Shopping for gifts on a budget — T...

Shopping for gifts at the last minute? Here are some strategies that may help, from me on Channel 9 today. Watch it here: Shopping Made Easy with Ketura Persellin

Why the colors you wear really do matter...

A friend in great colors

Went to my favorite breakfast place this morning, Open City in DC’s Woodley Park. The food is decent and the ambiance noisy. I like it because the mix of diners usually includes badly dressed conference participants from one of the big hotels nearby mixed with tourists who are often (though not always) even more badly dressed, with a few interesting-looking people thrown into the mix.

The friend and client I met today is a canny, careful shopper, mixing clothes from thrift stores with her other purchases. When I worked with her, I encouraged her to get rid of a lot of the black and cool colors in her wardrobe and showed her why warmer colors were so much more flattering on her. She’s always had great flair, and now she mixes her colors with aplomb, sticking religiously to “her” colors with great effect. Here she’s got on a pretty leaf-green cashmere shawl, a light blue long-sleeve, Empire-waist sweater. (And of course she’s standing against that big wall painted orange, another of her colors.)

Then there’s the piece she’s wearing that made her glow, a warm coppery-tan heavy brushed cotton jacket with no buttons and a well-defined waistline — purchased at Marshall’s. The coat echoes the colors in her hair, and all the colors together are warm and delicious-looking. She looked so beautiful that when I first spotted her, my first thought was “That woman sure is gorgeous,” followed quickly by “Oh, good, there’s Karen.”

Yes, she looks lovely whatever she’s wearing, but these colors and the jacket in particular frame her face and make the most of her assets.

By the way, one of this woman’s luxuries is an expensive haircut. It’s well worth the time and money, because her hair falls perfectly and effortlessly.