Image Consultants Give Style Advice

It’s You! Looking Terrific, Whatever Your Type, by Emily Cho and Neila Fisher with Hermine Lueders (Villard Books: $17.95).

It seems every image consultant worth his or her advice now has a system for categorizing the world into assorted image types.

Emily Cho, a New York-based consultant whose book jacket credits her as “founder of the field of image consulting,” and her partner Neila Fisher now divide women into six types: sexy-alluring; sporty-casual; feminine-romantic; exotic-dramatic; arty-offbeat and classic-elegant. The authors instruct the reader on how to define her type and then describe suitable wardrobes that communicate the message appropriate to each type.

Simplicity is the key to this book. Unlike many books on systems that leave the reader thoroughly confused about what type they are, this one is easy to follow and is filled with illustrations.

Though the advice occasionally gets too simplistic, it also redeems itself by insisting that individual integrity is the key to looking good.

As Cho and Fisher put it: “That’s the only criterion that matters: Is this--this skirt, this jacket, this necklace, this blouse, this dress-- right for you? Does it say who you are as clearly and authentically as your voice? If it does, you will look fine wherever you are.”