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Nov. 6--If being a fashion stylist requires special abilities, then consider Anchorage's Dzagbe Manning Superwoman.
She always wears heels and often a chic belt, she has almost paranormal insight when it comes to clothes, and she has the power to help you through any style crisis.
Manning (her first name is pronounced "Jag") will shop for you, pack for your vacation, organize your closet and even take care of your dry cleaning and alterations.
"I do whatever people tell me to do as long as it has to do with fashion," Manning said. "I just want to play with clothes all day."
Her business, Stylized Fashion and Image Consulting, is a little bit of everything: modeling and styling for fashion shows and photo shoots, personal shopping and styling, and even coaching clients on image presentation. But the biggest draw, she says, is individual wardrobe consultations.
Allowing a stylist into your wardrobe conjures images of empty hangers and tug of war with your favorite sweatpants. But that's not Manning's MO.
"I don't like to do the 'What Not to Wear' guerrilla-style, get rid of stuff (approach)," she said. "I don't push people out of their element."
For Manning, fashion is a lifestyle. She studies clothing, styles and designers, internalizing concepts and innovating trends.
"I'm constantly reading about fashion. I have all this locked up information. I know the dumbest fashion facts."
It's true. She can tell you who invented the zipper and why, she can provide an oral history of jeans, and she has encyclopedic knowledge of designers.
Manning remembers latching onto Vogue as a kid when her mom occasionally brought the magazine home but admits that her entry into fashion was through a back door.
"I used to wear 12 belts, and none of them held up my pants," Manning joked. "I was really into hair metal and punk -- the two genres are really about fashion."
Not sure where to go after graduating from Steller Secondary School at 15, Manning participated in a summer session at Parson's The New School of Design in New York. She left Parson's unsure that fashion design fit her, she said. She kept at it anyway, landing at Saint Martin's College of Art and Design in London, where she earned a two-year degree in design.
When Manning returned to Anchorage from London six years ago she started at Nordstrom, where she still works part time as its visual merchandising stylist, designing window and in-store displays. Manning slowly realized she wasn't really interested in pursuing her own designs but instead had a natural ability to play with other designers' work.
A freelance stylist business in Anchorage seemed a long shot at first, she said. Print advertising and a Web site were on her upstart's to-do list, but right away Manning developed a client base by word of mouth and just being her fashionable self.
"It's just talking to people. It's just going places," she said. "My husband laughs at me because I'll be at the Home Depot, and I'm wearing my heels and people will come up and talk to me. I'm my own best advertising."
There are a few moments Manning doesn't think about fashion -- and that's only because she's thought about it already.
"I don't have to pick clothes in the morning because I have a system," she said. "Each Sunday I write out every single outfit for the week in my day planner, from top to shoe."
On a Monday in mid-October Manning wore plaid Capri pants, a lacy, vintage-looking button-up shirt with an oversized black patent belt and black heels. The entry scribbled in her pocket planner for that day reflected the outfit exactly.
The system may seem silly, but it keeps Manning on task and on time. It's also an example of practicing the lessons she teaches her clients.
"I try to make it as easy as possible and find a system that will work for you," she said.
Manning's clients are diverse. She's worked with girls as young as 14 and women in their 60s. Their styles and shapes run the gamut, and budgets do too -- Manning has worked with monthly teenage allowances and "the sky's the limit." But the obstacles are the same: "(Clothing) is such an emotional issue," she said. "It's so tied into how we feel about ourselves.
"Fashion, I think, should be about escaping the rules. It should be fun. It should be fluff."
Leslie Boyd lives and writes in Anchorage.
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Reach fashion consultant Dzagbe Manning at Dzagbemanning @yahoo.com.
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Copyright (c) 2006, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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