You Don’t Have To Be Rich To Rule My World

They say that money can’t buy you love – and the same can be said for style if you ask me. Yes – money can buy you beautiful things, but style and money do not necessarily go hand in hand and you ‘can’ have beautiful things without spending a lot of money. At the end of the day it’s what you do with the things you buy that determine your style.

I am extremely fortunate to have seen and done a lot in my life. When it comes to personal style and peoples homes not much surprises me. I have styled properties from tiny one-bedroom flats to multi million dollar mansions from Melbourne to Milan and many places in between – and one thing I have learned again and again is that while style can be varied and diverse, style has no price and something that is expensive is not necessarily better than something that is not.

It is a curse that the wealthy and the less than wealthy share mutually – the opinion that an object’s value lies in its price tag, when in fact the value of a thing lies much deeper than that. It is how you use that ‘thing’, it is where you put it, it is how it relates to the rest of the things that you have. It is, in my opinion, about thinking outside of the box.

My home, for example, is full of vintage (pre-loved) and repurposed furniture – some of my things are even from hard rubbish – chairs recovered in vintage recycled fabrics – repurposed jars and tins and packaging I found to cool to get rid of. I don’t like waste. I don’t like to discard something if it has the potential to live again. Some things just need a makeover – a mini face-lift – and poof! New life. It’s not about the money (money, money)….

At the end of the day it is about how you put things together – or how they are put together for you – not how little or how much they cost.

The good news is that even though you can’t buy style, you can learn it. You can teach yourself through research on-line and by just getting out there and exposing yourself to beautiful things. I am a Pinterest-aholic myself. I am always seeking and always learning and I find Pinterest to be a great tool. The more you expose yourself to new ideas and the more you challenge yourself, the more refined your style will become. You can also take courses or classes as well, and there are many that would fit into a busy life. Sydney’s International School of Colour and Design is opening a branch in Melbourne in spring offering a range of great classes that fit into a busy life style (http://www.iscd.edu.au). Hey – you may just see me there teaching a class or two…