InStyle: Instant Style: Your Season-by-Season Guide for Work and Weekend

by InStyle Magazine, Kathleen Fifield

A comprehensive guide to fashion for every season of the year outlines essential clothing items for winter, spring, summer, and fall and demonstrates how to complement them to accentuate one's personal style, including more than five hundred photographs, shopping calendars, and tips on editing one's wardrobe and organizing one's closet.

Genres: Fashion, Nonfiction, Reference, Own

208 pages, Flexibound

First published October 24, 2005

About the author

InStyle is an American monthly womens fashion magazine founded in 1994.

It is owned by People Inc., and started originally as a brand extension of People before carving out its own identity. In February 2022, it was announced that InStyle would cease print publications and move to a digital-only format.

Reviews

[Shannon]

I love this book almost as much as my fashion favorite, The Lucky Shopping Manual. Both have great pictures and practical advice, although this book is more on celebrity style made for the normal woman. A must have for the fashionista.

[Srilatha]

Loved it!

The book gets straight to the point with clean pictures that depict what its trying to convey and less text.

This book will remain one of my favorites on this topic..

[Dawn]

A great fashion book by one of my favorite magazines. Teaches you how to properly dress for your body shape, what to look for when shopping, and what to save on and what to splurge on.

[Nadine]

Came for the travel packing section, flipped through the rest. Some advice and suggestions still work really well, others not so much (Hillary Swank in a twinset, yikes). Starts out nicely diverse, becomes quickly whitewashed. I did like the packing for travel chapter.

[Kimmi]

It's a great book. I did purchase the 2006 copyrighted edition. So the oriental cover has the following celebrities on it; Jennifer Aniston, Natalie Portman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Rosario Dawson.

[Victoria Moore]

Exquisitely photographed and well-organized "In Style Instant Style (Your Season-by-season Guide for Work and Weekend)" by Kathleen Fifield is the perfect fashion book for women who want to look good despite the season's trends. Divided into six chapters, the most valuable ones for me were "Chapter One "Be Your Own Stylist" which included how to work with your body type and personal style. The "Daytime Capsule Wardrobe" section for Fall/Winter in Chapter Three was also very illuminating too with enough styles in the "Suits," "Skirts," "Blouses" and other categories for me to examine and select for future shopping lists.
Although I enjoyed seeing the "looks we love" photos of Kate Winslet in a "cool white pantsuit sans shirt" and Katie Holmes in a "crisp white shirt" I obtained more creative ideas from the coordination layouts "One Suit, Four Ways," and "Great Work Looks." Photographed as sartorial scarecrows, the accompanying text made them easier to visualize on myself in the mirror. The best part of the book is the way it eschews the trendy and sticks with classics, retro and investment pieces that you could wear for years. To guide the reader Chapter Six "No-Regrets Shopping" was invaluable to me because it addressed the "Prep Work" you need to do before hitting the stores. The "Vintage Shopping," though brief, was also important because it offered excellent advice for vintage clothing shoppers at all levels. Finally to help the reader get to work on their wardrobe the book comes with a "Shopping List" for Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer and an "InStyle instant style workbook" enclosed in the front and back cover flaps. Insightful and intelligent this book was a revelation to read and use.

[Christina]

This book was REALLY useful for someone like me who struggles to find and execute a sense of personal style. It gives a good overview of some of the "basics" that should be in everyone's wardrobes, and explains things that may be second-nature to some people (e.g., how long slacks should be), but which were previously a hazy mystery to me. If you need a primer on fashion and style, or even just a kind of "check list" for what you should make sure to have in your closet, this is a good resource. Also, I found the descriptions of the various body types interesting and useful (now I understand why form-fitting crew neck shirts don't look good on me!).

[Laura]

Much like the magazine, the book puts together outfits for nearly every occasion imaginable. I wish I had a tenth of their skill in knowing what prints go together and I wish I had the time to actually shop for these things. I liked the section on one article of clothing done four ways--the practicality of using a single shirt for work, or on a weekend, or for a date was appealing. If you like the magazine, you'll like the book.

[Hoan]

I loved this book for all of the images and interesting combos! I almost love my own closet now - cuz they were totally on target about essential pieces. So if you like clothes - this may not help. But if you need help shopping - this may be a good guidebook. Overall I would use this book for inspiration! I am planning on using it to sew my own cloths. Great picture book!

[Katie Tatton]

I liked the "One shirt---Four Ways" pages. Mostly stuff I knew, but there were some lovely new ideas, you know, for when I have a thousand dollars to spend on "high quality, versatile basics" to build my wardrobe on.

[Clare]

Just love the colour and texture combinations. It's the collage loving artist in me. Had some complaints from a school librarian though, a couple of pictures are a little indiscreet for young readers.

[Michelle]

Learned some good ideas from this book.

[MissJessie]

Nice enough book with good photos but nothing really new or innovative.

If you've read the magazine, you've read the book.

Definitely for the younger, thinner crowd.

[Jane Dugger]

Always helpful & great for ideas.

[Bita]

Just like the magazine, lots of nice pictures, great ideas.
Lots of celebrity pictures. I like it, it also gives ideas on how to clear the closet and what to buy....
Nice,

[Eva]

More of a "you need to buy this exact piece" book than anything else, and that's just not my style.

[Shelton TRL]

Best ideas on how to dress on certain occasions. And knowledge of how to whip up a great outfit

[Annette]

some good tips in here