What Brand Are You?

I love magazines, don’t you? Yum.

Yesterday, I was hot-diggity-dog pleased to find an interesting article on a topic I love to think about and play with: the art of branding. As a boutique owner, defining a brand identity for one’s store is a critical piece in winning customers and making sales. In my mind, it’s the cornerstone of everything. This article, featured in the May issue of Domino magazine, explores the idea of personal or self-branding--being able to distill the essence of one’s own personal tastes, credo, or philosophy of life and style into two words. (You can double click the photos above to read the article yourself.) The writer describes her experience of a phone consultation with Carrie and Danielle of carrieanddanielle.com, who provide the service of self-branding through asking their customers a series of imaginative questions designed to elicit information about their deepest desires, inspirations, and in fact, identity. I don’t know about you, but this process sounds very cool to me. If only I had a spare $500 sitting around, I might consider contacting Carrie and Danielle myself. In lieu of that, I thought we could try a stab at it here ourselves.

At The Blissful, we carry a line of candles called Capri Blue (for those of you who have been in, they’re the ones in the big fat cobalt blue jars). The best-selling scent, for us, is Boho-Luxe. When I first decided to carry this line, I had pangs of longing over the name of that candle. For me, Boho-Luxe perfectly describes my own personal style. So that's it for me: Boho-Luxe is my two-word style statement! I’m a little bit Bohemian (naturally curly hair worn long and ‘unstyled,’ natural makeup, jeans almost always), but always with a Luxe edge (unusual jewelry, rich beading, patent leather stilettos the color of cola with grenadine—okay, you won’t find me wearing these often, especially not in my shop where I'm on my feet for ten hours a day). Boho-Luxe translates into my home decorating choices, too. Now, while I’m establishing and funneling all my resources into my business, feathering my nest is—shall we say—on hold. But in my previous apartment, my furnishings reflected a Boho-Luxe aesthetic—bone-colored walls, a sofa and oversized chair slipcovered with a merlot-colored tapestry, Indian-inspired throw pillows, a sisal rug, fat candles in sherbet-y colors on grand candelabra. People would tell me it was feminine but not girly, artsy yet ultimately comfortable. Boho-Luxe!

The article explains that your two-word style philosophy should guide you in an 80/20 ratio—the first word should dominate 80% of the time, while the second word provides the unexpected accent or finishing detail. Pump the 20% up a bit too much and you've crossed over into overdone or something totally different. In my case, though, the ratio flip flops depending on my mood or the occasion. Decorating my patio? Boho dominates. Dressing for a wedding? Luxe wins out.

Now it’s your turn. Leave a comment sharing your two-word self-branding statement, and give us an example of what your style ‘looks’ like. Have fun!