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Gina Liano gave me style advice

And it was awesome.

She’s a successful barrister, fashion designer, author, TV personality and has just released her first fragrance. Gina Liano is a woman of many talents and she’s building an empire. And I want to learn from her.

It’s the day of her self-titled fragrance launch and we’ve managed to squeeze in a chat before she faces a crowd of screaming fans.

She’s dressed in a blush-coloured sequined dress, with matching stilettos and trademark eye shadow. As you can see from the above picture, a shopping centre appearance won’t stop Gina from living up to her super-glam rep. 

I ask Gina how much she had to do with the perfume process. Apparently she did all of it.

“I knew exactly the ingredients I wanted. I knew the scents that I really liked. So I based it on all the fragrances that I love.”

Known for her dramatic hair and makeup looks (again see above), coupled with her sassy attitude, Gina is the ultimate beauty queen. Naturally, I have to ask her for style advice.

“I think what’s really important with style, is working out what suits you and sticking to it. If you suit high neck dresses or cap sleeves, try and stick to what it is that works for you. And mix it up in terms of colour and length. There’s no point in trying to follow trends if they don’t suit you… It’s not about just following the trends, it’s about following your style.”

Underneath all the glitz and glamour, Gina’s candid and honest. There’s a real relatable quality among all the layers of sequins and jewels. 

She’s a favourite on The Real Housewives of Melbourne, the reality TV show where her blunt and outspoken attitude has won the audience over. Though she didn’t receive the same response from her fellow housewives.

“It was really hard in fact, I’d never really encountered anything like that in my life. I was fortunate enough to [have] never been marginalised or bullied at school. I was bit of a tough chick at school, I used to run to the aid of anybody that I could see was being mistreated…

This was the first time ever that I had been on the receiving end of [bullying] and it was pretty awful.

I just thought to myself, ‘God, the bloody audience are going to look at me and think: this woman is all the things these girls are saying.’”

The show takes up to 10 hours a day for four days a week to film. A process which takes 15 weeks. “There’s hours and hours and hours of footage, so you can imagine, there’s more on the floor than there is on the screen.”

So is it accurate?

“Not always. I think what happens is, you can’t edit something that hasn’t happened. But what you can do, is change the sequence of it. Or remove things so certain things look like the highlight.”

Sitting with Gina however, what you see is what you get.

When I ask her for her opinion on the rest of the Real Housewives, there’s a pause before the tiniest smile forms on her lips. The Real Housewives are… “interesting women,” she laughs.

We then proceeded onto a round of quickfire questions. I’ve copied these below for your enjoyment.

A fashion rule I’ll never break is… I wouldn’t wear shoes that were lighter than my outfit. So, I wouldn’t wear white shoes with a black dress. Or black hosiery with white shoes. Never break that rule. Ever. 
Beauty is… everywhere.
Melbourne is… home.
I’d never leave home without… my shoes.

You can purchase Gina by Gina Liano here.

ginaliano.com

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