You wear it well
May 2005 - Discovery Magazine

From tight jeans to high heels to harsh synthetic fabrics, fashion can be harmful to your health. But the easiest way to avoid being a fashion victim... is simply to be yourself.

"Let's face it," sighs Olivia Davidson, "we all sometimes suffer to look the part." The point is, we don't have to.

Wearing a simply designed black-and-white floral v-neck top, offset by a pair of classic blue jeans and some eye-catching black-and-white animal-print mules, Paris-born Davidson is a model of confident, understated chic as she orders her favourite diet drink at a Cape Town café.

And so she should be, as a stylist and consultant whose mission in life is to turn fashion victims into vashion victors. So what's the secret? She thinks about it for a moment, and then whispers a word that can make a material difference to the way you feel about the things you wear.

"Lycra. It's a brilliant fabric that's been used for years in almost everything. If you try on a pair of jeans with Lycra and a pair without, you'll notice the difference immediately because jeans aren't naturally comfortable. Tops are the same. If you look for a t-shirt and see one without Lycra, it's more liekly to lose its shape within a few washes, whereas anything with even three percent Lycra will keep its shape and be much more flattering to the body."

But the real secret of looking at ease and in style, says Davidson, is resisting the temptation to flatter yourself.

"A sense of style is quite difficult to achieve, and not everyone gets it right. Really, it's to do with confidence. It's not a question of how much you can spend on yourself. Money doesn't buy taste. You just have to find the clothes that suit your personality. Don't buy trendy pieces for the sake of it. Rather identify key pieces in your wardrobe - classic items that don't date and which you can wear all the time. Just top up your wardrobe as you go along, and you won't end up looking like a fashion victim."