Every great style icon had a trademark. Chanel had her pearls and suits, Jackie O. had her sunglasses and sheaths, Bardot had her headband. Catherine Deneuve was lucky enough to have bespoke suits by Yves St. Laurent as her trademark. And Jane Birkin was known for carrying around a large, ugly bag until Hermès designed a bag for her that was big enough to hold everything she needed. Now that’s a trademark!
Such style trademarks are wonderful things as they allow us to stay inside our comfort zone while looking effortlessly stylish. I myself have a few trademarks that I rotate or use together to their best advantage.
My first, and possibly most important trademark, is my large, black purse. It has gone through many incarnations over the years, but it is always large and black. Like Jane Birkin, I carry too much with me to fit in a dinky bag, so my trademark bag is big enough to hold my essentials, plus a couple of books and notebooks, and it can even double as an overnight bag if needed. I found my current bag at a resale shop last year and I rarely am without it. It has a structured rhombus shape that just screams classic and chic. That’s an essential part of trademarks: they should always be classic, never too trendy or you’ll end up dating yourself once that particular fashion fades away.
Another trademark of mine is a leather jacket (well, a few leather jackets in varying colors). Worn with jeans and a t-shirt, they make me look endlessly cool and classic in that James Dean way ( … so I like to think). Or, I can wear them over a dress for a feminine look with a bit of a hard edge. Colored leather jackets also work very well over cocktail dresses—I’m always borrowing my mother’s purple jacket to wear over a LBD with purple shoes. And a red leather jacket over a black dress with complimenting shoes is stunning. It’s an edgy, yet feminine look that makes me feel great.
Perhaps my favorite trademark (though by far the least practical) is my pair of hot pink, round-toed, Mary Jane heels. With their banana heel and 1940s retro look, they make me feel feminine and flirty whether I pair them with a skirt, trousers, or jeans. They always turn heads and I adore the compliments. They’re a relatively new addition to my style trademarks as I bought them just this year. But that’s the beauty of having style trademarks—it’s great if they last forever but our personal tastes change and so can our trademarks. We can leave them behind as we grow out of them.
However, some trademarks last us for years and go through different incarnations, such as my black bags and my silver and blue sunglasses that I’ve been wearing since I was sixteen—they’re so much a part of my image that when my first pair started falling apart, my brother scoured all the sunglass stores he could in order to give me a new pair. He, along with most of my friends and family, can’t imagine me in any other pair of sunglasses. What else would I pull my hair back with if it weren’t for my shades?
