Personal Styling, aka “What we do in our downtime”
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I received a very kind and somewhat humbling email from an HF fan over the weekend that made me feel two things. First, I was pleasantly surprised to find that we had someone who cared enough about what we had to say in these pages to send us an email. For those unaware, we can be contacted at info@harrisonfjord.com, or via the contact form in the “About HF” page in our navbar above.
The second thing I realised was that I’ve never really given any excuse as to why we are so sporadic with our posts here; some may think it’s because we’re slack, others may think it’s because we are too busy with other things to care about the mysterious world of gentlemanly pursuits.
The truth, however, is quite the opposite.
For those unaware, Harrison Fjord is a personal styling company. Aside from styling professional fashion shoots, magazine covers and the occasional music video, our day job essentially involves teaching men how to dress. Not in a “This is how you put on socks!” kind of way, mind you. Rather, we focus on teaching guys how to dress in a particular style. Some want a dark, drapey, grungy style, while others seek a more dapper, charming, more mature look.
A Gentlemen’s Meeting
First, we meet our clients for a coffee to get a sense of who they are, what issues they currently face with their style and what goals they would like to achieve by taking up our services. We ask all sorts of questions; Julian, whose background is in fashion and modelling, is primarily concerned with the external change that you want to create; he asks about what kind of social scene you are a part of (or want to be a part of), what kind of clothing styles you are naturally drawn to and assesses how much you already know about being well-dressed. On the other hand, James (aka “me”), whose background is in sociology, is concerned with the internal processes associated with your style; “What do you want people to feel about you when you walk into a room?”
We use this information to discern exactly how we should move forward; whether we will be shopping for business suits, dress shoes and teaching you corporate body language techniques, or shopping for a smooth, urban style, finding the perfect pair of Lanvin boots and teaching you about how to best present yourself in social situations.
Wardrobe Audits, Hair Consulting, Colour Consulting and More…
From there, we do all manner of things to best help our client. First, we go through our client’s wardrobe, to perform a wardrobe audit, in which we separate the clothes into “good” and “bad” piles and teach him about where he’s gone right and wrong. This also helps with putting together outfits later on.
We also do an extensive colour consultation, which involves a comprehensive analysis of our client’s colour palette, to help us discern the best colours for him to wear.
Our award-winning hair stylist gives a personalised hair consultation, which results in the best haircut you’ve ever had; I’m yet to have a client who hasn’t sent me an SMS the day after his hair consultation to tell me how many compliments he’s been getting on his new hair.
Personal Shopping
Personal shopping is by far the most enjoyable part of our consultations, as that’s where the real transformations happen. We take our client out on the town for an extensive 8hr shopping session, where we go through all of the labels, cuts, colours and styles that will best suit his desired image. From dark and drapey to bold and dapper, we find the things that will work for you.
Finally, we cap off the consultation with a personalised style guide, which is a 40-odd page book containing a wealth of style advice written specifically from you. Here, we detail everything that we went through in our consultation; from the styles, cuts and labels from your personal shopping session to the body language and colour swatches, we make sure that you have a resource that will keep you looking good for years to come.
So, in short…
With an ever-increasing client base and a folio that is growing to include more and more high-profile events and shoots, the fact that this website is a one-man show really becomes apparent. My goal has always been to write new articles twice weekly, but as the Harrison Fjord “voice” is quite a considered and well-composed one, this is incredibly time consuming and has been all but impossible.
So, in short, as I quietly sip on this glass of sloe gin and listen to Melbourne’s burgeoning summer rain, I surmise what I somehow took 800 words to say: Harrison Fjord is back, we’re booming, 2011 is looking like a great year and, while the articles have been few and far between, I’ll do my very best to continue to entertain you all with my gentlemanly musings.
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and thank god for that.
how gentlemanly of you to share this with us
I wish Harrison Fjord had a Manila counterpart.
I think I could use one of these consultations, no matter how much style guides I read I cant pick out a good outfit when I see it.