ALL,STORIES
The fashionista and personal stylist is all about closet curation. She tells Find Love Buy about her wardrobe, her beauty buys and her Bali home
Few know fashion the way Sena does. After doing some internships with fashion brands in New York, she really got started with a job at boutique retailer Restir in Tokyo. She ended up starting her own branding agency, Essentials, working with clothing brands and retailers such as Lane Crawford here in Hong Kong, before returning to her fashion roots when she established her personal styling business, the eponymous Sena Wakabayashi.
Sena has really followed her own path when it comes to her personal style, and this is a belief she brings to bear with her styling business. “What I do is geared at one’s personal style,” she says. “Elegance should work alongside the functions of your life. For example, are you an active person? Are you a more formal person? Does your work have a dress code? Are you shifting between roles during your day?”
These are just some of the lifestyle elements Sena and her team take into consideration when helping clients create their own perfect clothing collection. Their approach is different, in that they will not only help you edit your wardrobe, but they will also put all your clothes and accessories onto their handy app, so you can see what you have and what it goes with on your smartphone.
Keep reading for more from Sena on style, work-life balance, beauty, travel and more.
I wanted to create a unique experience that encourages personal style, which is why we build wardrobes with our clients by starting with what they already own. And secondly, I love the physical shopping experience. We combine the best conveniences of online with a personal, physical experience in the comfort of your own home.
that it is important to know what your weaknesses are and to learn them first before ultimately delegating to someone better suited for those tasks.
started using a traditional paper diary again and stopped scheduling and organising on my iPhone. It's been the best change I have made in a long time, it really helps me be more thoughtful about how I spend my time. I bought mine from Itoya stationary store in Japan, but you can get similar styles at Smythson
SSENSE is great place to look. They have a good selection of brands and their pricing is very similar to what I'd find in Tokyo.
Biologique Recherche P50 Lotion. I love this as it's the best exfoliation for my skin. I use it in the evening, and it allows all of my serums to really penetrate into the lower layers of my skin. And I wake up with a nice glow!
ReFa's S Carat Skin Roller. I have the large one for my body and use this smaller version on my face. It's great as a massage tool to drain all the toxins out of your lymphatic system. I find it works best whilst I am cleansing my face with my oil cleanser. I also use it while I'm soaking in the bath. It feels so good to get the circulation going and I can really feel it breaking up the tension and toxins.
a trip to Amanpulo in the Philippines. My husband and I love to go there for a quick trip away as its unbelievably luxurious and also super close to Hong Kong where we live.
is our house in Bali, Villa Suami. It was a very spontaneous purchase we had no intention of making. We were in Bali on my babymoon when I was 6.5 months pregnant. On that trip, we have some friends who built some homes in the Canggu area, and they'd been wanting to look at some land nearby. We didn't have an intention to act on it, but we had promised we would look at the land. Long story short, the architect was going to take us to see the land and the site, and the architect said come to my house because he didn't think we'd find the land on our own. We met him at his house, and we decided we are not building a house, this is the house we are buying, we made an offer that day and, luckily, he was willing to sell. We spent the next year customising the house to our liking. We used a lot of local materials, from the wood, especially the interiors. I customised all of these rugs for each of the bedrooms, that were made with locally sourced Batiks that I chose. It gives the house a more grounded vibe.
our mission and what we value, which is truly about inspiring our clients to create their own unique style mark. We are not about pushing sales; in fact, we often discourage it, as oftentimes our clients have too much yet still want to buy more. For a retail business, I think that makes us quite refreshing.
be really present when you are with your kids. No phones, no distractions. And when you are on the job, do the same. Stay present with your work. I find this helps me to stay in tune with my natural balance and I'll know intuitively when it's time to switch gears. If you're a mother juggling school and lunches and other daily activities, you need a good pair of versatile shoes that are functional for an active lifestyle and a pair of pants that are movable, comfortable and stylish.
tend to come from Issey Miyake or Comme des Garçons. They always ground me and make me feel very true to myself.
a Cerith Wyn Evans palindrome neon sculpture. I discovered this British artist when I saw a piece in the home of one of my best friends. The text is a palindrome, which means the letters are identical when read from either direction. This Latin text translates to, "We go round and round in the night and are consumer by fire." I fell in love with it immediately
their C Serum is great for a general Vitamin Boost to the skin, and after using it you can really see a difference in your complexion immediately.
on the Alexa on our honeymoon, it was pretty amazing. The Alexa is an old, wooden sailing boat you can charter privately to cruise around Indonesia. It was the most romantic trip of my life!
Yakumo Saryo in Tokyo. It's by far the most chic and gorgeous space with incredible food. Their Wagashi confectionary is amazing, too.
