I am honored to introduce you to Leslie Chatzinoff.

Meeting Leslie was a delight. She is warm, compassionate, and intelligent. Her life-long passion to help women led her to become a color analyst, style consultant, and personal shopper.

Leslie is knowledgeable, energetic, and fun. She has been meticulously getting her studio ready to provide her clients with the best possible experience and results.

I’ll let her tell her story……..

In August, 2013, I was on my way to Comstock Park, Michigan, to meet Terry Wildfong of Your Natural Design and receive the colour analysis training that I had been yearning for. Let me explain.

My colour journey began in 1988, just a few months after the birth of my first child. My best friend had booked us a “ladies day out” at David Kibbe’s Metamorphosis, which was his full-service studio on West 57^th Street in New York City. Not knowing what to expect that day (and being dazed and confused from sleep deprivation), I left Kibbe’s studio feeling excited and enthusiastic that I was a True Autumn/Flamboyant Gamine (a sassy chic look).

Over the years, it was truly amazing how confident I had become with dressing for any type of event — be it work, weekend, or special occasions. Friends, family, and colleagues started asking me for advice about what to wear, where to shop, and “could you help me clean out my closet?” It was always my pleasure to help the people in my life to look and feel better about themselves in any way that I could, particularly when it came to women. I have never been the competitive type; in fact, quite the opposite.  Nothing made me happier than to see a woman blossom and feel good about who she was and how she looked.  It felt like a team — when one more woman feels this way we all get stronger.

Getting back to my journey — fast forward to 2011, when I was spending a great deal of time working with some women (as a volunteer at a non-profit agency) and realized after assisting some of them with styles and colours of clothing, etc., that I wanted to be able to provide these services as a professional colour and style consultant.  (This was a good time in my life as well with one child out of college, one still in college, and my youngest in high school.)  After training with a very experienced colour and style professional and learning a tremendous amount about colour and style (especially because we worked with 30 models over a period of several months), I felt like I needed a more refined, specific method of colour analysis – one  that included the two-thirds of women who were neither warm nor cool but, instead, were neutral.  After significant research, I decided to train in the well-known and respected Sci\ART™ 12-Tone Personal Color Analysis Method.

The training was intense but exhilarating.  When we got to Terry draping me, I can’t say that I was shocked when she told me that I was not a True Autumn; but I was surprised when she told me I was a Soft Summer and not a Soft Autumn.  While I had instinctively felt, as the years went by, that the True Autumn colours did not feel right on me and was drawn to colours that were a little softer and less warm, I just assumed that meant that I probably was a Soft Autumn.  So, when Terry draped me in the Soft Autumn Luxury Drapes and compared them with the Soft Summer Luxury Drapes, it was clear to me as well that I was a Soft Summer.  What I learned, however, was that there is even a range within each of the 12 Tones.  Terry showed me how I was towards the warmer side of Soft Summer — which made sense because it was about as close as I could get to being a Soft Autumn without actually being one.  As I said before, I wanted a colour analysis approach that accounted for those of us who are neutral (not a true season but rather a blend of two seasons).

After my incredible training with Terry, combined with all of the knowledge I had gained from my initial training with regard to style, I knew that I was more than ready to provide my services through my business, Colouressence. When thinking about the specific services that I wanted to provide, I knew from experience that having a colour analysis and a style analysis was really the complete service. While having only one of these services does provide valuable information, combining the outcome from both yields the most effective and exciting results.  So, my primary service is the Colouressence Combo, which includes both the Personal Colour Analysis and Personal Style Analysis and can be done on the same day or on different days. Once a client has had the Combo, the other services (shopping, closets, etc.) will be that much more valuable.

I am really excited about helping women (men as well) gain the knowledge about  their most flattering colours and styles of clothing, make up, jewelry, hair styles, and accessories and hope to spread confidence and beauty – one person at a time.

Leslie is located in New York City.

Contact her at http://www.colouressencenyc.com/