Style simply IS. You can’t buy it. You can’t pay people to give it to you, and you cannot fake it. You have it or you don’t. Truly stylish, drop dead chic women have style at 15 or 97. It really is ageless … The trend today of being dressed “by someone” makes most women appear to be wearing someone else’s looks, or as if they’ve borrowed their clothes … Women need to be braver about wearing their own style and looks, even if they make some mistakes. The mistakes can be cool too!
Danielle Steel, romance novelist and San Francisco socialite. This quote was taken from an essay Ms. Steel wrote for Harper’s Bazaar (November 2017).
I spotted Ms. Steel one time when I was on assignment covering the reopening of the Chanel store on Maiden Lane in San Francisco. She was sporting a fur coat and seemingly having fun trying on shoes.
As for having style, well, sure some women (and men) just have a sense for what is stylish but I don’t know that one who perhaps doesn’t have a natural affinity can’t figure it out. If someone really wants to pay attention and work on it, they too can have style. Why not? And that’s where “being dressed by someone” can help. A stylist acts as a guide and gets their client on the right track. It’s true you can’t buy style and no one can give it to you. It has to come from within, so to speak. But it is something that can develop. I think it’s the process of developing and growing that makes fashion fun.
Speaking of style of a different sort, Ms. Steel evidently still types her manuscripts on a typewriter. HB published her original typed version complete with cross outs and handwritten edits. Now that’s true (not fake) STYLE.
OverDressed for Life 
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