Anna Kendrick: My 8 Best Pieces of Style Advice

Anna Kendrick is today’s InStyle.com guest editor, and here the red carpet style star is dishing out her eight best pieces of fashion advice! Check back throughout the day for more exclusive content straight from the actress herself at InStyle.com/annakendrickday.

1. Love What You WearOne of my favorite looks that I got to wear this season was a Dolce & Gabbana dress with foxes on the front (pictured above), and it was 100 percent all about that dress. I wore it with nude shoes and little earrings, but I loved that dress and it made me feel amazing! London was the perfect place to wear it because there is a real sense of humor in British fashion, and that sort of worked out perfectly. I’m totally obsessed with that dress. Never have I wanted to keep a dress more.

2. Never Talk Yourself Into SomethingThe lesson I have learned, this year especially, is that if you are trying on a dress and you are sort of talking yourself into it—whether you’re getting styled for something or you’re in a Topshop dressing room—if you’re talking yourself into the dress, it's not for you in the first place. Accessorizing, adding a bold lip, and putting your hair up cannot be the thing that makes the dress great. It never works. I always think it will, and it falls flat no matter what you do unless you just zip it up and love it in the first place!

3. Keep Your Accessories FunTo me, accessorizing is the most fun part of an outfit. While I don't think you can’t rely on accessories to make a dress that isn’t working work, I do love jewelry and handbags more than anything.

4. Do Get Your Clothes TailoredI’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s all about tailoring. I never thought that tailoring was something that normal people did, I just thought that it was something that guys who had suits made of Italian silk depended on, and I wish someone had told me what a difference tailoring makes! The reason that the dress looks better on the six foot tall model is because it was made to fit her—I wish that I could stress that for everybody. It doesn’t matter if it’s an expensive dress or if it’s a dress from H&M: If you love it and it doesn’t fit quite right just go get it tailored. It will change your life.

5. Splurge On Something You'll Wear All Season LongI love a good coat in New York because it’s more of a walking town. I invested in a good coat pretty early on in my life (like the second I could afford one) because in a city like the Big Apple, it is the piece of your outfit that you'll be wearing all day, every day. A Burberry wool coat came way before I ever bought myself a good handbag.

6. Always Carry Comfortable ShoesWhen I have a big enough handbag to carry a little pair of booties with I always do—those pointy Christian Louboutin heels are just no fun to walk around in. Easy to wear can still mean stylish—I have a pair Alexander Wang booties which I recently bought that are chic but still really comfortable.

7. Work What You've GotI'm 5'2" so I can’t wear an ankle strap, I just can’t. Somehow they keep making them and they keep selling, but I think they're the worst thing. Unless you’re Alexa Chung (god bless you), then I don’t know what you are doing in an ankle strap shoe!

8. Sometimes You Have to Be PracticalI think tights make a comeback out of necessity every season, you can only go so far with naked legs in the cold! You’ve got to protect yourself. I remember going to a fashion show and saying "And it’s okay if I wear nude tights with this?” to the designer, who looked at me like I just killed his dog or something. Fashion is a fantasy, but when you want to it to be practical you gotta do what you gotta do.

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