Personal shoppers: I need your recommendations, before I slump into middle aged matronhood for ever and never dare leave the Inferiority Complex again

[motherinferior]

I hardly ever start threads these days, but oh please fellow MNers, I need help. Especially as I'm working three days a week in a Proper Office, where jeans are permissible but you do have to look quite presentable, and some of my lovely colleagues regularly pop out to spend squillions on a nice new frock.

I really do seem to have lost the plot, style-wise, over the past seven years (oddly enough, the ones coinciding first with motherhood and then with turning 40, and then with motherhood part 2). I don't want to turn into a Proper Laydee but I do need quite badly to revamp my act a bit and drag it out of quite such current mumsiness.

Where would you recommend? Am a shortarse, probably not quite as enormous as I think I am as I fit a size 10 around the bottom and 12 around the norks, red hair, still a bit of a vintagebohohippywanabe, don't do flat shoes, do do norks. Can spend some cash but not squillions...

Sorry, Pannacotta, only just seen this.

I think she's based in south London (that's where my friend lives) and she comes to you house to look through your wardrobe (!) and then takes you shopping. Think she does make-up advice, too.

Not sure if she travels - do you want me to find out?

oh god, sod MN local, we need a directoty of personal shoppers on here for whole country. MNHQ please get on the case!!!

Porpose, yes please that would be great. Does she have a business name/website etc?
Ghosty does your friend have the same? (website etc)
Thanks both, wonder if the OP is still watching this thread as I thought this sort of help was what she was after??

Pannacotta: just spoken to my friend and there is a website at khpersonalstylist.com

If you want a number/other info, you're welcome to CAT me.

Thanks for that Porpoise! Have looked at the website and all details on there, will get in touch with her.

MI - coming to this late. Has anyone mentioned Liberty? - has much more individual stock than the other dept stores. If you were wanting a sort of wardrobe-character-lift (as opposed to further Useful Pieces to Slot into the Quotidian Suit-Rotation) the personal shopper there might be an idea? (And can I tag?)

Right. I consulted Aloha. On her recommendation I rang Selfridges...only to talk to a posh gel who informs me Selfridges advisers only do the designer ranges these days (the 'average spend', she informed me poshly, is £1,500). So I rang Aloha again. Who suggested the uppermarket Johnny Loulou option of Peter Jones. So I've booked. For September as am off on hols soonish.

Ooooooooooooooooooer .

Blimey, Selfridges sound up their own backside. I had a very successful session with them a few years ago where my spend was a fraction of that.

I've also had very good results from Fenwicks when I was coming back from maternity leave and was a bit wibbly about my "personal style". But I'm pretty sure the woman at PJ will be good as well.

I really need one of those shoppers who come and go through your wardrobe - I really need to go back to basics I think, before I start thinking of buying anything new. I think, however, that it would probably make me cry. As my DH said, in a practical manner, "what exactly would you do if she told you black was not your colour?"

I feel your pain.

Was most put out by the Selfridges gel. I asked, specifically, about the high street outlets and was told no, and that they start at Diane von Furstenwossname level. Frankly if I had that kind of cash I'd probably be fine on my own, dammit.

I fear that said style guru would look at my wardrobe, bang my head against the wall and shout "you are only a size 10 every third Tuesday and when the stars are in alignment. Stop buying things in size 10 and wearing a pained expression because they are pinching your kidneys and you have to sit down in a stange, sideways manner like a crab. Buy a chuffing size 12 and go out and live your life".

My free-cycle posting would say. "Various cloths in black, size 10. Lightly worn".

That would be "various clothes in black"...etc

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

Sounds like you both should call in ghosty's friend, then?

I'd be quite scared of someone like that. I would have to explain the sentimental reasons behind the keeping of, well, everything. Including the size 8 trousers which fitted for a brief & delirious three weeks many years ago.

cod's link

have you been at the G-I-N?

Cod, this is the stylist Porpoise recommended, do you know of her too? Is she the same one as Ghosty's sytlist? Am confused....

Message withdrawn

I'm not sure if I should be admitting this in present company but I like Selfidges personal shopping. I went yesterday afternoon having decided it was time for an image upgrade - and also because it's taken me 6 months of looking to not find a raincoat and I was getting fed up of it.

I agree with MI about the offputting receptionist but the actual shopper was lovely. My bank account was seriously walloped (but I had mentally prepared for that) and I really did come out feeling good with some lovely clothes.

The only real downside (apart from the cost) is that the rest of my wardrobe now feels rather shabby in comparison so I need to start saving up again for another go.

mrsw what did you get then? and was it more than £1.5k?

see what i meant though about selfridges going mad and blingy, they are so obsessed with only selling wildly expensive stuff that they are going to lose most of their customers.

I think in my experience you need to imply you will be spending that amount of money. I usually say that I am a lawyer and I am looking for a couple of work suits and maybe matching shoes and handbags and that usually gets personal shoppers reasonably excited. I don't necessarily end up with all of that though.

I'm getting quite keen on the wardrobe blitz-type person first. Get someone to make sure I've got the right basics and work out where the gaps are in my wardrobe (I have very little that qualifies as smart casual eg as I wear suits to work and then Gap/H&M type stuff at the weekend)

I got a raincoat, 2 suits and 1 top and it was more than £1.5k but it was within the budget I had given them at the start.

The stuff is all selected from the more expensive ranges but, provided you accept that, there isn't any hard sell and she didn't try and persuade me to buy anything although she did persuade me to try things I wouldn't have selected from the hangers - this was one of the most useful parts as I have widened my range of considerations.

When you use the personal shopping service at Selfridges, Peter Jones etc, do you get given an appointment with whoever has schedule availability that matches yours? Or does the receptionist try to match up a client's style/needs with a personal shopper's specific areas of strength/knowledge?

I would find it seriously off-putting if I, as a middle-aged pear shaped woman (sad to say, but must admit that it's true), pitched up and was greeted by a trendy twenty-something (who might actually judge or feel pity for my advanced state of 'frumpdom'), or a brittle high fashion skeletor in designer clothes straight from the pages of Vogue. Or is that simply my insecurities surfacing?

Does one simply assume that the shoppers are sufficiently professional/versatile to work with whoever is in their appointment book for that day?