Who Cares If You're Apple, Pear Or Hourglass! Are You Dressing For Your Personality?

Bigger girls should steer clear of horizontal stripes, right?

Wrong.

Yahoo Lifestyle caught up with everyone's favourite bespectacled stylist, to talk about her contempt for fashion "rules", dressing for your personality and why everyone just needs to "calm down" about women snapping back into shape post-pregnancy.

Stripes Are Not The Enemy

Like horizontal stripes?

Wear horizontal stripes.

Forget whether you've been compared to an apple, pear, hourglass, ruler, cucumber or any other inanimate object.

Having style is all about dressing for the inner-you.

"Style is something really personal," Grace explained.

"Having learnt from my own experience and having made a few mistakes," she continued, "you have to set about knowing things about yourself. I would like to arm people with five key messages about themselves, so they can look at the trends and go 'you know what that’s not me' when they go out."

"I was hosting London Fashion Weekend and there was a girl in a blue and white horizontal striped dress. And she looked so pretty," Grace goes on.

"I told her as much and she said 'I wasn’t going to buy this dress because I know that girls with big boobs shouldn’t wear across stripes.' And that. Drives. Me. MAD. She looked so lovely in it, because it suited her personality."

A New Kind of Icon

"Style is something really personal, whereas fashion is an industry," said Grace.

"I'm not the hugest fan of trends, it's a marketing tool that works incredibly well, but I'm like, 'why do you want to do this generic look? What about you?'"

"It shouldn't be about 'what's some celebrity wearing?', it should be about 'what should I wear?'," she continued.

Put down that Alexa Chung biography, because it's about time we had a different kind of style icon.

"There are some women out there who uphold this really well. I would love to see Caitlin Moran, Grace Dent, more of the Lauren Lavernes - women who are smart, funny, ballsy, showing people 'you know what, you can make decisions about yourself and don't give a s*** what other people think.'"

Feeling Sexy

"It's not about how you look, it's about how you feel" - is the mantra that Grace champions.

Grace is now a first time mum to cute baby boy Larkin. We asked her whether her feelings towards her own body changed as she was pregnant and after she gave birth and whether this changed her approach to fashion and beauty.

"Some people carry really petitely. I was big as a house. I still wore heels though, and lots of people remarked on it. I was like, 'hmm, that's interesting, that wearing heels while you're pregnant is a shocker'", she asserted.

"The great thing once you're showing is that you can wear stretchy dresses, instead of trying to hide it. At one point people would have thought that was disgusting. But if that's what people think, we need to flaunt it even more so that people get used to it."

"We have to take pride in [our pregnant bodies]," she concluded.

Enough 'Snap Back' Chat

Thanks to quick celebrity turn arounds and the millions of post-pregnancy diet plans that have surfaced on the internet, there is a lot of pressure on new mums to fit back into their fave pair of jeans just a few months after giving birth.

Grace had some choice words for anyone feeling the pressure.

"I don't believe in [snapping back into shape]. Why would you want to snap back when your uterus hasn't?"

"So let's just calm down on that."

"Take the time to do something which is good for your mind, body and soul. Don't just lump on petroleum jelly for stretch marks, or A. N. Other body cream. Get something that's really pure, with lavender essential oil in it or something," she said.

"Aromatherapy feels like a bad name, because it feels like something people’s mums do, but we are the next generation of mums. It's non toxic, it's pure and it works."

Trapeze With Ease

Whether we've had a baby or not, we all know the feeling of having to go to a social engagement when we're not feeling our best.

"It's important not to be too mega-critical of yourself. If any women have felt like I did, I just wanted to wear a duvet the entire time, but there have been moments where I've had to say to myself, 'Okay, I've got this trapeze shaped dress, really nice and 60s and just an easy shape. It's going to skim over everything [that I'm conscious of] but show a bit of leg and arm'."

"People do not generally look past your face. Very rarely are people going to be assessing absolutely every part of you," she continued.

"Put some makeup on, enjoy it."

Surprising Ritual

"My eyelashes all fell out when I had a baby. And unexpectedly my nose changed shape, but it’s gone back now," Grace explained.

"I have been using MyLash (im not an ambassador so im not being paid to say this), but I used it out of desperation. Apparently it’s what Kim Kardashian uses to get those HUGE eyelashes and so because that was one thing I really felt made me look feminine – I feel like Im quite a masculine/feminine – so without the eyelashes I just felt a bit low-key, so I invested in MyLash and after about eight weeks, I started to see the difference."

Unhealthy Obsession 

"Oh my goooood. I have certain obsession," Grace revealed.

"I have more coats than is healthy. I'd rather wear a coat and jeans than I would a dress. I have ridiculous amounts which, storeage-wise, is a nightmare."

So if she were only allowed to wear one outfit for the rest of her life, it would be a coat then?

Anything else?

"A coat for sure. And I'm converted to the flats, but if I go to a social engagement and wear flats, I feel invisible – it’s a real personality crutch for me. Im of sort of intermediate height so I just don’t feel like myself unless I have a heel on – unless I have that I don’t feel like I have my super power cape on."

So, in the event of impending apocalypse, you'll find Grace in a big coat, pair of heels and batting her newly flourishing eyelashes.

Perfect.

[Terry Richardson, Dov Charney and the Illusion of Consent]

[Made in Chelsea's Rosie Fortescue Guest Blog: Fluffy Clutches, Blue Tip Manis & Getting Summer Healthy]

What's your "feel-good" ritual? Will a lick of mascara make all the difference on a day when you're not feeling your best?

Tell us in the comments!

Celebrity stylist and new mum Grace Woodward has partnered with Persil Non-Bio and Comfort Pure to create “Pram Glam: a guide to post-pregnancy fashion” available at www.persilandcomfort.co.uk