on how customers bought stuff back in the 90s, when women would wander around the shops of the brand I worked for clutching their little swatches of colour saying “Ooooh I can’t wear blue, I’m an Autumn!’. I’m sure it was hugely helpful to women who didn’t have much confidence in their own choices but it used to drive us MAD on the fashion floor.

Anyway, for those readers who still need a little help on how to make clothes choices, there’s a new  book out by Carol Tuttle called Dressing Your Truth (there’s a website too) It’s an American publication (only available at present in the US but coming to Amazon UK) and we have kindly been sent a copy to give away to anyone who might like it. I think you have to be a Self Help Believer to swallow every page of this one, but I did find myself agreeing with some Ms Tuttle’s points in the Fashion Myths section, particularly on the subject of black.

She says black DOESN”T make you feel thinner, not everyone looks good in it and it doesn’t go with everything. Five years ago I would have scoffed at this as a load of tosh, fashion-black-lover that I was, but now I’m not so in love with the colour myself any more. It is ageing, and flat and frankly, a wee bit dull. I buy much less now than I used to.

Anyway, if you can come up with a good comment on why you deserve it, we’ll post you a copy of the book this week. Comments below please, funny ones are likely to score highly…..