Looking good the whole year through

REVIEWS BY DEANNA LARSON

As we waddle into the new year, the weight-loss ads and get-fit advice begin to sound like the grownups in a Peanuts TV special. The following books on perfecting your personal style act as a spritz of lemon in cold mineral water for the jaded self-renovator.

Real renewal starts with the interior, of course, but a balanced checkbook, great job and a pair of sexy heels wouldn't hurt, either. Former Oxygen Media producer Melissa Kirsch covers the gamut and gives a bright, breezy Life 101 course to "post-college and pre-marriage" women spit out into the cruel world in The Girl's Guide to Absolutely Everything. True to its title, the book covers topics ranging from health and body image to dating and sex, dealing with bosses, managing money, cultivating a good credit rating and making major purchases like a car or house. The guide also covers how to keep or dump friends, achieve spirituality, get along with family, say you're sorry, use the right fork and escape the yoke of the college major. Kirsch's sardonic sophistication is splattered everywhere, especially in her section titles ("The Black Sheep Grows the Prettiest Wool," "Temping Without Contempt," "Chablis is Not a Breakfast Drink") and her concise, kick-butt advice is surrounded by "least you need to know" sidebars, experts' two cents and plenty of sharing by friends and acquaintances about what would have made their lives better had they known it earlier. "Girl, meet World," Kirsch writes. "World, play nicely."


Wearing it well The inside counts, but the outside packaging can make all the difference between a date or a job and a pass over. Hollywood clothing designer and stylist Bradley Bayou, who has dressed Oprah, Halle Berry, Salma Hayek, Queen Latifah and Eva Longoria, believes that every woman can look sexy in the right clothes. The Science of Sexy goes beyond the typical pear, apple, hourglass, rectangle body advice, creating 48 sub-types based on height and weight, as well as silhouette shape. Bayou then sends readers to different color-coded "fitting rooms" where they find illustrated outfits and detailed information on their "blessings" (every body has 'em), the "new you" looks and what not to wear ("Really. I mean it"), covering casual, work and formal occasions. Sexy is balanced, well-fitting clothes that train a spotlight on those blessings, according to Bayou, and his guide helps retrain a woman's eye to recognize them.


Looking "appropriate" as you age, while not giving in to stretch pants, low-rider jeans and scrunchies, is a challenge taken up by Christine Schwab in The Grown-Up Girl's Guide to Style. Schwab, a fashion contributor to "Live with Regis and Kelly," "Oprah," "Today," "Entertainment Tonight" and "E!", believes that women over 40 should look sexy and vital and feel confident, and she offers her simple principles for achieving these goals in major style areas including clothes (disaster #1: nakedness); hair (goodbye, hairspray and helmet head); face and skin (white "Chiclet" teeth take years off, and so does a light tinted moisturizer); and makeup (more brush, less trowel). Schwab also covers the aging inner self, discussing brain health, menopause, maintaining marriages and stepfamilies and other relationships, and fitting exercise and sex into a changing lifestyle. The do and don't photos scattered throughout make our own less-than-graceful aging a little more tolerable, too.


Learning from the masters

It's no secret that celebrities glow and look glam because teams of beauty experts follow them around. The Handbook of Style, bound in faux croc, is everywoman's chance to even the field. As told to Francine Maroukian and Sarah Woodruff, the handbag-sized, illustrated guide poses common and slightly obscure questions to beauty and fashion insiders, from makeup artists, skin specialists and hair stylists, to clothing designers, jewelers, magazine editors and consultants. The result is like sitting next to Jeanine Lobell of Stila Cosmetics, Mireille Guilliano (French Women Don't Get Fat), Annoushka Ducas of Links of London, and Donald J. Pliner at a dinner party— you'll learn how to create a smoky eye, choose the perfect black dress or white shirt, deal with a blemish, travel in style, become a hat person and spot a comfortable, sexy shoe. Now, if only a financial coach could reveal how to pay for it all over coffee.


Deanna Larson is a writer in Nashville.

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