Give the Style Statement women an hour and they’ll figure it out

My palms sweat as I approach the sedate building at West 3rd Avenue and Fir Street. A discreet business card pinned to the door reads simply Carrie and Danielle—with no indication of the strange service I am about to undergo. I’m here for my two-word Style Statement. According to Carrieanddanielle.com, “Your Style Statement is your life trademark. It is a compass for designing a life that reflects your best self.”

Danielle LaPorte (“Sacred Dramatic”) is warm and friendly, with striking dreadlocks that seem incongruous with her background in business development. She welcomes me into her serene white office and, for the next 45 minutes, asks me questions. What’s your favourite colour? What’s your favourite flower? What outfit do you feel most comfortable in? Some questions give me pause. What would you wear to the Academy Awards? What would you do with a million dollars? What objects do you collect? And the toughest one of all, which pops up all over the place: Why?

Why indeed? I’ve never analyzed my tastes and quirks in such an intense way, and neither have most clients. Asks Tamara Nowakowsky (“Natural Majestic”), manager of communications at Paperny Films, “When have you ever had an uninterrupted hour when you can just talk about yourself?”

My nervousness dissipates as I focus on me. Why do I collect Winnie the Pooh items? Why do I wear Chuck Taylor high-tops in a multitude of colours? And why on earth do I answer, when LaPorte asks how Annie Leibovitz should photograph me, “In a funky outfit, seated in a children’s wading pool filled with water”? I discover all sorts of weird things about myself. Susan Davies (“Elegant Mystique”), a Toronto lawyer, recalls of her session conducted over the phone, “I was surprised at how honest I could be in such a short space of time.”

It feels like therapy minus the angst as I pour out all my innermost thoughts to LaPorte. Grace Kerina (“Timeless Connection”), a financial systems manager, remembers her session as “better than therapy. Someone actually not just listened to me but asked such piercing, very well thought-out questions that were designed to draw out not my problems but my joys. And so it’s like therapy, but the good part.”

LaPorte’s partner, Carrie McCarthy (“Refined Treasure”), is a former interior designer. Style Statement grew out of her frustration at trying to figure out clients’ styles quickly. McCarthy describes the secret to her current success: “After doing 300 people, we ask great questions. Questions that often people haven’t asked themselves. So it’s about listening, not only that I’m listening to them but they’re listening to themselves.”

The 45 minutes fly by. Before I know it, LaPorte is heading off to craft my two words, using just her notes and a dictionary as tools. As I wait impatiently, flipping through magazines without absorbing anything, I feel like a parent-to-be pacing the hospital corridors. LaPorte won’t give me a Style Statement of “Boring Unkempt” will she? Or “Fashion Victim”? Now I’m worried. After what feels like forever, she returns with her verdict.

“Timeless Play,” she announces with a smile.

“That’s not me” flashes through my brain, immediately followed by “I wish that was me” and then “Is that me?”

As LaPorte goes through her pages of notes, quoting my answers back to me, I realize it is indeed me. “Timeless Play” explains so much more than just Chuck Taylors and Winnie the Pooh—such as why I write children’s books and feel most comfortable dressed in colourful outfits and covet playful objects that also stand the test of time. Kerina recollects that upon hearing her Style Statement, “I swear, light bulbs went off in my head. Because she was just defining something that was already present.”

When I ask LaPorte why this service has resonated with her hundreds of clients, she talks about all the discontent and disconnection in people’s lives and the overwhelming number of choices available. “Style Statement helps you make more powerful choices, so that you are choosing from your truth, from knowing what really works for you,” she says.

For days after my session, I can sense elements of my past clicking into place, like the tumblers in a lock, and future choices becoming clearer. According to Davies, “Style Statement didn’t give me a new life, but what it did was it set me on a course of looking at things differently, more optimistically.” Kerina’s Style Statement led her onto a path of “deeply analyzing decisions I was on the verge of making”. Nowakowsky calls her session “a life-changing afternoon”.

Now, after living with my own Style Statement for a few months, I analyze every potential purchase: does this shirt/pillowcase/haircut express “Timeless Play”? More significantly, I find myself questioning other elements of my life, such as how my job and apartment and friends mesh with my new definition of myself. Colour me a convert.

What was I so nervous about?