Nina Garcia's Look Book Inspired By Her Mother

Nina Garcia's Look Book: What to Wear for Every Occasion, Garcia shares in the first chapter, was inspired by a conversation she overheard while on vacation in the Caribbean. A mother was reprimanding her daughter for wearing jeans to a job interview.

I instantly thought of my own mother, a beacon of elegance who would have threatened me with incarceration for that kind of transgression. In Colombia, where I was born and raised, women like my mother considered their appearance and personal grooming a matter of principle. There was never an occasion where she didn't show up looking picture-perfect.

And this is where Garcia loses me. Sure, it's great to look nice, but I hate it when style becomes a measure of a person's worth. Especially because the people being measured are usually women.

My own mother pulled this sort of thing with me. When I graduated college with my totally unmarketable degree in English, we had no idea what kind of career I'd have, so my mom took me to Dillard's to buy a suit. When I walked out of the dressing room, she swooned. "It's just how I always imagined." I never wore it on an interview or anywhere else. Not because I was defying her, but because, through soul searching and research, I realized that my future lay in creative endeavors. And a suit could lose you a job in that sector as fast as jeans could kill your chances of landing a position in most traditional fields.

Our point? Follow the advice Nina printed in her own introduction: Know first who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly. -epictetus

Source: ABC News