The Baltimore Book Festival: Tim Gunn and "The Wardrobe Wizard"

     I am Nancy Goldblatt, a professionally trained "Personal Image Consultant," based in Baltimore, Maryland.  I call myself "The Wardrobe Wizard of Baltimore."  I specialize in working with women whose size or shape has changed or who have too many clothes and nothing to wear.    I help my clients by first teaching them how to shop in their own closets.  They get a wallet of their best colors and line drawing of their best styles.  Most of my clients are women but I also work with men.

     This weekend Sept 25-27th, 2009 is the 14th annual Baltimore Book Festival. This reminded me of what happened several years ago, (I believe it was 2 years ago.)  when Tim Gunn,  of Project Runway, was one of the featured speakers. I am a fan of Tim's and I was looking forward to hearing him speak.  At that time Tim had just gotten his own show and had written a book.  He was speaking at the  Baltimore Book Festival to publicizing his new book.

     Unfortunately, I had trouble finding parking and by the time I found parking and walked 5 or 6 blocks to the book festival I had missed his talk.When I finally got to the area where he had spoken, I discovered there was a long line of people waiting for him to autograph the book they had just purchased.

     The book was sold out, so I borrowed some one's book and scanned it.   I was disappointed because  I did not see any new information in it that I had not seen elsewhere.  I have a hunch the book may have been written quickly to capitalize on the popularity of Project Runway and Tim's new show which had just begun.

     I was disgusted with myself for not arriving earlier and my back was in spasm and I was looking for a place to sit down. I passed a small table with two chairs.  There was a sign that said something like "Sit down, and participate in a psychic experiment."  The experiment  was sponsored by students from Maryland Institute of Art.     I asked for more information, but mostly I wanted a place to sit and rest.

     The experiment was simple, there was a sender and a receiver.  I would be the sender.  There was a volunteer receiver already seated.  All I had to do was sit down at the table and concentrate on an image in my mind and try to send the image to the receiver.  He had a pencil and paper and would draw what he received.  I decided to picture "the happy face symbol from the 1960's."  I choose this because I was feeling the opposite of happy and I wanted a distraction from my "pity party."

     I concentrated as hard as I could to mentally picture the "happy face symbol . " The receiver began drawing after a minute or two.   I watched as he drew a line and then made it curve around.  At the end of the line he drew two sheep.  The MICA student asked me if that was the image I sent.  I said, "No, I was picturing a happy face symbol."   I looked at the pencil drawing again and started laughing.  I realized the line the receiver drew that curved around was the same shape as the long line of people waiting for Tim Gunn's autograph. I would not have called those fans of Tim, sheep, at least I would not have said it out loud.  But when I saw the picture "the receiver," had drawn, I realized that's what I had been thinking they looked like as they stood in line clutching their newly purchased books.

Tags: Wardrobe Style Looking Good On A Budget Body Image