Colour Class - London & Sussex's Friendliest Colour, Style & Image Consultants

The Colour Class Experience

I'm Elaine Mackenzie, founder of Colour Class Image Consultants and it's my privelage to be your trusted friend in style and colour. All my life I've been fascinated with clothing and how what we wear affects our lives. One of the things I let all my clients know is that for me, the journey to building a strong self image was a voyage of self discovery and one that lets me truly feel for them and whatever they have been through to get to where they are now. I'm sure you know of those women who've always had a perfect figure, who never get tempted to eat for comfort when no-one is there and who always seem to have so much free time to spend on themselves. Well, I never had the luck of being one of them which is why I can say what you see now is the result of skill! As Eleanor Roosevelt so rightly said:

"Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art."

I was born and brought up on a small Outer Hebridean island,  off  the north west coast of Scotland.  In my youth I battled with my weight and became a victim of bullying.  As anyone who has been a victim can tell you it can be a very lonely place to be.  It made me assess and analyse myself in much detail, spending hours criticizing who I was and how I looked.  Living on a tiny island there is nowhere to escape so I became determined to make things better!

In the 80s I met HRH Princess Diana during her visit to Stornoway and I was struck with how much presence and power one person could project. It made an impact upon me and I began to see the importance of style and image.  Around this time my auntie, who lived in the USA, would send home the stylish clothes she was finished with. It was wonderful. Apart from the fact auntie was a size 0 and I was a size 12 already. Rather than take this as a deeper blow against myself, I took the wardrobe from overseas that didn’t fit, studied them and began to make clothes for dolls. It was the start of my dressmaking and the fashions my auntie would send in from the States opened my mind to new possibilities - our local stores certainly didn't have half the cuts or styles!

Dressmaking for dolls was fun, although as I grew they became further and further removed from my body shape and height. So, coupled with the lack of choice on the island, my thoughts and efforts moved to designing and making clothes for myself. Much more rewarding! I wanted to make clothes to flater all body shapes, emphasising on the best parts of the body and hiding the bad bits. The bullying had made me acutely aware of what I wanted to hide and I would spend hours with the sewing machine experimenting with different designs and making them to fit and create different body shapes. 

I began to notice that style and fashion were in fact two very different things and that colour and style are not the same.  I noticed that on some days the bullies would not pick on me whereas other days it seemed I was inviting fun to be made of me.  The more I thought about it, the more I came to realise that on the days I wore certain colours people would show me more respect whilst the same style in a different colour the next day could see me the butt of some mean remarks. What message was the colour giving off? Could it be that the colour was part of why people chose to respect or disrespect me?

At the tender age of 7, like many girls, I dreamt of  being a model when I grew up. But the weight was an issue and on further investigation I became to realize that my body shape was never going to be a size 0, even with all the dieting in the world, it was just not going to happen.  I continued to experiment and express myself through style and clothes, realising the word ‘power dressing’ which gave me immense security. 

Like every child in school, one must choose a career path.  At age 13, a careers advisor encourage me to investigate being an air hostess.  I was told I couldn’t be one and that learning secretarial skills would give me a better chance of getting a job at home.  I went to Secretarial college and trained as a secretary and I felt trapped - I hated being stuck behind a desk.  I'm the type that thrives on meeting people and whilst this paid money, it was leaving me feeling drained in other ways. At the age of 18 I set up a wedding company, buying and selling wedding dresses, while in my spare time I trained to be a florist and ended up moving to mainland Scotland. This twist of fate took me to Glasgow where finally I found my chance - an airline wanted hostesses and one month later I'd left Scotland for the bright lights of the City.

Being an Air Hostess gave me the interaction with people I craved. I met Kylie Minogue, Jude Law, Sadie Frost, Gary Linecar and Freddie Star to name but a few. At the same time I got 1st class lesson in how hard it can be for us to keep up appearances when you are constantly on the go! When a road traffic accident meant that I could no longer continue flying, I was determined to spend more time on myself which was why I went back to my roots and began looking at style, image and colour and how I could help people use these tools to improve the quality of their lives.

I was fortunate enough to discover some great mentors in Colour Psychology that brought out my true colours! People like Bernay Laity of in:colour nurtured my enthusiasm and validated my belief that colour transforms our perception of ourselves by showing me how it encourages and supports inner strength, confidence and personal development. I was also very influenced in my early days by the writing of Angela Wright and her early 80s work that combined science and art to give effective use of colour in psychology. There is a lot more substance to being a colour consultant than simply saying "sling on some pink, dear!". I've been a member various industry associations like The Federation of Image Consultants and Colour International and I attend a wide range of continuing professional development courses, conferences and seminars.

My guiding principle as your image consultant, and what sets me apart from other image consultants, is that I want to help you increase your self esteem and build a healthy self image through working with me. You may never have been openly bullied, felt like you didn't fit in or were the odd one out yet you still know that you are looking to change and improve the way you dress. Whatever your reasons, I offer a caring, unhurried service. I'm not at all snobbish or pretentious and I'm unjudgemental - I've seen it all before, so any nervousness you feel will turn to a smile and a feeling of friendship once you hear my voice. You'll get my undivided attention to help you address whatever issues you may have and go away feeling and looking fantastic. If you are in any doubt whatsoever, just pick up the phone and call me - a 30 second phone call will do more to set you at ease than an hour of reading! I'm on 07775 603921 and I look foward to talking with you and getting to know you better.

Warmest regards,

Elaine Mackenzie
Founding Consultant, Colour Class Image Consultants

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