Hello, Danusha here and welcome to today's episode. I'm thrilled to be joined by Evadni Davis. We'll be talking about fashion and exploring how our personal style can be an expression and it is an expression of who we are. Evadni's passion for helping people discover their unique style is honestly contagious.
Grab a couple and settle in and let's get started with my first question to Evadni. Do you veered towards more glamour than you do practical or where do you sit on that? I mix it together because I work from home but I'm a strong advocate for getting dressed work even if you are staying in your house all day or just going to the school gate. So what I like to do is if I have a pair of jogging bottoms on or a lascated waist, they're in a really great colour or a finish or a detail.
I have some really fun vintage jumpers that I'll throw them and I'm at my desk. I love wearing pink lipstick and just fun things to grant me in that sense of expression because it's very easy to kind of roll out of bed in your pajamas in front of the computers and today, but I actually think that what you choose to wear is such a big expression of who you are and it completely changes your mindset for the day. So I'm always very practical and very comfortable but I like a flash just like metallic or a bit of a sequin here or there. I really love that because that practicality with that expression of individuality and your pizzazz, it sounds like then that grounding of who you are.
But that attention to detail sounds really important. It is, you know, I live in the suburbs but I'm creating content that is a stylist that is directional. There are many times when I'm literally I will spend two weeks within my home or the surrounding area and those kind of additional splashes of colour and my style ground to me in my career and what excites me though it makes things more directional. What does excite you?
Oh, just life. Life excites me. Creation, just the beauty in everything is so exciting, the potential of everything. I'm one of those people I will put my headphones on and I will just sit on the tube or go to a cafe and I love watching people.
I love looking at what they do. I love how they interact with life. Life is wonderful and music. Yeah, what really comes to mind as you're speaking is the vibrancy of you both in terms of how you describe your clothes but also the vibrancy of what you really get excited by and in intensity.
I don't mean in that kind of exacting hardware in a high-maintenance way. I mean a zest for life. Yeah, definitely. I think some people may find it great but I've always been that kind of Pollyanna personality.
I just see the good and the potential in everything. So I generally find most situations in people really exciting. It's interesting, isn't it, that that would be seen as Pollyanna-ish. So when you're people watching, what are the themes that you see?
Do you look and go, oh, she's one of those kinds of women? A certain kind of look or a... because we're talking about an expression of ourselves, aren't we? So are there ways that you can get a little window in on people?
Yeah, I definitely can see certain nuances, even if it's near bank on the central line and someone is in a skirt suit. But I look down and there's something about the heel on their shoes that is a little bit fierce or their handbag or their choice of lipstick or the way they tie their scarf. Things like that will point to that kind of strength of personality. I always love the punk.
It's not punk within punk rockers, that element of rebellion in whether you are that person in the city or the teenager or the retired man who's rocking a pair of the M, all of these things point to that kind of love of expression and confidence. Yeah, that's spirit. That's actually sitting in the tiny detail or even if it could be chanting at you, but it's often the people that are seemingly ordinary, isn't it? They're towing the line of the suit, but then you see, look at that little detail.
I see those cufflinks that have some profanity on them. Do you work with teenagers? Yeah, often I love working with teenagers. What is it that we seem to lose as adults, that teenagers have, if anything?
Do we lose anything? Because we seem to just get a bit duller. Yeah, is it just a reality of life? Because I speak to teenagers and they're so, sort of, like anything can happen and I'm going to do this and I really think this and you're like, you're listening to them.
I really love talking with them about their style and their things they're passionate about. And then I suppose just life and the realities of it, disappointments come that may not be so frequent as a teenager. And I think there's that sense of being untouchable. I've done a couple of shoots now with some team boys that are in a parkour group and I've stood and watched them jump across rooftops and thought I would be sick watching them do that for them.
It was just a fearless myth. It was just almost invincible. It's exciting. But while it literally belongs to them.
How do we as mothers and as ambitious working women, how do we slay our style and be dangerous? I think it's really important that women, mothers, no matter if you're in your 50s and 60s or 20s or 30s or whatever, whether you have lumps and bumps and all over the place or whatever it is, that you just play, that you just push yourself, you experiment and you revisit your wardrobe and look at new combinations. When I say clay, I am quite bold in how I dress. That's my style.
For some people, it might be that their style is always wearing beautiful white shirt. Yes, that would be saying without touch houses. That's laying because it makes you feel fabulous and amazing. It's about finding your own way because I think what has happened, definitely, with mum influences and mum style influences is this idea that if you don't have that leopard print maxi dress, take a couple.
What the famous leopard print? The only way to be stylish or to slay is to look like everyone else. I think that's really important. I couldn't imagine anything worse.
It's about finding out who you are, what you like, trying out new things and then taking them away. I think it's inappropriate or age appropriate to do whatever makes you feel amazing. Well, it isn't that good that it actually is about experimentation and it sounds like that actually when we find what our version of slay is, then we're closer to ourselves, obviously, and that's the point. And this is why it's important to find out who you are because when you know who you are, you'll have a wardrobe that has things that you can literally grab and put on and know that you look great.
But I know when I pick something out of my wardrobe, it will be great because I choose well. How did you discover to choose well for yourself? It's interesting. Motherhood completely changed how I approached style.
I gave birth in a room in front of loads of people who had never seen. They saw my vagina and my son come out. And I was like, if I could do that, I can dress her up and I won't. I don't care.
I'm and also looking at all of these clothes that I had bought one, maybe never worn or worn a couple of times, it was really trend-led that I was getting rid of and realizing that I kept going back to the same thing. And just, yeah, it was really experimenting and looking at what worked with my body and what made me happy. So I got, yeah, I realized just how much I was wasting. Yes.
Yeah. And so what suited your body and what made you happy became more important than following the trends that really might suit other people. Yeah, basically. And just focusing on what I like.
Yeah, sounds like a big project in self-love. Yeah, it's definitely been a massive project in self-love and understanding who I am and what I want and what I value and my confidence levels and all sorts of things. Fascinating. So how do you approach style with your kids?
I'm really curious about this. It's interesting because I am a kid's fashion star. And I think it's really important that they develop their own sense of style. So, and they wear things.
If it is a design address, I won't save it for best. I let my daughter wear it and I let her play. I had a mum who dressed her daughter only in design clothes and therefore her daughter wasn't allowed to eat anything with red food, dye, and it. So no, no, no, no.
I don't think that's great. I want my kids to be kids and to develop their own sense of style. I want them to feel confident in a way that I wasn't because of being insecure. I think that's really important, isn't it?
So I noticed Sarah Fina, my girl triplet, she got some really pretty things and very girly stuff. Now she also has obviously two brother triplets and she's suddenly started wearing their shorts and she's that bit smaller than them. So she can wear what they had last year. And it's really interesting because she talked to me about how these clothes make her feel better, these boys' clothes.
And I've been thinking about this, about the straight jackets that we, you know, the style that female style is. And it kind of bothers me a lot actually. Yeah. It's interesting.
My daughter did the same thing the other day. She spent the whole day running around in her brother's old clothes. She's very comfortable in them. For the most part, girls are just as rough and tumble.
Boys are. And if you look back on the coast, I'm an 80s baby. So clothes are much more gender neutral. They're like advertising certain you was.
They got an advert, had a girl in a pair of dungarees and a t-shirt. And that's how I was dressed. It's interesting. One of my side icons is Catherine Hepburn.
Oh yes. Because I think she just changed everything for women. Like I can't look at any photograph of her and not want everything that she wore in it. And she, you know, in the third two, she did the masculine feminine.
She did it all. Well, she played, she didn't change, she played with the fluidity of how to express this stuff. And I think that's coming round full circle really, which is that to slay it, we need to experiment with who we might be in different times. What brings out different parts of us?
There are so many different facets to us, which is what I was saying. I spend the day gardening, listening to the bird, listening to jazz, feeling really mellow and chilled and earthy. And then on the flip side, I'll be dressed up with a green wig for mums at rays and latex. You know, they were just, you know, I want cack hands and I want it all.
That's me, maybe. You're not on your own. You just, you know. There are so many doors to her and it's okay to open them and say, yeah, this is still me.
Oh, I'm not, no. Thank you so much for this conversation. There are indeed so many doors to us and why not open them? Yeah, I'm sure if I've had any, that's just beautiful.
Thank you. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling incredibly inspired to leave out my wardrobe and embrace my individuality even more. Remember, wearing clothes can be about having fun and experimenting and discovering what makes you feel truly confident and fabulous. Thanks for listening.
So next time, keep thinking and loving. Take care, everyone.