Lookbook

Here is something which isn't in Nina's One Hundred, but which I've found to be incredibly useful: a Lookbook!

A lookbook is basically a collection of images for use as inspiration. It can be a thick book bursting at the seams, or a single page, or a spot on the wall you stick pictures on and which constantly changes. It can be as fantastic or as prosaic as you want. It can have pictures of items or outfits you like, or pictures of absolutely anything animal, vegetable or mineral which inspire you. It can be comprised of photos, swatches, and clippings from magazines or gardens. It doesn't matter. I've seen lookbooks with bits of wool, flowers, sticks, stickers, perfume tester cards, all sorts of flotsam and jetsam which pointed the owner in some way to where they wanted to go.

I use a scrapbook for my lookbook, gathering stuff up as it comes along and tearing it out when it loses favour. It's a fairly prosaic sort, comprised of items or outfits which I like the idea or look of, with the occasional comment or note. It's rarely taken literally – what a stylist does for magazine pages is not what is going to work for me on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes, it's just the idea of it, the direction of it, the mood of it, that's important.

If you like to follow trends, it's a great way of filtering and cherry-picking all the information coming at you from magazines, hardcopy and online. You only have in front of you the bits which you really like, and the rest you can ignore.

I've found lookbooks to be so useful, I have a mini “lookbook” I sometimes take to my hairdresser, with a YES page and a NO page. The NO page is primarily full of pictures of round, boofy bobs which hairdressers love to give me, but which I hate (my face is already round and boofy enough). The YES page is primarily full of cuts which I like but which, of course, are impossible for my hair (yes, my hairdresser despairs). But it's the idea, the general intent, which is the important thing. Having both YES and NO pages has been successful so far in avoiding the dreaded pumpkin head result. Worth it.