Fashion Sense & Trends with Keith Kee

• Tweet
• Sharebar

• Tweet

Many people think that joining the modeling academy is all about catwalk, catwalk and more catwalk. It’s enlightening to know that after joining the Amber Chia Academy, I was not taught just catwalk alone. The class schedule included many bonus talks that are beneficial to models, which I thought was a brilliant way to groom us into a complete package. I mean, if a model can strut the runway with perfect catwalk but has terrible fashion sense or does not know how to socialize, the model certainly cannot go very far, can she? And I believe that’s the same reason why ACA nurtures its students with plenty of courses such as fashion, hair, nutrition as well as public-speaking, to groom them into not just any catwalk models but a professional model.

Fashion Sense and Trends by Keith Kee

Last week was the first class we attended without doing catwalk. It was a bonus talk by renowned fashion designer Keith Kee, who is no stranger especially in the bridal fashion industry. I believe I might have even tried on some of his gowns during my own wedding gown fitting! That night, the talk was about Fashion Sense and Trends.

Body proportion consists of 8 heads

Basically, we were taught 3 main topics on Fashion, which are Body Proportion, Colour Combination and Clothing Style. Keith stressed over and over again that the most important element that we have to know about ourselves is our body proportion. Not everyone is born with equal proportion of waist and legs, some might have longer waist (body) and shorter legs while others could be vice-versa. The idea in fashion is to dress ourselves up to create a proportionate body. The normal human height is divided into 8-head length, and a proportionate body should have about 3.5-4 heads at the upper body and 4-4.5 heads at the legs.

Cold and Warm colours

Next, we were taught on the colour combination in fashion – the difference between Cold, Warm and Earth colours. Anyone with fashion sense should know that cold and warm colours usually do not match well, so we’re advised to avoid that combination. For me, I always like to combine colours with Earth tones (black, white, brown) to be on the safe side!

Possible colour combinations

The fun part about this talk was Keith actually brought in a wardrobe of clothes for us to try on! Each of us was given an assignment to dress according to a particular colour combination. Then, we’re given some time to choose the outfit based on the requirement, try it out and let the others comment on our choice.

The wardrobe of clothes

Rebecca was first to go, and I think she was given the colour combination of Earth + Cold? That’s why she ended up with a black dress and a blue belt. Keith commented that her combination was good, and he located her waist to see if her body was proportionate. You see, if a person has a short waist, his advice was to place the belt lower to create the illusion that the waist is longer. The same applies otherwise. In this case though, Rebecca was said to have the correct proportion of waist to legs, so she’s fine with where her waist is.

Rebecca with Earth + Cold combination

Some of the other combinations are shown below:

Stephy with Earth + Earth combination

Jolene with Earth + Warm combination

Jia Yi with Warm + Warm combination

 Allison with Cold + Cold combination

Jean with Print + Earth Colour

Ai Lin – can you guess her combination?

When it came to my turn, I was supposed to look for Print + One Colour combination. My first pick was this tube dress in grey with a striped jacket. But guess what? I could not fit into that size S tube! *embarrassed* So, I returned to the wardrobe and picked what I thought was a safe choice – an elastic maxi dress. *LOL* The dress was flowery and pink, and I had to look for another piece with One Colour to match with it. Due to the limited choices, I only found a white sleeveless piece to go with it, and I think I looked horrendous! Even Keith commented that while my colour combination was correct, the fashion style was off. I had to agree! But we both also agreed that it’s due to his limited wardrobe, and he said I’d look better without the white sleeveless piece.

Print + One Colour

It was also from this class that I found out that my waist to leg ratio was proportionate (yay!), and that I should not wear high-waisted dresses that would make me look like I have a short body! (I certainly have a few of them in my closet ) Well, we learn something new everyday, don’t we? There was more on what Keith spoke about so you should join this to find out! This is definitely a good class for beginners who have no fashion sense and would like to know how to portray the best of their body shape with the help of fashion!

Note: This is Part 6 of a series of my experience being a modeling student at Amber Chia Academy. Check out the remaining  parts here.