WEBVTT
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it's okay to make mistakes.
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That's how you learn.
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It's the joy of doing, of expressing yourself, kind of like maddox, what you were saying earlier, like when somebody has a really poorly put together outfit and is not projecting the right image, why do do they even do that, right?
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Why do they not know?
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It's okay, you guys, it's a mistake, right, you wore something that just didn't work, but you're willing to put yourself out there, right, dwight?
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Because we hear this quite a bit.
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It's putting yourself out there to say I'm not the best dressed, and that's okay, because I'm not trying to be the best dressed, but I'm trying to be the best version of myself and it's a process.
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Welcome to another edition of For the Love of Creatives podcast.
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I am your co-host, dwight, and I'm joined by our co-host, maddox, and today we have our featured guest, carla Biasi.
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Hi, carla.
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Hey, good morning.
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How are you all?
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Wonderful.
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We're so glad that you can be here.
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I know that we're just popping into people's earbuds and they may not have any idea what they're in for, but could you kind of orient our listener and just tell them a little bit about yourself?
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Sure, little bit about yourself.
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Sure, dwight, I'll do the brief version since we only have an hour.
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But I'm a personal stylist and what I think is a little different about me is I started my love of fashion as a teenager.
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I was just doing some local modeling, working a little bit in retail.
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So, to use the cliche term, I was bitten by the fashion bug at that point in my life and I graduated from college, went to work for an upscale department store, loved it, just went some different ways in my career into advertising, financial services.
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But I knew that I always wanted to get back into fashion.
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So I decided in my 40s I had to start working toward that goal and at 53, I was able to leave corporate America in the financial industry and start my personal styling business and doing something that I don't only truly love.
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I really feel like this is what I was meant to do.
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It's something that comes easy to me.
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I feel like I'm very good at what I do.
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I think that I can educate people as well as entertain a little bit, but really help them make that shift into what they need me to do, which is usually some type of image creation, right.
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So I try to talk a lot about how you present yourself and how that affects your life, because I feel like that's truly what I do.
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It's not so much about matching pieces and colors, it's really about affecting people in the way they live.
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So that's a little bit about me and why I'm here, what I do, and I hope that's answered your question well.
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Beautifully, beautifully, and it really makes me kind of curious about how it is that you were able to carry that, that spark for so long.
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I mean you, you mentioned having that draw toward toward fashion as a little girl, but you, you walked a very traditional path and didn't find your your way back to what it was you wanted to do until much later in life.
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Um, what was that process of, of unfolding and getting back to it, like the funny thing to write is that I really feel like I never left it.
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So, even though I was working outside of the fashion world, I was still.
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I tell people I unofficially, was styling people for decades.
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So even if you know I was doing something completely out of fashion, I was still, you know, dressing the part and helping my colleagues.
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You know dress well.
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So I feel like I never really left it.
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It's just now I can really kind of own it and do only that and get paid for it, versus all that free advice I gave away for years.
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But you know, I think, when it's something that you love and probably you and Maddox feel that about you know this podcast it's just something you enjoy.
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It's, you know, something that comes easy and natural and you feel like you're giving to others and just giving, you know, allowing this kind of outlet for your talent, and so I feel like it's always been there, like I've always been doing it, but I finally got to, you know, shut everything else out and just really focus on this.
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And that's amazing.
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It sounds like you, you really had a sense of that was what you needed to do and what you were doing all along, and it's a little different from the kinds of things that we usually hear where everyone's just kind of gun shy or they, you know, they think well, you know, no one's really going to care what I've got to say, or I'm just not good enough yet.
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Did you ever have any of those moments of self-doubt?
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No, not as far as my career I.
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It just is something that's so Natural to me.
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You know, I get up in the morning and I start my day and getting ready, just putting together that image and that mindset I need for the day to do what I want to do is so ingrained in me.
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Probably the biggest challenge, being a former financial advisor, I did have to reach some financial goals before I could leave the corporate world.
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And that was really hard, Dwight, because that's all I'd ever done.
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I mean, for 30 plus years I've been employed by a corporation, had full benefits, very used to that kind of structure.
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So I have to give big kudos to my husband on that one.
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You know, leaving that security, but I had to make sure he was comfortable with that as well and he's just such a lovely, like easygoing guy.
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You know he's not the kind of person that will ever say no, but it is a responsibility when you have other people in your life a spouse, children you know the bills are coming in.
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I mean there's just a certain amount of responsibility.
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But because of that financial I could do it and I could do it safely, safely and securely, because that would have been the tough part.
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You know, if I couldn't have pulled the trigger on that, then there probably would have been a lot of self-doubt and a little fear every month on the first when the bills come in and that kind of thing.
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But I do truly believe in what I do and I think when you hear people say and I've heard some of your past podcasts, that is, I think, a common thread with people is I believed in what I was doing, I believe I had to do it, I believed it was a calling and I feel that that way.
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So you know, the self-doubt was not so much there, but it was the you know, earning the income factor that had to come quick.
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And it's great that you had that set of skills that you honed from working in financial services.
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Financial services, I mean, you really set yourself up to be well you know, uniquely equipped when going into, looking at, going out on your own.
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Yes, and I'll say this too, because my best friend and I have this conversation all the time about why didn't I know that then?
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But I believe that life is a journey.
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I think you know God has laid out this path for us.
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So I'll tell her things like well, I couldn't have done that, I couldn't do this, if I didn't have that right.
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So I couldn't have done this 20 years ago because I wouldn't have had that financial education and experience to set myself up to do this.
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So I say that because people listening might say, oh gosh, you know it's too late for me to start, or they kick themselves for not doing it at an earlier point in their life.
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But you've got to remember every little thing that you've gone through has put you to where you are now.
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It's steps we have to go through this right.
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Not all of us came, you know, out of school and just immediately lived our dream, but I think every bit of that just makes you more comfortable.
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You know, using kind of your words, self-doubt and taking that away, because you've traveled, you know, to get where you are, and without the travel I just don't know that you'd have the success.
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I agree.
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I believe that everything happens in its own time and had it come about back then you wouldn't have been ready and likely wouldn't have been successful.
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Agreed, carly, you said something that I really, really resonate with.
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I don't know if Dwight has told you this, but I had a 40-year career as a hairdresser, makeup artist, and at one point during that career I did some fashion consulting for a period of time, and I love what you said about the philosophy of it's just not putting colors together and the things that we think of.
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It's not just the pieces, parts, it's the energy behind it.
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In my career as a hairdresser, I met few, few colleagues that saw it that way.
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You know, it was like a new, fresh haircut would come on the scene, some celebrity would pop out with a new, fresh haircut and, you know, every client got some version of that, and I would watch this in the salons I worked in and I always felt like, you know, what's going on on the outside needs to be a reflection of what's going on on the inside, and I can see that that's part of your philosophy.
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But what I'd like to know is but what I'd like to know is how did you come to that?
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Was it something that just naturally flowed it was no question or was there something that taught you that there was this deeper meaning and that you know?
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I've always said to clients.
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You know, our appearance plays a really huge impact on the way we move through life, and one of the things that I always say is think about how you walk in a pair of sneakers.
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You walk a certain way in a pair of sneakers.
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Think about how you walk in a pair of pumps.
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You walk completely different in a pair of pumps, and that's just a metaphor, for you know, a casual outfit to a dressy outfit, or a down hairdo for an up hairdo, or evening makeup with daytime makeup it all affects the way we respond to life, and so I get that that's part of what you're doing, but I'm curious as to how you discovered that deeper meaning.
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Your cat's going crazy with one of your garments back there.
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I would say this For me it was very personal.
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I felt it, I lived it.
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When I started and I was being styled for fashion shows, I could relate to the way I felt when I wore certain things, when people who haven't gone through the experience may not realize the powerful impact of image.
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And once you have the right image and yes, that's wearing the clothes and having the right you know hair and makeup and colors but you get a different response from people.
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And when I started seeing it myself, that's how I realized this is making a whole difference in the way people see me.
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But it's also, and most importantly, the way I felt about myself feeling confident, feeling pretty, being noticed.
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You think about the days that you've gone out and people have complimented oh my God, I love that color on you, you look great today, and sometimes they can't even put their finger on it.
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You know it's like, oh, how you doing you look so good, I don't even know why.
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So I think for me it was living that image creation and seeing how the world responded to me and how I felt about it, that I just believe in it so much, you know, and how it can affect your life.
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It's just a great experience, for you know people that haven't gone through it, just to see that and to feel it, and it does affect your self-confidence.
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I mean, let's just be honest, right, who doesn't want to feel better about themselves?
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And a lot of that can be the way the world perceives us and the response that you get from others.
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I do think that response that we get is only partially because of the visual aspect.
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I think it's more about that we show up differently.
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Yes, you know, our energy is different and that's what they're really responding to.
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The visual is a part of it, a little part of it, but yeah, oh, I love what you're saying and I, you know, I just love that you are really approaching this from a true sense of creativity.
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You are creating something for each client that is specifically for them and suited to them.
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Yes, because it's all personal, it's really built about that person.
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You know, I was reading an article and I'm sure you're familiar with the actress, megan Fox, who I just think is one of the most beautiful women in the world and she was saying at one time she had worked with a stylist and she couldn't stand anything that she was wearing.
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She didn't like a bit of it.
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And I thought here's one of the most beautiful women in the world who's unhappy with her image.
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She's unhappy with the way she looks, she's unhappy in those clothes.
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And I thought what a shame.
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You know, it's our job not only to create the right image, but you have to own it, you have to feel comfortable in it.
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I can tell women a hundred times what to put on, but if they don't feel it and see it, it's not going to make a difference.
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So for me, when I'm helping a client, I ask them a lot of questions how do you feel in this?
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How do you think this looks?
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If I'm doing something to slim or to shape or to highlight, I explain that because I want them to see what I see.
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I say this a million times Every single person in this world is beautiful, every single one, because God only makes beautiful things.
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We as humans can ugly it up real quick, but we're not ugly, we're beautiful, and when I work with a client, the first thing I see is how beautiful they are.
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It could be a facial feature, it could be their shape, their hair color, it could be anything, but that's what hits me first, and I make sure that they see what I see, because so many of us have a tendency to focus on what we don't like.
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Right, especially postmenopausal women, and that's kind of a focus for me.
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You know, that's really a niche that I like to work with, because of that whole shift in body and mind that happens to a woman, and I hate the fact that they think that there's an extra five or 10 pounds.
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So now I am less than that.
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Right, I don't look the way I used to look.
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I don't feel the way I used to feel.
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It doesn't discount you at all.
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You are still the beautiful, vibrant woman you used to be, and so now my job is to make sure you see it the way I do, that's beautiful.
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Oh my gosh, that's really beautiful, carla.
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That really hits me and I love the way that you just you called it out you didn't use the overused euphemism a woman of a certain age.
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No, no, and I'll say, you know, women hit menopause at different times in their life.
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I mean, some women hit it in their 40s.
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I mean I know people who are close to 60 who are dealing with it.
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But it's not just that, it's new moms, you know, they have a lot of body issue because, you know, now I have the baby belly.
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Well, you know what you have a beautiful baby, celebrate your body.
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You know, love who you are and what you have.
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You know, yes, nobody likes to gain weight, none of us like the you know postmenopausal pooch.
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But look what it took to get you there.
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You've had this amazing, beautiful journey through life.
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You've probably, you know, had a spouse and a career and children and these things that have brought you so much immense joy.
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So why would we discount that because of our shape or some extra skin?
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But you can hide those things easily and especially, you know, maddox, with your background, I'm sure you can attest to that.
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It's all an optical illusion.
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It is all an optical illusion, it is all an optical illusion Hair, makeup, color you name it and the clothing.
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You can change somebody's complete figure by just the right shape of outfit, the right silhouette.
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I want to shift gears for a minute.
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I want to go back to a really, really early time in your life and hear what your first.
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If you look back, what was your first introduction to?
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Whether it had anything to do with with wardrobe or clothing, but your first introduction I can't talk today introduction to anything that looked or tasted or smelled like creativity.
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What was that like?
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How old were you and what was it?
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So those, those fond memories, you know.
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Yes.
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So what's really funny, maddox, is I do not see myself being a creative person.
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I because I'm very, in certain aspects of my life, very black and white.
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Right, and that comes from the financial side of me right, it's all black and white, it's numbers.
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They have to add that whole whatever.
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Right brain versus left brain.
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So for creativity, that even though I know for what I do I am creative, I don't know that I've ever had that moment of, oh my gosh, I just created something.
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You know where I think things came together for me were when I was, I'm going to say, junior high and I was doing some modeling and to see how the stylist would put things together.
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That I thought, oh, that's interesting.
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And then I started seeing, you know, colors and shapes and things like that a little differently, instead of being so, you know, structured, and this goes with this.
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You know it's seeing it through other people's eyes, and I am just a firm believer in that's why God put us here right.
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He wanted us to create a community and there's so much value in learning from others, and that's, I think, what really formed me into what I'm doing now is watching other people do it, seeing it through their eyes, learning and observing from other people.
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Do it, seeing it through their eyes, learning and observing from other people, and I think a lot of people find themselves, especially now that we've been we've all been wrecked by the pandemic and lockdowns They've.
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They really are out of touch with what it is to be in community.
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What advice would you give to someone who wants to join a community, creative or otherwise, that feels like they just can't, for whatever reason?
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Gosh, I mean really, dwight, that's such a good question, because I do see people in my life that are so just against asking for help when they need help.
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Let me just say that I think people have to realize that God didn't mean for us to do this journey alone.
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And I don't mean necessarily, you know, romantically, like with spouses, but he created us to be social creatures, and the minute you start seeing community as a strength and not a weakness, you know, oh, I can't do it on my own, I'm expected to do this.
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You know, I have to learn it by myself.
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When we can get past that and see the beauty, and the value of others, helping us succeed, and you know it's like a domino effect.
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You know it's like a domino effect when you can really understand that that community is a source for you and not a hindrance or anight, because nowadays everything is so DIY, right, even when you get hired by a company, you're supposed to do all your own onboarding.
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You know it's so, you have to know it, do it, learn it, produce it, and I think that's part of what takes away from people wanting to be part of a community because it's looked at as a fault.
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Right, I should know how to do this.
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If I don't know how to do it, I better get on social media, better look it up, better get on chat, gpt, because that's what I do and it's just.
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It's such a problem to me because we've taken that connection.
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I'm just going to use that word because that's such an important word to me, both professionally and personally.
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We've lost the value of connection.
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Yes, I agree.
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I love that you use that word, because a running joke that we have is that we don't use the N word in in our household, and that's that's network so you know I have lost count on the number of featured guests that we've had on the podcast that have said, hands down, their most successful projects have been collaborations.
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Yeah, you said something a few minutes ago.
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I'm going to backtrack a conversation back.
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I just want to say, from my perspective, you are highly creative.
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Oh, thank you.
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You know, and I encourage you and this is a conversation I have a lot.
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I encourage you and this is a conversation I have a lot.
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I encourage you to own that.
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You know more so than just I'm a wardrobe consultant or a dress or whatever people use different terms.
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I would encourage you to own that.
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You're a creative.
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I mean, look, you've got a backdrop of a rack and clothing behind you.
00:25:53.731 --> 00:26:08.791
It's part of building your brand and you have completely curated your look for our call today and you know you are highly creative, thank you.
00:26:09.279 --> 00:26:09.359
And.
00:26:09.400 --> 00:26:20.559
I think there's something very magical about when we can own something like that, that it becomes something that's intentional rather than just happens naturally.
00:26:20.559 --> 00:26:29.411
It becomes something that we can wield like a sword rather than just wondering is it going to happen this time or is it not going to happen this time, if that makes sense.
00:26:30.460 --> 00:26:32.673
Oh, yes, absolutely, Absolutely.
00:26:33.838 --> 00:26:36.463
Yeah, and I love the way you own it fully.
00:26:36.463 --> 00:26:42.714
When we go and check you out on social media, you are the closet queen.
00:26:44.786 --> 00:26:45.577
Thank you, Dwight.
00:26:47.723 --> 00:26:52.074
I love that, you know, as two gay men, we love that.
00:26:52.074 --> 00:27:06.877
As two gay men, we love that Closet and queen are two terms that are very, very well known in our lives.
00:27:13.162 --> 00:27:16.288
So how has creativity changed the way you understand yourself?
00:27:16.288 --> 00:27:30.904
I think one thing, probably the most, max, is what you just hit on Me always thinking I'm not creative, but knowing that, yes, I am right, in order to do what I do, I need to be creative.
00:27:30.904 --> 00:27:37.892
But I have never thought of myself in that way.
00:27:37.892 --> 00:27:51.451
So to, I guess, to acknowledge that I'm creative is I don't, it's probably a little hard for me.
00:27:52.291 --> 00:27:54.255
I just You're not alone, it is.
00:27:54.255 --> 00:27:56.961
I have this conversation a lot, you know.
00:27:56.961 --> 00:28:06.893
I literally will corner somebody and say look me in the eyes and say with conviction, I am creative, or I am a creative.
00:28:06.893 --> 00:28:12.029
And there's always this massive shift as soon as they do.
00:28:12.029 --> 00:28:15.221
I can feel it, I can see it and their shoulders drop a little bit.
00:28:15.221 --> 00:28:15.352
As they do.
00:28:15.352 --> 00:28:19.269
I can feel it, I can see it and their shoulders drop a little bit and they exhale and it's just like it's magic.
00:28:19.269 --> 00:28:20.492
It's magic.
00:28:20.720 --> 00:28:21.040
It is.
00:28:21.040 --> 00:28:22.625
I do that exercise.
00:28:22.625 --> 00:28:38.125
I did a post on this probably a couple of years ago with women postmenopausal women in particular looking in the mirror and saying to themselves in particular, looking in the mirror and saying to themselves I am beautiful.
00:28:38.125 --> 00:28:40.272
And being very serious about that, because you know, sometimes that's hard to do.
00:28:40.272 --> 00:28:52.726
It sounds simple, I know, it sounds a little silly, but to look at yourself in the mirror and say I am beautiful, and then I ask them to run through that sentence emphasizing different words.
00:28:52.726 --> 00:29:02.887
So we start with I am beautiful, I am beautiful, I am beautiful and I am beautiful.
00:29:02.887 --> 00:29:14.692
It's so empowering and just that simple exercise can really make people see themselves differently because they're believing it.
00:29:14.692 --> 00:29:20.673
And I'm probably aging myself when I say this, but there used to be a sketch on Saturday Night Live.
00:29:20.673 --> 00:29:24.146
I can't remember the character, stuart.
00:29:24.749 --> 00:29:26.653
Yes, Stuart Smalley.
00:29:26.859 --> 00:29:29.361
He would do his daily affirmations, was it?
00:29:29.401 --> 00:29:30.183
Stuart Smalley.
00:29:30.183 --> 00:29:31.327
Was that what his name was?
00:29:31.327 --> 00:29:33.461
Yes, I can't believe.
00:29:33.461 --> 00:29:34.403
I even remember that.
00:29:34.403 --> 00:29:39.273
I wasn't even a big fan of Saturday Night Live, but I remember Stuart Smalley.
00:29:40.020 --> 00:29:43.871
Yes, we just need to all Stuart Smalley a little bit in our lives.
00:29:44.799 --> 00:29:51.854
You know, I think most human beings struggle just to look into their own eyes in a mirror and say nothing.
00:29:53.181 --> 00:30:00.202
I agree, but to speak to themselves on that level is increasingly even more challenging.
00:30:00.202 --> 00:30:05.410
Yes, yeah, you know.
00:30:05.410 --> 00:30:29.193
I know from my own experience that when you're working with a client, you work with some people who have not just no image, but they have a really bad image, and what you do is, in the truest sense of the word, transformation.
00:30:29.193 --> 00:30:33.730
Yes, because it doesn't only change the way they look.
00:30:33.730 --> 00:30:40.269
It changes the way they feel about themselves and in turn it changes the way people see them.
00:30:40.269 --> 00:30:42.848
It is truly transformational.
00:30:43.601 --> 00:30:49.950
I had a young woman one time that after I finished cutting her hair, I said just let me touch up your makeup.
00:30:49.950 --> 00:30:52.945
She wasn't wearing any makeup, there wasn't really anything to touch up.
00:30:52.945 --> 00:30:59.984
So I put a little makeup on her and turned her back around to the mirror and she was like oh, oh, that's not me.
00:30:59.984 --> 00:31:11.105
And I could tell she was really nervous and I just put just a little bit on her and I squatted down the chair next to her and I looked her in the eyes and I said why are you so unwilling to be pretty?
00:31:11.105 --> 00:31:18.082
And she burst into tears and just sat there and sobbed and I just held space for her.
