Long story short…
I am Sharon Haver, a style strategist and I help amazing everyday women look like they are worth it.
When they work with me, they present themselves in a way that’s relevant, upscale and chic.
It helps them not only feel more confident but also increases their self worth as they are perceived as someone who has made it so that they can easily attract more respect, love, and money.
Why You Want To Listen To Me…
Because I’m just like you.
A real woman. With a real body. Who isn’t getting any younger. But certainly wants to look modern, relevant and stylish.
Here’s where we are different.
I have three decades of style experience under my belt and I can tell you it’s your time to shine so that you can look like you’re worth it!
I’m Sharon Haver, New York fashion stylist turned style mentor, fashion + style expert and bootstrapping web entrepreneur as the founder of FocusOnStyle.com, online since 1999 (that was waaay before there was such a thing as a fashion blogger)!
I am committed to helping women confidently learn to become their own personal stylist with my insider chic fashion & style expert tips so that they can shine… on their terms!
Here’s the thing-
If you do something every day, learn to do it right. Like getting dressed.
Don’t outsource your style. Don’t ignore your style.
Learn to own your style!
Halfway through my career I decided that it’s enough about “them” and time for you (and me) so I switched from the glam to the good.
I spent 15 years on photo shoots from styling Vogue covers to making cheap sweats look chic. My heart and soul was in making women confidently master ageless chic on their own terms. I took that yearning to my fashion advice column that appeared in 400 newspapers. And then to founding FocusOnStyle.com, where you the reader are the most important style icon in my world.
After three decades in style, I understand that you may need to go beyond piecing together what you read in the media to learn how to pull yourself together to best flatter your personal style.
FocusOnStyle is where I freely share my stylist tips to help you decipher the fashion code and get closer to your best self every day.
And for those of you who want to go further, faster in your personal style, my premiere program, the C’est Chic Crash Course, is your way to deep dive into yourself to take your style to the next level with me walking you through the steps to manifest your most confident and chic self.
Imagine what else you can do when you feel confident in your style + look like you’re worth it… let’s get to it!
If it’s ageless can-do chic that you’re after, I’m your girl.
(I know, fashion experts online can be a dime a dozen these days).
And, I’ve been in the fashion, beauty & style expert business over a dozen years times two- and also have a Wikipedia page that I’m proud of. But if you think about it, I’ve really been in fashion since the day I was old enough to remember.
But, YOU don’t need me. Really, isn’t hiring a fashion stylist a fantasy, not a reality?
The way I see it, we have all pretty much been dressing ourselves since we were about six years old. So, ‘ya may as well learn how to do it right!
YOU absolutely need to know how to put IT on when you need to. How to have IT at your disposal so YOU can be your own stylist.
So style can be organic to you, not contrived or cookie-cutter but a natural extension of just one of the many things that you do everyday.
That’s what I’m here for. To help YOU do it yourself.
I share everything I know from being in the business for decades so you can have the confidence to style YOURSELF gorgeous without the hype and malarky that leads you to think you need to “hire” a personal stylist to come and dress you.
I want to empower you with MY photography, editorial, and commercial fashion stylist skills so you don’t need me, a fashion and style expert, or a stylist of any kind. Because you have YOU.
Here’s why…
My professional career spans three decades from a variety of vantage points in the New York fashion industry. It is based on my childhood desires to simply not look chubby (even as a small size 4 there was a fat kid lurking inside) and to wear the best clothes that flattered my curvy figure.
Bonus Point: I got to wear Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren (at a very discounted price) at an early age- way before they had kid’s collections. Thank you, Loehmann’s!
My mom had a black belt in resourceful shopping and taught me everything I know about quality and finding bargains. She was a shopping guru long before it became a buzzword!
As the founder and editor in chief of FocusOnStyle.com, I help the everyday woman stylishly make the most of what SHE’S got by mastering simple can-do chic.
Yes, can-do chic.
Not over-the-top glamour that is both unrealistic for the everyday woman but is also impossible style to pull off and quite frustrating to try to attempt.
And, not the safe and dated armor that makes any woman look years older.
I practice what I preach in that fashion is like a really good recipe. But, without having the best ingredients that you can find, the dish may not be so tasty.
Style is about the right mix and I can help you discover finding what works for you.
I’ve done it professionally on photo shoots for 15 years. I’ve done it online since 1999 with FocusOnStyle.com. I’ve done it as a spokesperson and syndicated fashion advice columnist , and I can do it for YOU.
Yes, you can get your gorgeous on, if you let me help you.
What most of you will glean from my fashion resume, is that I’ve done a HELLUVA a lot in this industry. My Business degree is in Marketing & that has guided my entrepreneurial, yet stylish spirit.
I’ve styled a series of VOGUE Mexico covers with major jewels and unbelievable couture. I’ve made polyester sweats look chic for the Vanity Fair Corp (yes, making inexpensive and easy to find clothes look amazing is REALLY fun). I’ve styled a gazillion catalogs and ad campaigns for big names that are probably in your closet.
I’ve even starred as the on-camera style guru for my very own national Macy’s commercial. I’ve also worked for major brands, such as Avon, where I realized that the secret of anti-aging for me is in a little jar called Anew that isn’t a high-priced miracle wonder.
Actually, I worked a lot on scads of styling jobs. What I remember most are not the fancy photo shoots but the fun I had with my friends from a variety of walks of life.
You know why?
Because fashion is not about what you’e wearing that particular moment, but by the style that you live your life by. Style is bigger than a particular piece of clothing. Its the sum of the parts of the image that you project and the love of life that you have. It is also the ability to master an ageless age-appropriate look by wearing clothing that flatters your figure.
This may sound like fashion sacrilege, but I’m not thrilled by only watching a fashion show (well, most), but I am absolutely blown away about seeing how the right clothes can make a woman look outstanding– looking great gives us that extra boost of self-confidence that we can all use to make our hectic day go a little bit easier.
I spent a lot of time as a stylist on photo shoots- 15 years- and prepping, propping, and faking skinny, young (and not so young) tall girls who were born extremely photogenic to look amazing in a photograph, along with an expert team of a hairstylists (always love Gad Cohen), makeup artists (Brad Boles and I go way back) , photographers, art directors, my fabulous assistants (Miss J. Alexander, Phillip Bloch, Michael Alan Stein, Veronika Ming, JoAnne MacFarlane) for schelpping & prepping & being creative & making me laugh, and those clothes that I brought, all to make this string bean girl–who knows how to twist her body to look more amazing– really looks to die for!
Oh yeah, and then there is a retoucher to make it all appear even more perfected.
That’s not life- that’s fantasy and is pure fiction.
But by implementing the professional tactics used to create that fantasy, anyone & everyone can look more beautiful, in THEIR life. That’s what I try to do at FocusOnStyle.com by sharing my insider tips and tactics to help make the most of what you’ve got.
As a photography fashion stylist for a cornucopia of clients for over 15 years, Sharon enhanced the look of magazine covers/pages, catalogs, advertisements, commercials, industrials, and visual imaging. Her score of styling accounts included Ladies Home Journal, Vogue Mexico, Us Magazine, Live! With Regis And Kathie Lee, A Current Affair, Avon, Macy’s, Sigred Olsen, Candies, Le Tigre, Perry Ellis, Pepsi Cola, VF Corporation (Basset Walker, Hathaway, Lollipops, Lee Jeans, Skeets, and Cottonworks), Gantos Department Stores, Bamberger’s, GTE, BMG Music, IBM, Manufacturer’s Hanover Trust, RJ Reynolds, Lady Manhattan, Oleg Cassini Suits and Night, Evan-Picone, Merona, In Fashion Magazine, Gunnar, Zoom, American Photographer, Soap Opera Weekly, and others.
And then there were the celebrities who were born without the benefit of having gargantuan proportions to fit a sample size but instead had egos to match the length of an average model’s legs and then some. Actually, some were very sweet but way shorter than a sample size and came with a plethora of styling and fit issues.
Sharon had the pleasure of starting her career as a fashion expert by dressing some pretty famous bodies as a fashion stylist on photo shoots, including Rebecca Romijn, Kelly Ripa, Famke Jansen, Elle MacPherson, Wilt Chamberlin, Tracee Ellis Ross, Debbie Gibson, Willow Bay, Kyra Sedgwick, Sally Kirkland, Judy Tenuta, Kathleen Kinmont, Tim Robbins, Jonathan Silverman, Miss USA contestants, soap stars, models, and more.
Back in my days of being a stylist, it was NOT a profession where you would wear YOUR face in front of the camera. It was a behind-the-scenes occupation to make the clothes to look to die for and covetable so that the consumer would want to buy them. Yes, there were very “editorial” shoots too (BTW: They pay the lowest) but stylists were not camera hogs, but the behind the scenes genius that made the look right.
So cryptic was this transformation “magic” that I found myself explaining what I did, and how anyone could get those results if they knew the secrets, to women at almost every party that I went to- yes, I went to A LOT of parties, and clubs, and night life hoopla.
I found myself explaining what I did to women who appeared to be otherwise cool and savvy and knew that looking gorgeous wasn’t reserved to genetically gifted models but to anyone who knew how to make the most of what they’ve got with some GOOD styling tactics. Ya know, even Danny Devito in a dress could look amazing with the right glam crew!
Based on this, I pitched a how-to fashion advice column to the Scripps Howard News Service and it got picked up! A newswire of 400 daily newspapers received my column every Tuesday! I wasn’t styling models, but helping the everyday woman make the most of what she’s got…. and that was far more rewarding than the big paycheck from being a fashion stylist.
In the past, as the headliner for its weekly fashion package, Scripps Howard News Service newswire distributed FOCUS ON STYLE to nearly 400 daily newspapers and websites. A selection of newspapers that featured the newswire column: ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS (Denver, CO), COLUMBUS DISPATCH (Columbus, OH), THE BIRMINGHAM POST, (Birmingham, AL), THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE, (Riverside, CA), STANDARD TIMES (New Bedford, MA), NAPLES DAILY NEWS (Naples, FL), STUART NEWS/PORT ST. LUCIE (Stuart, FL), SOUTH KING COUNTY JOURNAL (Kent, WA), READING EAGLE TIMES (Reading, PA), DECAUTER DAILY, (Decauter, GA), REPUBLICAN AMERICAN (Waterbury, CT), MOBILE PRESS REGISTER (Mobile, AL), THE TENNESSEAN (Nashville, TN), THE DAILY REPUBLIC (Fairfield, CA), MORNING NEWS (Florence, SC), ROCKHILL HERALD (Charlotte, SC), DAILY JEFFERSONIAN (Cambridge, OH), DAYTON DAILY NEWS (Dayton, OH), INDEPENDENT (Massillion, OH), ALLIANCE REVIEW (Canton, OH), CRESCENT-NEWS (Defiance, OH), THE DETROIT NEWS (Detroit, MI), THE SUNDAY PATRIOT NEWS (Harrisburg, PA), QUAD CITY TIMES (Davenport, IA), GLOBE-GAZETTE (Mason City, IA), SIOUX CITY JOURNAL (Sioux City, IA), ABILINE REPORTER-NEWS (Abiline, TX), UNION LEADER (Manchester, NH), PITTSBURGH POST GAZETTE (Pittsburgh, PA), HERALD-STANDARD (Uniontown, PA), BUCKS COUNTY COURIER TIMES (Levittown, PA), DAILY LOCAL NEWS (West Chester, PA), COURIER EXPRESS (DuBois, PA), STAR HERALD (Scottsbluff, NE), STAR PRESS (Muncie, IN), TRIBUNE (South Bend, IN), NEWS TOPIC (Lenoir, NC), MORNING NEWS (Florence, SC), SUNDAY ENTERPRISE (Brockton, MA), SUN (Lowell, MA), WATERVILLE SENTINEL (Central Maine), SUN HERALD (Biloxi-Gulfport, MS), NEWS PRESS (Stillwater, OK), DAILY CAMERA (Boulder, CO), DAILY NEWS (Jacksonville, NC), DAILY BREEZE (Torrence, CA), SACRAMENTO BEE (Sacramanto, CA), SUNDAY MERCURY (Guelph, ON, Canada), WAN Online (World African Network), PEEKABOO online.
Then, I had my son, got married and wanted to be at home with my new family. And when the internet beckoned in January 1999, starting FocusOnStyle.com allowed me to be a mom and work crazy hours from my home office when my son was napping to serve the everyday woman masterful, can-do chic!
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I started the site as a part-time job and it took on a life of its own. People kept coming to the site, traffic grew and grew from my newspaper reputation, reporters called to interview me, and the next thing I knew, FocusOnStyle.com was a REAL web site and my full-time business. Making me a frequently interviewed fashion expert in the media.
As a quotable media style and fashion expert, Sharon’s been interviewed in Women’s Wear Daily (WWD), Entrepreneur Magazine, The Financial Times, USAToday.com, WeightWatchers.com, WebMd.com, MSNBC.com, LifetimeTV.com, The New York Times, New York Post (New York, NY), The Daily News (New York, NY) Chicago Sun Times (Chicago, IL), Los Angeles Times, (Los Angeles, CA) Real Simple Magazine, CNN.com, CNBC.com, Kiplinger’s, ELLE, Gourmet Magazine, FAMILY CIRCLE Magazine, Women’s World Magazine, National Jeweler, Tiger Beat, Twist “Crimes of Fashion– Style on Trial”, Tango Magazine, Bop Magazine, New Woman, NY Newsday, The New Yorker, Mode, Star, The National Enquirer, The National Examiner, Tribune Media Services, Copley News Service, Denver Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO), The Press- Enterprise (Riverside, CA), Palm Beach Post (Palm Beach, FL), The Post-Standard, (Syracuse, NY), Naples Daily News (Naples, FL), Indianapolis Star (Indianapolis,IN), The Post-Standard and Syracuse.com (Syracuse, NY), Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, NM), San Antonio Express-News (San Antonio TX) , The Miami Herald . (Miami, FL),The Seattle Times (Seattle, WA), Edmonton Journal, (Edmonton, Canada, The Herald Sun (Australia), Daily Mail (London,U.K), and more. (see full list of press clips)
I started my online business way before it was cool to have a blog; light years before there was even something called a personal style blogger. My degree in business has come in handy to keep my entrepreneurial spirit alive, and my dedication to help you make the most of what YOU have is what really keeps me going.
Thanks for reading and I hope you will become a regular here, if you aren’t already.
*** To schedule a Media Interview or for a Commercial Booking, please click here***
Keep on styling,
Sharon
ps
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–March 7, 2012