What Carson Kressley thinks you can learn from Gigi Hadid’s style
Carson Kressley titled his new style guide Does This Book Make My Butt Look Big? — a question that has filled significant others and best friends with more fear than spooky Netflix series Stranger Things — to assuage women’s anxiety about dressing.
“(The title is) just to put women at ease and disarm them right away and say, 'Listen, fashion and getting dressed in the morning should be easy,'” Kressley tells USA TODAY. “If your butt looks a little big, who cares? As long as you feel great in something you should wear it.”
Kressley says one of the biggest lessons he’s learned from his pal, Oprah (no last name necessary but we’ll give it to you anyway) Winfrey, is to do everything gleefully, including deciding what to wear. “I think dressing joyfully would be the Oprah way,” he says.
To live your best-dressed life, follow these tips from Kressley:
1. Choose a style icon
Is there a certain celeb’s fashion choices that you admire? Kressley thinks this is the golden ticket to improving your style and names Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez and Gigi Hadid as style stars on his watch list.
“I think having a role model is a great way to kind of stay informed,” he says, “‘cause these girls have such access to everything that they really know what’s out there.”
Kressley says he appreciates that Hadid keeps her style unpredictable and fresh.
“I think clothes are meant to be fun. And, changing it up a lot, and having a lot of different looks, is fun. So that’s what I admire about (the Gigi Hadids of the world).”
2. Totally pause before you dive into ‘90s fashion
Despite the increasing number of girls that look like Beverly Hills, 90210 extras, Kressley advises taking “subtle cues” from the decade.
“Anytime a fashion era comes back it’s about references to that era, but not full-on looks from that era because you can look like you were dressed head-to-toe in a thrift shop,” he says, adding that a modern spin on grunge would include “a great pleather jacket and a touch of some of that plaid flannel.”
3. Lighten your layers
With temperatures dropping, style mavens will soon begin fighting the battle of the bulk — aka, layering.
“We all get tempted by the big, luscious, cozy cable knit sweaters, etc., but almost every knit out there has a skinnier alternative… (that’s) not quite as thick,” Kressley says. “No matter how much you layer on you’re still going to look and feel a little bit lighter than (with) those bulkier knits.”
4. Dressing is a balancing act
“The best overall tip is that dressing for any body type is about balance,” Kressley suggests, like pairing a looser-fitting top with a more tailored bottom and vice versa.
5. Fit is a major key
According to Kressley, wearing clothes in the wrong size is the biggest mistake people make with their wardrobes. “If you wear the correct size, one that kind of fits and flatters and skims the body, it’s always going to look better than going too big or too small to try and hide,” he shares.