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 Born in the Wairarapa, New Zealand, I was fortunate
to be exposed to many different cultural, art and sporting activities.
Each one gave me a different aspect on communicating and how
ones image is an enormous part of life. Māori Kapa Haka
groups taught me to stand proud and feel beautiful while singing—the
uniform was strong and reflected natural feminity to me. Ballet
dancing was the ultimate discipline in dance, stage presence,
performance and deportment. Speech and drama exams, debating
teams, public speaking and acting where the focus was on the
me. The right image, stance and words to say were (and still
are) invaluable communication lessons. Netball at school, representative
level and premier league taught me about being a team player,
inspiring motivation and keeping team spirit. Finally modelling
for local clothing designers and hairdressers showed me how
to communicate confidence and personality without speaking.
I had began my journey as an Image Consultant, Stylist and Presenter
and I didn’t even know it.
My dream was to go to Communication School or Performing
Arts’ College. Instead I chose Teachers’ Training
College at Waikato University: it seemed the best mixture
of both. I was able to combine all my interests: Māori
studies, dance and drama, phys ed and communication. I had
the best four years gaining my degree, learning about life
away from the confinements of my parents and being responsible
only for myself. I also discovered that I loved teaching,
but my passion was not with the education system. It was with
fashion, people and public speaking.
With that in mind I went travelling the world absorbing all
the different cultures, learning about the ways people communicated
and trying out different vocations where I could. Each experience
was filled with invaluable information about how people presents
themselves and why some were more successful in life than
others. I ended up settling into a career as a Training Co-ordinator
and Corporate Presenter in Human Resource Departments for
varying different companies. Part of my job was to teach others
presentation skills. Although this didn’t incorporate
styling I began to teach elements of it: how could someone
be taken seriously when their outfit was completely wrong?
In 2000, I met my beautiful husband who quickly became my
life mentor and now business coach. We married in 2002 and
later that year I won the Wairarapa Bride
of the Year. A competition my Mother entered me into and
one that set a light bulb off. I started to ask: ‘If
I can style myself and gain an award there must be a way I
can teach others.’ Soon after I gave up the corporate
world to become a full time Mum to my two amazing and gorgeous
little girls. It has been and will always continue to be the
most treasured experience of my life. They are now my teachers
and along with my husband need to be credited for my decision
to become an Image Consultant and Fashion Stylist.
While at home my life changed. I was no longer a corporate
woman wearing suits, heels and make-up. I needed more durable
kid friendly stuff than that. But what exactly should a Mum
at home be wearing, especially when breast feeding and trying
to get back into shape? Then there are play groups, mums groups
and social engagements with my husband to think about. Motherhood
is an adventure and one that leads you to wear many different
hats. It took sometime to figure out who the new me was and
it came as no surprise to find out most Mums felt the same.
After much research and many conversations, the light turned
on and lit up the room. I wanted to help people discover who
they are and how important it is to feel good about themselves
while having fun doing it. In January 2008, I entered the
Century City Developments’ Wellington Cup Fashion
in the Field and won both the Traditional Lady of the
Carnival and Supreme Winner. I had an enormous amount of fun
doing it and I encourage everyone to dress up and enjoy the
occasion as you never know what may happen.
After my win, I have been invited onto TVNZ’s
Good Morning as a guest to talk about race day
fashion, colours and body shapes. I am now the fashion editor
at Lucire, the global
fashion magazine.
What my girls have taught me is a new level of communication.
It’'s driven by my love for them. I want them to grow
up believing they are beautiful the way they are. I want to
teach them to be confident, kind and loving women. To do this
I need to show them how it’s done. I have so much information
I want to share with as many people as I can. I want to help
you find out who you are and how to project that confident
image to the world.
YOU are unique—YOU are beautiful—Be the perfect
YOU!
Samantha
B.Ed., Dip.Tchg., Cert.Comms., Cert. Colour and Image Consultant
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