Here are some musings about fashion, style and retail to wrap up the year. Of course, there is no right or wrong here because these are subjective opinions and based on my own experiences. Feel free to agree, disagree, and add to my list because it’s all in good fun. 

  • Best Customer Service: Amazon, Zappos and Nordstrom. 
  • Fashion Editor With The Best Style: Emmanuelle Alt. 
  • Ugliest Shoe: Jeffery Campbell’s Over SP Boot.
  • Best Trends: Trousers, colours and booties.  
  • Worst Fashion Trends: Leg shortening cropped pants and over the top heel heights. 
  • Most Saturated Items in Retail: Cropped Pants, cardigans, rugged boots and sky-scraping platforms.  
  • Worst Colour: Soul Sucking Beige. 
  • Best Part About Today’s Fashion: It celebrates an infinite variety of stylish possibilities. We are finally living in a fashion era that is accepting and encouraging of all sorts of outfit juxtapositions and silhouettes. Long may it last. 
  • Worst Part About Today’s Fashion: Casualization. 
  • Most Underrated Fashion Accessory: Nude hose. Seeing very stylish women in Japan sport nude hose with grace and spunk has changed my mind about the item forever. 
  • Best YLF Muse: Rosie.
  • Favourite Accessories: Patterned belts and daytime clutch. 
  • Best Dressed Blokes: Greg and Daniel Craig. 
  • Best Part about YLF: Working with Greg, our organic growth, the global integrity of our readership, and the high level of engagement of our community. 
  • Worst Part about YLF: Not being able to see Inge regularly because we live on opposite sides of the world. 
  • Most Unexpected Fashion Moment: Interviewing Stacy London and having a ball.  
  • Most Unexpected Purchase: Blush moto jacket. 
  • Worst Purchase of the Year: Kate Spade blouse because it creases on the arms which drives me batty. 
  • Most Exciting Retailer: Zara. Their ability to interpret the latest trends at affordable prices with busloads of sophistication and panache in less than a fortnight blows my mind. I absolutely love their style integrity and this year was one of the best seasons I’ve seen Zara put together. 
  • Most Disappointing Retailer: Zara. Their clothing quality is extremely inconsistent, which is just as mind blowing as their killer style integrity. Sometimes, you can literally throw a garment away because it falls apart. 
  • Most Interesting Business Observation: They say you should never work with friends and family, and for obvious reasons this makes good sense. Yet, I work with Greg (hubby) and Inge (a close friend) daily and it’s an absolute pleasure. Morgan (another good friend) works with Greg on the phone apps and they also have a marvelous working relationship. I guess we got lucky with our working relationships. 
  • Most Important Part of a Style Journey: To have fun along the way. 
  • Best Thing About Our Bodies: They are never wrong. Clothes can be wrong, but our bodies are always right. 

To end off the year, here are some of the outfits that made me happiest in 2012. Be it their nostalgic component, the silhouettes, comfort factor, colour combinations, fabric integrities, or because they were one of Greg’s favourites. But more importantly, each outfit has a happiness factor of 11 out of 10. And the happiness-factor of an outfit wins hands down no matter what.