Paige - Style on a Shoestring

ANDY PAIGE

style on a shoestring

FROM A CRAMPED two-bedroom home in Chickasaw, Alabama, with yummy homegrown vegetables, occasional government cheese, stacks of Vogue pattern books, lots of loving guidance, and daily lessons in Southern strength and charm, my mother, Beth, and my grandmother Judy taught me the skills and helped me build the confidence necessary to navigate the ultra wealthy and chic terrain of New Yorks fashion industry, looking like a million without spending a fortune. My skill, my flair, my backbone, and my down-to-earth approach to all of this paint and panacheI owe to you both!

Mom, I could not be happier to have the opportunity to thank you. You taught me by your exquisite example that beauty, style, and grace are skills, learnable by all and not exclusive to the elite. Thank you for your encouragement, strength, sense of pride, and unending love.

I want to thank my loving grandmother, Mammaw as I call her, for reinforcing my mothers economic sophistication by making my clothes and teaching me to sew. Mammaw, I appreciate all of your sacrifices and selflessness. I love you.

Rhonda Britten, founder of the Fearless Living Institute (fearlessliving.com), has been a guiding light and a source of immeasurable inspiration and self-awareness. This book could not have been written without her. Rhonda, thank you so much for seeing mereally seeing me and understanding, believing in me, encouraging me, and illuminating the path to my dreams.

An endless bucket of thank-yous goes to my incredible literary agent, June Clark, and my huge-hearted editor, Johanna Bowman. Thank you for your patience, understanding, and unwavering dedication to me and Style on a Shoestring.

I thank my dad, Mike; bonus mom, Andrea; and my sisters, Maria, Elena, and Lucy, for their acceptance, love, and understanding. Your love means the world to me.

Thank-yous and winks to my angels, my Pappaw, my Pop, and my twin sister, who have passed but who send me daily reminders that I am on the path of my true purpose. Thanks for the pennies, Pappaw. I love you, too!

To Amy Green, my sweet high school partner in crime who is now director of distribution for my business, Cents of Style, you will always be my BFF. I thank you for your love and support after all of these years.

I also want to acknowledge Mary-Ellis Bunim and John Murray of Bunim-Murray Productions. Thank you for Starting Over. Your impact is infinite.

And finally, to Beegsthanks for stopping!

FINALLYI AM so excited to tell you everything I know (well, almost!). Fashion, beauty, and all things delightfully budgetary have been a passion of mine for years. As a young girl growing up in a small town in Alabama, I was taught the importance of femininity and sophistication from early on. Now I know Alabama sophistication may seem like an oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp or right-wing liberal, but I was taught by example. Both my mother and my grandmother worked very hard to tame my wild ways and teach me the importance of looking the part, even if you didnt have a pot to piss in.

My grandmother (Mammaw) made almost all of my clothes when I was a young girl, and this really allowed my fashion imagination to flourish. We would go to the fabric store and pore over stacks of pattern books, looking for something that we both liked. Then once we had the canvas, we could paint with any fabric and trim that we could dream up. Mammaw always made dressing an event, and the anticipation of slipping into one of her creations was thrilling.

Though my mom didnt sew, she was and still is the epitome of Southern grace, charm, and polished perfection. I was skillfully instructed on skin care, makeup, hair care, and appropriate accessorizing as a rite of passage, and from the day of instruction on, I was expected to present myself like a lady every morning. Of course, I went through a rebellious stage with dyed black hair and a horrible asymmetrical permed do (eek!), but I always respected my moms incredible style and her drive to avoid having me be perceived as lower class.

I confess the sale rack was the only rack we shopped, and dumpster diving behind the fabric store for discarded creative goodies provided memories I cherish. Mom had a way of blending things to make them look rich, and Mammaw had the skill to whip up a Chanel replica in an afternoon. Together they carved the understanding that you simply do not have to pay a lot of money to look beautiful or to be perceived as educated, celebrated as stylish, or touted for your grace and femininity.

Now, while I was wallowing in my own personal Tennessee Williams Southern sugar bath, God decided he was going to give me an incredible gift. You should know I say God gave this to me, but Mammaw swears it was her collard greens. The gift was just mine, no one elses, and with this gift I could do almost anything. By the age of ten, I had grown to be five feet eleven inches... Do I have to tell you what happened next? Yep, by the time I was seventeen, I was a seasoned working model in New York City, making my way, keeping my nose out of trouble, and building on the skills of home.

While I was in the holding room of my modeling agency one day, my booker called me back and took my measurements. By absolute accident, we discovered that I was the exact measurements for a JCPenney tall fit model. She asked if I knew what a fit model was and then briefly explained that a fit model worked with designers to help create clothes that fit the body perfectly. Immediately afterward, she sent me over to a client to fill in for a missing model. At that time, JCPenney set the sizing standard in the industry, so my measurements and my knowledge of sewing and garment construction landed me the opportunity to work with more than forty designers over eight years, helping them create beautiful silhouettes around my frame.

This work is certainly not the glamorous part of the modeling industry, but the lessons I learned and expertise I gathered have served me immensely. I understand how to fit a bodyany bodylike none other, and great fit is half the battle of looking like a million without spending a fortune. After thousands of garments and hundreds of different styles, I learned that beautiful fit is a constant. Styles will come and go, and designers will dish up new duds each season, but what looks the most flattering on a figure will never change. Can I get an Amen?

After years as a successful model and trained makeup artist and with a couple of degrees in media studies and broadcast journalism, I thought the progression to TV seemed logical, but it proved much harder than I had expected. Becoming the beauty and style expert on NBCs Emmy-winning daytime reality drama Starting Over was an amazing turn of events that allowed me the opportunity to utilize all of my talents and offer up my personal brand of thrifty chic know-how on a public stage. Through that opportunity and the overwhelming response from millions of viewers, my business, Cents of Style, was born.

Style on a Shoestring presents my loving Cents of Style formulaa true systemof how to create incredible style on a hair-thin budget. This formula can be applied to every body type and income level, as style has no boundaries, ladies. I will walk you through the same steps I take with my private clients and the dozens of ladies I have made over on TV. So in effect, you can consider this book a workbook for creating your own makeover!