How do I look?

   Many South American women have the sort of style that can provoke envy — and admiration — in more casual Americans. Nina Garcia grew up in Colombia. She says her elegant mother even persuaded her seamstress to move into the family’s home, so she would be on site to custom fit, alter and remake a very particular lady’s wardrobe.
   Garcia brought that fashionable sensibility to TV’s hit "Project Runway" and to Elle magazine as its former fashion director. Now it’s available to us, in Garcia’s “The Little Black Book of Style” (2007, Harper Collins Publishers).
   "How you present yourself to the world is important,'' Garcia says. As she points out, dressing well can change your attitude and that can change your life.
   Garcia also quotes Coco Chanel: “Fashion fades, style is eternal." Garcia’s book in some ways leads one more toward fashion than toward personal style. For inspiration, she refers us to such movies as "American Gigolo" and "Scarface," musicians including Kurt Cobain and the Rolling Stones, and designers Donatella Versace and John Galliano, among others.
   Discerning women will find a lot of useful advice in Garcia’s book, and it is a fun read. But  a wise woman knows that she will have her own personal style when she comes to know and love herself as the one-of-a-kind-on-this-earth creature she is — and when she has the courage to dress herself accordingly.