For those of you familiar with American reality series The Hills and The City you will be familiar with the phenomenon that is Kelly Cutrone. I liked Kelly from the outset, particularly with her ‘taking no prisoners’ method and admired her for her integrity in the largely dishonest world of fashion. I would highly recommend you buy this book and would defy you not to finish it without learning one thing and without feeling empowered. Never mind the Spice Girls, Kelly Cutrone is the queen of ‘Girl Power’!
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What it says on the back:
Kelly Cutrone has long been mentoring women on how to make it in one of the most competitive industries in the world. In her trademark, no-[nonsense] style, she combines personal and professional stories to share her secrets for success without selling out. Raw, hilarious, shocking, but always the honest truth, If You Have to Cry, Go Outside calls upon you to gather up your courage like an armful of clothes at a McQueen sample sale and follow your soul where it takes you. Whether you’re just starting out in the world or looking to reinvent yourself, this book will be the spark you need to figure out what you have to say to the world – and how you’re going to say it.
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I must admit I was slightly hesitant to buy this book, thinking it was about how to succeed in the fashion world. However even before finishing the introduction, I knew I made the best decision. Kelly Cutrone deletes the word “can’t” from your vocabulary. I was charmed by her lack of arrogance or self-righteousness. The entire book is unlike any of the other self-help books out there and I have read a few! Cutrone teaches her readers life lessons through sharing her own mistakes and I have to say a lot of what she wrote struck a chord with me:
‘…This is an important lesson to remember when you’re having a bad day, a bad month… Things will change: you won’t feel this way forever. And anyway, sometimes the hardest lessons to learn are the ones your soul needs most. I believe you can’t find real joy unless you’ve felt heartache… [I have been] forced …to learn to trust and love myself and really know that I’m not what I do for a living.’ (Pg 57)
Kelly Cutrone show a genuinely deep side for someone so successful in what the perceived shallow world of fashion. She credits a certain degree of success on her spiritual beliefs and delves deep into the religion of materialism, encouraging her readers to embrace all religions and find their own form of spiritualism, as she has done. There is so much I could expand on but I fear in sharing more Cutrone pearls of wisdom, I will be depriving you of the joy and excitement of discovering that you really are a ‘Babe In Total Control of Herself’ – you just don’t realise it yet.
Reading ‘If You Want To Cry’, I felt that Kelly was talking directly to me and all the examples and lessons she bought to the fore seemed so relevant to my own life. It really was as if she knew me personally. In my opinion Kelly Cutrone’s integrity is highly admirable, she has opened the doors to the fashion world and has destroyed its shallow stereotype. She gives hope to those struggling to reach the top in their own field:
‘…the roads to your dreams are not paved with yellow brick; in fact, they may be paved with rejection letters. The people who succeed are often not just the people with the best-articulated brands; they’re the people who respond to rejection by brushing themselves off and moving on, again and again’ (pg 123)
Now what better advice than that could an aspiring writer wish for?
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