lessons from the elegant Annabel Hodin

       There are many women who identify as it was in a taxi might disappear a sandal Marni. Not so many of those who would manage to track down the last pair in the sale. And even fewer who know where it would use for the heel and platform shaved down to a manageable level.

There is nothing Annabel Hodin not about clothes and how people know from their best side. So it should. She is a stylist, but not just the kind that beautiful celebrities prettier (or in some cases, terrible) makes, although the former constantly tweaking any of Rod Stewart was Rachel Weisz.

But it also works with "normal" people: business, professional women, housewives ... all who look better or just want to climb out of a rut. Honest but friendly, intelligent and sensitive, they identified digs under the skin of customers and what works for them both psychologically and physically. "I'm not uncomfortable," she said. "I am a new comfort." If a woman has a pair of orange knee-high boots, for example, it will not throw them at the stake, nearest much as she had in love, but to find alternatives that chic provide the same jolt of color and sexy, youthful extravagance "until the orange boots make their way to the very back of the closet to skip and finally. " She knows the difference between striking and try hard, and that is surprisingly rare.

In the late fifties, she is a prime example of what it preaches. Slim and tight, she swims four times a week and stretching for 15 minutes every day: "I do not think there is any point embarking on a diet that you can not keep." She holds her makeup minimal - a greasy blue line on the lid, which is softer than flicks cats, a little of the base and a nude lip with an orange instead of pink suspicion. Buy your own killer this season is a cut Fifties, cropped flared jacket with a round neckline neat - perfectly prim, aside from being naked in pink shiny leather. He came to camel - but it would be better predicted. "It took me to make 10 trips to Miu Miu, before I decide. Fault I have no money." It seems terrible of course, but come fall, "if everyone who has the pink coat or jacket the thing to do will be to lay it to rest for a while. "Until that day of fear, she wears it with old boyfriend jeans from Gap (this season is too short for them), and these Marni sandals." A block heel is flattering. This all makes legs look slimmer. "

Anyone interested in clothes, can happily spend hours in his company, the learning to avoid shops, forms and labels swapping notes on T-shirts (James Perse, sometimes Gap and occasionally Zara), Botox (she goes to an eye doctor, "because he is very cautious in this area of ??the eye "), says seamstresses (she gets almost everything tweaked) and debating whether Cos is as good as any. On balance, it does not think. Forms by Celine inspired, are good, "but the wrong tissue. Unless you're Swedish or a little unusual looking, it does not quite work out in the end. [Made]"

Do bags Cos meet the standards, however. There was a mango-colored leather tote this summer, with many smaller leather pockets inside - she loves those with multiple compartments ...

It is his in-depth knowledge of what is on the road and in Harvey Nichols makes it available - and frugal, even if customers have large budgets, it will not allow overspending. "Too much can be overwhelming., You need to get everything out of your closet regularly and try new permutations, partially to get the most out of it, but to keep things fresh."

His eye is challenging, we decided, from his father, an art historian and esthete JP Hodin. "The way my parents lived, was not about having a lot of money, but we were taught to appreciate excellence."

At 21, after reading English at King's College London, it was on the road by Anna Wintour, then fashion editor of Harpers & Queen rookie who discovered booked on several occasions. "Maybe it was my orange hair," Hodin ventures. "I love Anna. She was a great friend and very naughty in those days."

Although they never got around to marry (the father of her first child died), has two children Hodin - Samson, a personal trainer, and Ruby, 25, has cerebral palsy severity of the brain. She brought it on his own, which had its challenges. "Last year I was in the hospital with ruby ??in the Department of Rehabilitation of the hip and there is a client on the phone ungettable want to dress for the BAFTA." You'd think they could lose Patience "But I like to go out and find the challenge Rubin again that jacket sold. This is what I call working through trauma. I know., How important the right outfit can" Hod, one might say, is in the details.