Inside Style - Mood Boards

Inside Style by Annmarie O'Connor - as featured in The Dubliner magazine - August 26th

Mood boards. There’s something so seductive about a scatter of stylish images. Peppered between sketches of diaphanous models and feverishly scratched buzzwords are textures and shapes that represent a moment in time: the doe-eyed gaze of Edie Sedgwick peering amongst mini-skirts and Yeti furs; those louche collegiate limbs clad in Hilfiger cable knits; and pantones with names that would make a paint chart blush.

If my ideal life were to be mounted on an A3 piece of cardboard, it would feature walk-in wardrobes bursting with Rick Owens and Comme des Garçons, a front row seat at Paris Fashion Week, and George Clooney writing a cheque to Mr. Harry Winston. Sweet. Alas, my real life seems to be just a tad removed from such sartorial aspirations.

Take this week. I developed a sore throat, lost my voice, found a dead cat in my garden, cleaned the kitchen floor tiles on my hands and knees, got an old filling removed from my back molar, filed my monthly expenses and oh...organised a photo shoot. Hmm. Surely someone who works in fashion should be tipping the scales slightly in favour of the fabulous?

Had I lost my voice from partying with Kate Moss or had that molar refilled with gold; that would be one thing. Still, it was time to give my own mood board a new perspective - ideally one that didn’t involve weekend accounts work...or scooping up a stiff moggy (R.I.P.).

It was only after a long lunch at Coppinger Row with an L.A. stylist friend that my epiphany came. “Since
 ‘The Secret’ everyone in L.A. seems to be making ‘vision boards’,” she tells me. “They look like fashion mood boards; only they’re designed to reinforce your conscious intention of achieving greatness.”  I was intrigued. “Tell me more,” I urged. “It’s a bit like saying ‘what you focus on grows.’” Hmm...she was beginning to make sense.  After all, if Newton’s universal law of gravitation and Pythagoras’ Law of Power in Numbers hold water, then maybe this secret is actually common knowledge?

(Later that evening)Pritt Stick and Vogue magazine in hand, I got creating the ultimate in stylish scenarios which included acquiring Gisele’s pins and superimposing my face on the September issue.  Now, surely all I have to do is sit back and wait. ‘How long for?’ is another question. Maybe that’s ‘The Secret’. Groan.