The Power of Style with David Kibbe

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In this episode of the Style POV podcast, host Gabrielle Arruda welcomes author and style expert David Kibbe. The discussion centers around Kibbe's new book, which expands on his renowned style philosophies. Kibbe defines style as a visual language, a way of presenting oneself to the world, and stresses the importance of self-discovery and evolving personal style. They explore the relationship between individuality and fashion, the impact of fabric and silhouette, and the challenges of modern trends and marketing. 

Kibbe also emphasizes the journey of finding one’s authentic style, the pitfalls of societal conditioning, and the importance of head-to-toe cohesiveness in outfit choices. The conversation is rich with insights into how style is a process, a journey of self-discovery, and ultimately, an expression of one's true self.

00:00 Welcome and Introduction

01:03 Defining Style

02:22 The Importance of Individuality

06:11 The Journey of Style

09:51 The Evolution of Fashion

17:44 Inclusivity in Style

20:05 Icons and Exemplars

25:53 The Role of Silhouette

35:51 Freedom and Technique in Modern Fashion

41:40 Navigating Life's Style Changes

42:02 Childhood Glamour and DIY Fashion

42:24 Armor and Vulnerability in Style

42:44 Internet's Influence on Self-Acceptance

43:04 The Journey of Personal Style

43:41 The Importance of Self-Love

46:23 Trends vs. Timeless Style

58:26 The Role of Mentors and Personal Growth

59:27 Understanding Image Identity

01:07:49 Celebrity Influence and Individuality

01:14:19 Final Thoughts and Advice

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Disclaimer: The Style POV Podcast content is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. The views expressed by hosts and guests are their own. Gabrielle Arruda is not liable for any errors or omissions, and listeners use the information at their own risk.

Transcript

Gabrielle: [00:00:00] Hi everyone, I'm Gabrielle Arruda, host of the Style POV podcast, and I am so incredibly honored and thrilled to welcome today's guest. It is the man, the legend, we all just worship his new work.

Gabrielle: Oh 

David Kibbe: God, I'm blushing. 

Gabrielle Arruda : , let's welcome David Kibbe. 

David Kibbe: You so much. I'm bright red and you can't see it. That's so lovely. Thank you so much. I'm so delighted to be here. 

Gabrielle Arruda : I have just poured through your book. You don't understand. I read the first one. I followed your work. I read the second one. You know, if you can't see this, the notes I have in this book are incredible.

Gabrielle Arruda : I'm very 

David Kibbe: proud of you. 

Gabrielle Arruda : I mean, every page, I was like annotating things.

David Kibbe: I'm so happy to hear that because that's 

David Kibbe: really the way it needs to be done. So, you know, I know, I'm seeing people racing through it because they want to get to certain things. And I know, I understand that. My wish would be, no, that you don't do that, but you're going to do it.

David Kibbe: So my suggestion is do that. And then go back and take your time, because it really is [00:01:00] about that, . It's a book of process, 

Gabrielle Arruda : it is, and it's so important. I think the way you start off is just like defining style and talking about kind of your mindset with it. So 

David Kibbe: important, yeah.

Gabrielle Arruda : So let's start there, like how do you define style? 

David Kibbe: Okay. Alright, style is It's our visual language of presenting ourselves to the world. It's how we tell our story to the world. And ultimately, it's sort of how you claim your purpose. Because I, I really believe we all come here, as I've said a million times, we come to this planet with a purpose.

David Kibbe: And we're All individuals, like every single person on this planet is a unique individual and every single person has a story to tell. So how do we get our stories out there? Because we all came at the same time, so we must need each other's stories, right? So it's a terrible thing if someone's story doesn't get out there.

David Kibbe: So style is how you do that. It's how you focus it. It's how you get your message across. Most importantly, I think it's [00:02:00] how you communicate with others. Because it is a reciprocal thing. I think too many people think, Oh, this is my style. I wear what I want. And that's just it. But that isn't style.

David Kibbe: That, to me, that's narcissism. And that's okay because that's Part of it, but it's really the energy that we put out so that we get it back and that we continue to create together. Cause we're all here together. And I think that, this is why I call this whole thing Love Based Beauty. It has to come from inside you.

David Kibbe: It has to come from the core of who you are. And then it's like , a discovery process of all the different things that this incarnation of you as a human being have at your fingertips. Because we all have a lot of the same things, but we're all unique in how we put them together. So you discover these things along the way of your life.

David Kibbe: And that's why it's so important that your style, like you, evolves because we're always evolving, you know, until the day it's time to leave this planet. But style is how you get that out to [00:03:00] the world. That's what I feel. 

Gabrielle Arruda : I love that. I love the part that you're talking about of Interacting on the sidewalk as well.

Gabrielle Arruda : And I kind of imagined it as like I want to take up my space I don't want my style to punch other people in the face But I want it to be something I can own that I feel like I've come to this planet This is my little world. This is what I've carved out and this is what I'm telling the world But I'm also walking down the street and interacting.

Gabrielle Arruda : You're sharing it. We're sharing. Yeah, I think they're sharing that 

David Kibbe: that's exactly right and , it's like It's everything is really energy. So if you boil it down to that in an abstract way before we get into clothes all of that, which is how we focus it. We're really talking about energy going back and forth and that's what makes the universe revolve, 

That idea of sharing the sidewalk, , is to me so important because some people today do think that I'm just going to take up my space and the hell with the rest of you, but I like to say, you know, if you're walking down the street, the sidewalk is community property. And , we interact with [00:04:00] each other.

David Kibbe: If you really do believe that it's about sharing your story, well, you're the star of your story, but your story has all these other people in it, too. 

David Kibbe: You've got to have people to tell your story to, and you have a reason to tell it to them, because you want them to hear it, because you want something from them, as we all do.

David Kibbe: Respect, love, attention, A purpose. This is the difference between like people who think they're singers because they sing in the shower. That's great, and that's fun, and that's wonderful, but , that's not really , an interactive kind of a thing.

David Kibbe: We live in life. We don't live in an isolation, so style is really how we get to connect with each other. It's the first thing, you see someone first, before they speak, before anything else. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Of course. 

David Kibbe: That's your focus. It's like in any movie, a great movie, the costumes will focus the character and you know exactly where you are, you know, when you're there and It sets the tone, 

Gabrielle Arruda : it tells you everything you need to know in five seconds. You understand is the character gonna have their moment soon? Have they just like [00:05:00] been broken up with? Have they found themselves? It 

David Kibbe: sets the tone before you even know what it's talking about. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Well, I just absolutely love that. And I think it was so interesting when you were going through the book. Because I know people, they were so excited about it. They got so much information from the line sketch. But they're like, I went straight there. And I was like, I think you should need to go back to the first couple chapters.

David Kibbe: It's so important. You cannot do that line sketch until you've done the other things. Because the problem with doing the line sketch is, again, you're going instantly to a result. The Cover of the book tells you everything this book is going to be because it says at the top, a new vision of beauty.

David Kibbe: That means it's a new paradigm. That means we've got to switch. Okay? There was the old and there is the new and times have changed and clothes have changed and we've all changed and it's a new world. Okay? So you need a new vision. And also it's a different vision from whatever we've been told always.

David Kibbe: about their appearance, whether you call it style or whatever. Then it's David Kibbe's power of style. The [00:06:00] power that can be unleashed when you really do learn what style really is and you get into this new vision. And then underneath it's a guided journey to your authentic style. 

David Kibbe: So a journey is the point, you know. And I always say like, see a lot of times you're trying to go To Los Angeles from New York. You can't just be there. You got to get there 

Gabrielle Arruda : Yes, 

David Kibbe: and I think of this more like a road trip, because if you take a road trip Yeah, you want to get to the destination? Of course you do but it is all those places along the way that make the trip 

Gabrielle Arruda : and they're beautiful That's it learn something about yourself 

David Kibbe: because style 

David Kibbe: is self discovery It has to be and so you've got to discover all these things that you have the potential for but also the pitfalls because of what you've been taught to do and the things you bring to the table, we have so many prejudices, , it's really important that people, in the way they are viewing the book, don't bring an expectation to it.

David Kibbe: It's something brand new. It's not the old book. It's not the old times. It's not about that as little babies, we come to [00:07:00] this life with an open heart. We are just like in love.

David Kibbe: We don't come wanting to be somebody else or something else, and then we learn all these things. And, there is that core of You know who you are, and if we can get back to that, because everyone has that love center. It's your soul. That's the whole point. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Well, it's that unblocking process, things that have been conditioned or have been told to you or stuck in your brain, an offhanded comment, a preconceived notion.

David Kibbe: That's right. 

Gabrielle Arruda : It's like getting in touch with those and trying to slowly shed those skin. 

David Kibbe: Yeah, 

David Kibbe: and the first thing is you have to be aware that you have them. Admit that. that you have them. That's why I like that part, don't try for objectivity.

David Kibbe: That's what people do online all the time. They think, you know, I'm going to be objective or I can be more objective about you. Nobody's objective about anything. We can't be, we're not wired that way because we're wired to experience things. that's authentic to you. I always say, we're visceral creatures, we experience through our senses. Like if you walk down past a bakery, you [00:08:00] smell that bread, you know, and it's amazing. Or like we live close to one of those metroplexes and the popcorn scent is for blocks and it's horrible popcorn, but it makes you want to go right in and get it.

David Kibbe: , that is our own experience and nobody can take that away from you and it's nobody else's, I don't know how you react to chocolate, but you say that word to Susan and she goes crazy we all have a reaction that is ours, that is visceral. That's why the games evolve, because they allow you to not be colored by your preconceived ideas, but they get in touch with your authentic experience.

David Kibbe: And in time, if you build on that, that's where your identity really is formed. Yes. That really is it. Cause instead of forming our sense of ourself by other people's expectations of us, or what we've been told we must be, whether it's from other people or society, we want to Build our identity on what is, intrinsically us.

David Kibbe: Because we know who we are and we know [00:09:00] why we're here. If people would have left us alone, we would know. But that's the whole point, to build on that. Each step of the book allows you to discover, rediscover, newly discover.

David Kibbe: It's self discovery. That's the whole point. 

Gabrielle Arruda : I love the idea of that you're unblocking those things, walking into your authenticity, but it's a slow journey. 

David Kibbe: Yeah, well, life is a slow journey, isn't it? Unless you're James 

David Kibbe: Dean 

David Kibbe: But it's a delicious journey. If we take the time, , it's a cliche, but take the time to smell the roses, you know, if you really do that, I mean, that is a literal thing. If you literally stop and smell a rose, wow, that's an experience that you. Who would want to miss out on that?

David Kibbe: And yet we all do all the time. 

Gabrielle Arruda : I know we want the answers. It's one of our faults right now in society. I think we rush things. 

David Kibbe: Because you know 

David Kibbe: why? Because they want to categorize us because they can sell more things. When we talk about style, we're really talking in our language, we're talking about appearance and a lot, a lot of it's clothes.

David Kibbe: There's always a company [00:10:00] which has now a conglomerate and now has a billionaire behind it. So the more they can put us into categories, the easier it is to sell more things. That's why trends make so much money because trends in teenagers. They hit you right at the spot in your development where that is exactly your sweet spot.

David Kibbe: And it goes like this, it's so fast today especially, but that's how they make a lot of money. They don't want you to be individuals. That's really hard for them to market to.

Gabrielle Arruda : I know. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Because they know how to, how many dresses to order and they know they're going to sell out fast.

David Kibbe: I mean, it's a heavy lift and I'm not battling to change the system because, but I'm trying give people tools to work with whatever we have, you know? Working within the landscape that we have is important.

David Kibbe: That's why the book is new. That's why the system has evolved over the years. 

Gabrielle Arruda : It's a new paradigm. 

David Kibbe: It is. It absolutely is. And it's been happening for a while. Before I even knew I was on the internet, okay, I had no idea.

David Kibbe: Because I work in real life with people, I live in real life, and also I'm from another [00:11:00] time when that's all we did. 

David Kibbe: And, , an old client of mine came to me one day and she said, you know, I'm in this, community group online, and there's several thousand people in it, and we have, we're very interested in you. There's a whole area of our group that's involved, that's devoted to you, and they'd like to hear from you. So, and then I went and looked at it, and it was like, they had a library of my stuff, they excerpted things, and then it moved me over to Facebook, and there were 23 pages of Facebook with my name on them that I didn't even know existed.

David Kibbe: So all this stuff sort of started. Without me and you know the problem is it was excerpts from the old book. So the old book It was of its time, which is a very different time, and clothes are very different, 

David Kibbe: the 80s was the last time they were really like that. Yeah. So it was written for that time, and for those clothes, and for the way we lived then.

Gabrielle Arruda : As it should have been. Yeah, exactly. The people in the 80s, , they needed to hear their landscape. 

David Kibbe: That's it, yeah, 

David Kibbe: alright, I'm not. Here to talk about, you know, to [00:12:00] teach people. 

Gabrielle Arruda : You don't time travel, right? 

David Kibbe: That would be a nice thing, maybe in our dreams we do, 

Gabrielle Arruda : I like that idea.

David Kibbe: , even then, it was, always a journey. I've always believed that this idea that beauty and style exist outside of ourselves, there's like this ideal that we're supposed to be and that all the rules are like how you pick yourself more into that. I've always felt that's just an awful thing because it's really saying that there's, you're wrong, you're not right.

Gabrielle Arruda : You're not enough. 

David Kibbe: They're not enough. Yeah, so even if you do those things, you're just putting a facade over yourself. So underneath it, you never really get that feeling of confidence. A lot of people don't even know that it exists because it's been so prevalent and so strongly thrust upon us.

David Kibbe: All these different things that have evolved, like the idea you've got to be symmetrical, or the fruits, or body types, or anything like that, that puts. An ideal that starts with a result that's outside of you. Even if you work with what you think you're doing with my work, if you're going for the result, you're doing that same thing [00:13:00] because you're starting with this and you're trying to fit yourself into that.

David Kibbe: It's the reverse. See, I really felt from the beginning, I want to create. A system that people can actually use because, it's a lot of stuff to do to put yourself together that starts with the individual that then you work out of that and you create your image, the way you present yourself.

David Kibbe: out of you. And that's why it's called image identity. And I think people forget that it's not a type. It's never been that it's not a body type. It's not a type of any type. It's not an essence type. It's image identity because we're talking about your identity. What is the image of your identity? That's why sometimes like in groups, people think, well, I'm going to try on different, they call it IDs.

David Kibbe: I'm going to try on different ones. And I'm like, You can't try on different identities. 

Gabrielle Arruda : I started there, I know, I'm sorry. 

David Kibbe: No, no, no, no, no. Experimentation is great. No, I think that's wonderful. Of course you learn by that. But I think the words are really [00:14:00] important. Because then if you do that and you realize you're doing that to really learn about who you are, not what you're supposed to do.

David Kibbe: That's great. But if you're doing it to learn about what you're supposed to do so you can become that, that's the opposite of how this 

Gabrielle Arruda : Or for other's validation, you know, and that's the tricky parts of this landscape is that it becomes like an echo chamber where you're like, it's this and there's like 15 different people saying so confidently something that you're like, maybe I'm all wrong.

David Kibbe: That's exactly right. And social media because also the goal is to get all these likes so that you get fame and you get money , it's just crazy. It goes round and round and round and people spin their wheels. That's what they do. So that's why you got to get back to the beginning.

David Kibbe: That's the whole point. Start at the beginning you can read this book again and again and again and again.

Gabrielle Arruda : I already have. 

David Kibbe: When I wrote it, you know, it was very important for me not to have any filler. Like everything that was going to be in this [00:15:00] book needs to be there.

David Kibbe: And if it's not in the book, it's not there for a reason. It's not that I forgot to put something in it. It's that there's a different way of doing it. And I'm trying to reroute you. The whole idea, you go to the beginning, I talked a lot about in the beginning about my piano background.

David Kibbe: That was very important to me. I had the most amazing teacher. She was one of the greatest ones on the planet, truly. And, you know, I was talented. That was there too, but it was the technique. But I would play in these competitions and I was very successful. And they would go on for several months. And by the end, I would get to there and I would win.

David Kibbe: And then the next day, she would have me go right back to where we started with the piece, which was broken down, note by note, with the metronome. And we'd go, like, as if we had never done it before. Because she said, there's no perfection. We're not going for that. You're going for excellence, and you want to be the best that you can be, but we're not, there's no place that you're getting to.

Gabrielle Arruda : Of course. And 

David Kibbe: Again, it's marketing though, , if you're like a company and even if you're a designer today, you're [00:16:00] beholden to the company and, That's very hard because marketing and style are two different things. 

Gabrielle Arruda : They are. 

David Kibbe: But that's okay because, if you understand these things, this is why identity is so important.

David Kibbe: Then you have at your fingertips all this fabulous stuff , I was watching your Project Runway, which you should have won. You were fabulous. Fabulous if I had been on that show. But your creativity is amazing and you know, there is amazing stuff out there that people have no idea that they can wear.

David Kibbe: Mm-hmm . Because they're going by those old recommendations which , were created for clothes that were made completely differently. Yes. Completely differently from today. Yes. I mean, I think a lot of people think, oh, modern fashion is just trend. And then they go back to all the different trends and thinking it changes by trend to trend.

David Kibbe: Trends don't have anything to do with. modern fashion. Trends are a marketing thing, trends come and go, but also they come back, you know, they're, they're, they're recycled, like when you live long enough, you know, I don't get what you're doing. They did it before. Like my mother always used to say, don't [00:17:00] throw anything away because it's coming back.

David Kibbe: And I'll go, Oh yeah, right. Or she'd say, Yeah. So she would say, we used to wear that. And I'd be like, Oh, well, you know,

Gabrielle Arruda : but not like how we were. 

David Kibbe: Exactly. 

David Kibbe: It's like when you're younger , that's what you should do. That's where you are in your development as a human being. That's exactly right.

David Kibbe: Because this work is all about individuality. It's for everyone. It is for everyone to use. Once you get the technique, however it's right for you to use it. There's a huge range of people, not just socioeconomic, but ages, they start really, really young, they go really, really old, like even in the reveals in the book.

David Kibbe: And I wanted to make sure we did this because we have this whole range. There is a girl who was 16 at that time and there's a woman who's 80. And it needs to be that, and we have everything in between 20s, 30s, 40s, 60s, because , This is the whole world. One of the things that I did really try to do differently consciously was to be as inclusive as we really could.

Gabrielle Arruda : I noticed [00:18:00] that. 

David Kibbe: And one of the most fun things in the book to me was when we got into the , icons and exemplars. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Exemplars, yeah, I was going to ask you. 

David Kibbe: That was, I mean, that, you see, I tried to do as much as that. As I could in the old days, but we didn't have the resources that we have today.

David Kibbe: I can't use examples that people don't know, , it's very limiting because if, you know, you live in another culture like Bollywood has been , certainly as viable and, , filled with examples as Hollywood, but nobody that was gonna read that old book would know anything about that, so it doesn't do any good.

David Kibbe: Whereas everybody knows Katharine Hepburn, and everybody knows Marilyn Monroe, and so that helps. 

Gabrielle Arruda : I wanna ask you a little something. Two things about the examples. To explain what their role is, and I think you put it as they show a spectrum of what the image identity can be and individual successful interpretations of that image identity as a style.

Gabrielle Arruda : They're not necessarily something to go I need to copy. 

David Kibbe: Oh, absolutely. 

David Kibbe: In fact, one of the reasons that I like to [00:19:00] use those people that are from a whole other time in Hollywood, you can't do that. So that's on purpose. That's because the last thing I want to do is do celebrities today that don't have anything.

David Kibbe: You know, they're dressed by celebrity stylists. They have designer endorsements. They're on social media. So they're trying to get likes, which is there's a lot of shock value in that. If you walk, the red carpets today are like all about the dresses, you know?

David Kibbe: Mm-hmm . They're not about the person. Yes. And so the old ones, they had the studio behind them. They had a vested in interest 

Gabrielle Arruda : to shape, 

David Kibbe: to shape that person because that's what drove people to the movies. I mean, it's purely commercial once again. So it's just that the techniques that they used, 'cause they had all the greatest artists in the world, taking the new actress and thinking.

David Kibbe: What is it in her that we can, that's unique and special that we can put out and hopefully create that indelible image? 

Gabrielle Arruda : Yes. 

David Kibbe: And because they had the body of work and the power of the studio, they created these movies. The biggest movies like Gone with the Wind Casablanca or something like that.

David Kibbe: Of course everybody can, if you don't [00:20:00] know them, you can find them. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Yes. 

Gabrielle Arruda : , so you should know them . 

David Kibbe: Yeah. So it's that combination that makes it. Possible. So the icons, they're, they really are from old Hollywood because they have that technique behind them. We're not trying to copy them or try to say that's your style.

David Kibbe: I'm trying to have you see in them how the techniques were used. To take who that person was and form the image out of that image identity. They had that behind them. 

Gabrielle Arruda : And they had 

Gabrielle Arruda : helped doing that. And that's what this book helps us do. 

David Kibbe: Well, 

David Kibbe: I hope so. That's very nice. That is what I want to do.

David Kibbe: But, they had the greatest artists in the world and the greatest designers, the greatest hair people, the greatest makeup people all working together to do that. 

Gabrielle Arruda : And fine tuning those things for them. That's right. Their communication with the world was this is your unique gift, this is how we're going to share it.

Gabrielle Arruda : That's 

David Kibbe: exactly right through all the elements that we still do. So that we don't have that today and never will again. So that's why I use those as icons. Because the exemplars, okay, I really wanted to speak to the whole idea [00:21:00] that we have this whole world today and that we're in a more inclusive time.

David Kibbe: And thank God we are. It isn't like that nobody else ever had style or has style. It's that. How do I go to as many different cultures that have something there and it's film, , that is strong enough so that through time, they're mainly actresses, has also had this kind of focus so there's a body of work and she's very distinct and also there is enough artistry in what's been done so that it's clear enough so she occupies a similar type of place in that pantheon. Mm-hmm . And I'm also trying to make examples that are clear enough for so people can get it wherever you're coming from Because we again this is for all ages.

David Kibbe: It's for all backgrounds all ethnicities all everywhere So I want to give people A form of representation that isn't imitation, but that gives them something to like, take these

Gabrielle Arruda : Hook on 

Gabrielle Arruda : to a little bit. 

David Kibbe: That's exactly right. 

Gabrielle Arruda : And like, kind [00:22:00] of pull the thread a little bit. And these 

David Kibbe: are amazing women. I mean, they have amazing stories, these exemplars.

David Kibbe: And I hope I introduce people that didn't know any of them before to some of them because, wow, their stories are beautiful. Just as important as anybody else's and, you know, because they didn't have the Hollywood machine behind them in some ways, they have a more dramatic story they're women, they're pioneers, you know, they really are. 

Gabrielle Arruda : So what was the choice for the icons on? Because I noticed some of them changed a little. 

David Kibbe: Like I wanted 

David Kibbe: to make them just a 

Gabrielle Arruda : flamboyant, natural, I think. 

David Kibbe: Yeah. Mitzy Gainor okay. Because, who did I have before? I don't, I think you had 

Gabrielle Arruda : Shirley MacLaine

David Kibbe: okay. Shirley 

David Kibbe: McLean. Um, well, because one of the reasons I wanted to do too, what's 

Gabrielle Arruda : a new 

Gabrielle Arruda : paradigm?

Gabrielle Arruda : It's a new paradigm, 

David Kibbe: but also you see, I am looking at what people have done with this over the years. Okay. Fair. How people react. Positive and negative and, a lot of flamboyant naturals and I'll tell you there's so much negativity online this leads to that.

David Kibbe: They're led into this thing that isn't glamorous or isn't sexy or isn't, and I thought, well, that isn't right.

Gabrielle Arruda : [00:23:00] Everyone 

Gabrielle Arruda : gets glamorous. 

David Kibbe: That's exactly right. So 

David Kibbe: I wanted to make it equal in terms of that. And, you know, Shirley MacClaine is fabulous, but you know, she's like kind of all over the place. But then, you know, Mitzi Gaynor is like, oh man, she's as glamorous as anyone ever was.

David Kibbe: She's nonchalant. She's 

Gabrielle Arruda : nonchalant showstopper. 

David Kibbe: Yeah. And I just thought, it's just, and also it's a little more fresh Also, because Shirley MacLaine has been in our lives so long, and now she's older, and our ideas of Shirley MacLaine are a little more fuzzy than before. Anytime you go back to an icon from the golden age, they're gone.

David Kibbe: You don't have to deal with them, you know, at a different stage of their life or anything like that. You're dealing with the image. It's really more about the image that was created. 

Gabrielle Arruda : It's a concept almost more than the person We don't 

David Kibbe: see all 

Gabrielle Arruda : those those personal evolutions that you talk about how age and change We're not privy to that.

Gabrielle Arruda : We don't know what they would have done in two decades, and they would have evolved into. That's right. 

David Kibbe: And this is also, you know, when we're talking about an iconic [00:24:00] kind of thing, it's exactly what you said. You said it perfectly, and I'm going to borrow it if you don't mind. Of course. It's a concept. The worst thing is when people look at pictures or the icons or in the book, the reveals or the illustrations and say, well, I would wear that.

David Kibbe: Oh, I wouldn't wear that. Oh, that's awful. I would never, ever wear that. Nobody wears that today. I, if you read what I say before, I'm very carefully say how you look at these, do not try to relate this to yourself. That's not the point of this. The point of this is I tell a story about the person 

David Kibbe: the reveals, I really tell who the person is.

David Kibbe: I give enough. Physical information so you can get a bit of a physicality, you know, not you don't mean that much but talking about her So like a reveal the before and after picture that after is where that person that? individual is In her life. Mm-hmm . At this moment. Yeah. And everybody has a different place.

David Kibbe: So it's like her transformation. She's not a standin for all, you know, dramatic classics. 

Gabrielle Arruda : [00:25:00] Yeah. But it's also them taking ownership of that style. That style was for them, yeahs. It's not actually for whether I'm the same image identity is that person or Right. See, there's, I'm not trying to co-opt that outfit.

Gabrielle Arruda : That's exactly right. That. specifically for her journey and her expression. 

David Kibbe: And that's how you learn things. You know, see, this is like when people skip to the other thing, like the line, is this me? Is this me? Is this me? If you haven't learned how to unfold that, if you haven't gotten to that through a process of step by step self discovery, then it can never be right for you because it has to be built on who you are.

David Kibbe: So your interpretation of any of this has to be your, who you are, which comes step by step, not from trying to imitate someone else. But that is the way we learn to do things, you know? Or in the illustrations, you see, okay, here's the big thing. Like a big thing in this book is that there's no list of recommendations because That's not because I forgot to put them in or [00:26:00] didn't want to.

David Kibbe: That's because that is based on a time when fashion was rigid. It has to do with the silhouette. But there was a rigidity. Like if I could have a split screen of two videos. One was stopping in the eighties because that's when this other thing stopped. And one is today you would see the two, like if I had suits and dresses and all you would see and some people, real people wearing them, you would see how different clothes are today.

David Kibbe: The 

Gabrielle Arruda : tailoring. That's 

David Kibbe: exactly it. The elements. That's right. 

Gabrielle Arruda : It also has impacted fast fashion because you cannot tailor like that and put it out for twelve bucks. Like it doesn't exist. But also, 

David Kibbe: underneath it all too, what people don't understand is that you get involved in trend. Fit is right. And what determines all of that?

David Kibbe: Fabric. What you do with fabric, like if you're trying to tailor charmeuse and you're trying to tailor wool, that's completely different. Oh yeah. Well, everything today, okay, it's the difference between rigidity and flexibility. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Mm hmm. 

David Kibbe: Everything today. is based on flexibility. [00:27:00] Everything before was based on rigidity.

David Kibbe: So recommendations are great for rigidity because there's something fixed that we have to fit you into as best we can. So the recommendations are how we do that. Today you can't give somebody recommendations because there's like, if I go to a rack, there's like 10 things on that rack that you could wear that you never could have worn before.

David Kibbe: If I have a list of recommendations it wouldn't be on that. And on the other hand, There's a jacket that I could put on five different people. 

David Kibbe: So when people use the old way of doing it, it's like, well, you're stuck in the 80s, because that was the last era. You know, when I give those illustrations of the silhouettes through time, I call it from togas to flappers. There's Greek, there's Edwardian, there's 20s, 40s, 50s, and 80s. And it stops in the 80s for a reason.

David Kibbe: Cause that's when fabric really slowly started to change. And we get in the 90s and there's It's kind of like there's not a real clear [00:28:00] sense of it. We get to 2000, it's like things are completely different. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Yes. And 

David Kibbe: there is never, someone asked me something, well what do you think it's going to be taken from each decade now in the future?

David Kibbe: And I said nothing really because with flexibility you can't see that one thing. Mm hmm. Now see silhouette is. It's everything. . That's, that's the technical key to this. It's everything. And if you could get away from details, because details are subordinate to the design of the outfit.

David Kibbe: The design of the dress determines the neckline. There's no such thing as a neckline that works for people or doesn't work for people. 

Gabrielle Arruda : I appreciate that. 

David Kibbe: Because if it's in the right dress. the neckline is going to be according to what the dress requires. So you got to stop thinking of those things. You have to reorient yourself because I think , the best way to think of it, when someone walks in the room, what do you see?

David Kibbe: You see color and you see the outline. Those are the first two things. And then you have a lot of other things that you process, but that's where we start. And we're always working for harmony. So I always like to say you're a painting in a sculpture. [00:29:00] So how do we, Capture the beauty of your painting, which is a masterpiece, and how do we drape this glorious sculpture that you are?

David Kibbe: So it's in harmony with what's there. 

David Kibbe: But 

David Kibbe: today, because the fabric is flexible, it drapes around the body. Clothes hang off the shoulders and they drape around the curves. Yes. So what, this is why you have to understand Much more, 

Gabrielle Arruda : much less Seeming much less construction and even when it's 

David Kibbe: there it's going to be different because the fabric is different It holds it in a different way And that is the landscape that we live in and you can pretend that you're not living in that if you want to I think that's why also clothes don't fit today going back to that Yeah, because a lot of people they go by the old rules, but they're wearing new clothes So clothes are too tight and too short or else they're too oversized It's either flump the body or hide the body, but You've lost beauty of the potential of what it's meant to be.

David Kibbe: So, you know, people are living in another time without knowing it. 

Gabrielle Arruda : I think that people, so there's a little bit of a knowledge gap, especially for people in the [00:30:00] 90s and 2000s. And when they found your book and when you've kind of had this renaissance right now. People are just like I never even thought to look at the fabric.

Gabrielle Arruda : I never even thought to look at these shapes So again, they are working from an old system Yeah, and it's a heavy 

David Kibbe: lift and it's a gradual change and I think 

Gabrielle Arruda : it's just they're they're looking at their bodies differently They're looking at how clothes interacting and they are basing it on love because they're not saying, Oh, well, uh, because I'm not Kate Moss, I'm somehow defective because I can't pull this off.

Gabrielle Arruda : Well, I hope so. No, I think that that's the impact you had. So when this new book come out, it was just a little shocking that they're like, Oh my God, like you're taking the training wheels off. Yeah. I have to make these choices now. I have to figure that out. So you have 

David Kibbe: what we have. But it's not so hard.

David Kibbe: You see, it's really simple. You work in harmony with what's there. It's the key. The technique is very clear. Where I have the illustrations, and this is all it needs, how does the eye travel? Like with the dramatic, which is, comes from the extreme yin yang balance, the sharp yang, and the line is narrow and vertical.

David Kibbe: Vertical first, narrow. [00:31:00] Alright, so when you have the, Clothes on the body, because today a silhouette is a combination of the body and the clothes. It used to be silhouette was standalone, you fit yourself into it. Alright, how does your eye travel? It has to travel up and down, that's the vertical. And it has to be relatively narrow.

David Kibbe: So you aren't going to wear flouncy things, you aren't going to wear big ruffly things that go out. But you can wear soft, if something is sleek, it's cut on the bias. Oh, I love that evening gown you had in there. Oh, that's gorgeous. Yeah, so it goes like that, but it's still the I has to travel like that.

David Kibbe: That's the one thing you need and that's replaces all those recommendations. The recommendations are past a completely passe, but silhouette is always the key and that's what you need to know today because that gives you the freedom to have all these things that are out there that are wonderful for you that you don't even know are there.

David Kibbe: Unlike with the soft natural, okay, it's curve and width. So you have to see softness, shaping, but the width is the breadth on top, which doesn't mean you work with your [00:32:00] shoulder pads, it just means that you have room up here. So it can be a portrait neckline, it could be a slightly dropped sleeve, it could be just a little extra fabric, but it's going to have room there.

David Kibbe: The eye's going to go like this. And this. Yes. So that is how the silhouette, that's where it goes. Where does the eye travel? And if I could get people to stop posting, posting jumping steps, . Well, you know, like online people post like, does this shirt work on me? And then it doesn't. Yes. No, it doesn't have anything to do with that because right now it's just a shirt on you.

David Kibbe: Put it in the whole outfit because that's how we see you. Yes. You are not walking around, you know, from just a shirt. Yeah, that's right. Because there's a lot of shirts that you can make work And a lot that are never going to make work, but it all depends on how it goes with everything else So it really is how your eye travels That's the key the technical key but you can't get to that until you've done a lot of those other things like Potluck is so important as the games because what are you bringing to the table like even today?

David Kibbe: I saw this woman online. She was working, you know She's I don't see any [00:33:00] width when I look at my body and then there's her sketch and she's drawing the sketch pretty right It's very clearly a wide but she's saying well my hips aren't wide and I don't see like I don't and she has some concept You know mine.

David Kibbe: I'm saying, it's right there. You drew it right there the this Right through here is wider and then everything else you see those dots. That's why I put them there So you could see where the width is but people still want to say well, I don't know I've had width in my hips is There is no such thing There is no upper curve or lower curve or all these things people come up with there is the one outline, which is the concept of personal line is the key.

David Kibbe: And I created that as the technique to allow you to learn how to create a complimentary silhouette, but it's not an outline of the body. It is how you get to, it's technical, how you get to a complimentary silhouette. And there's lots of different things that will fit in that, but that's how you do it.

David Kibbe: You can't just do it on your body because you're never going to, you're not going to be [00:34:00] able to see those things on your body. You get fixated on body parts. And it isn't that. It's the whole thing. The personal line sketch is a blueprint.

David Kibbe: For a complementary silhouette. 

Gabrielle Arruda : So it kind of matches. It teaches you how to build it. Hand on top of here, we match these two silhouettes. Well, it's 

David Kibbe: like. Okay, yeah, exactly. Once you have your personal line sketch. That is your complementary silhouette. Has to allow that personal line sketch. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Honor it. Has to honor it.

David Kibbe: Mimic it. Yeah, but it's like you build a house. You have to have a blueprint before you does the structure. So that is the key. That is the foundation. It's not recommendations. It's not essence. It's not any of those things that were written for another time. It is technically how you get to a complementary silhouette.

David Kibbe: That is And then from there, it becomes the other things we talk about, how you build a head to toe, how you pick an outfit, you choose it by situation and intention, and because you have [00:35:00] freedom today. Everybody is still coming from the training, we'll call it that, that comes from another time.

David Kibbe: Which was bad then, because it was still saying that you gotta reach this thing outside yourself. But in clothes there was a rigidity, so the training is all based on that. But today, everything is free, and you have freedom. But it's like you're going by rules that were when you're in prison, , that's gone.

David Kibbe: You're, you're out of jail, 

Gabrielle Arruda : but it's almost too much choice. I know they're like, Oh my gosh, what do I do? You know, there 

David Kibbe: was this old, musical called Metropolis. I think, I don't think it ever came to New York, but it was based on this. Everybody lived underground because they were like, There were two parts of society and they were forced and then one day they were released and some of them couldn't stand the light, so they go back down, , you don't want to be that, 

Gabrielle Arruda : no, of course not.

Gabrielle Arruda : But I think it's interesting too, because I think in the book you mentioned this, or I heard you say it, correct me if I'm wrong, that now in today's landscape, we basically have [00:36:00] garments that can work for multiple image identities. Now, because of that, does the head to toe and coloring, like cords that you speak of, play so much more of an integral role now?

David Kibbe: Yeah. Well, they did before too, but in a different way, but absolutely in terms of the outfit, because otherwise you're just a hot mess,

David Kibbe: it's only because you haven't learned how you can really Step into the power, discover the power of what your style is. When we talk about head to toe, all right, it's really important to brace that concept because again, it's not a rigid thing. We're not talking like the fifties where, you know, like my older sister. When there would be a dance or something, she'd get her dress and she'd have, they'd buy these white pumps and they'd go take them to the shoemaker and dye them the color of the dress.

David Kibbe: And that bag would be dyed the color of the dress. , a hairdresser told me once that worked for me, he used to work at the hair salon at the Plaza Hotel. Women, and this must have been in the late 50s and early 60s, older women come in and their hair is like white or whatever [00:37:00] and they would have a rinse, a pastel colored rinse put on it to match their dress.

David Kibbe: Oh, it's kind of fabulous. . I know it kind of does, but also it's not that head to toe, isn't that? Of course not. It's that you want continuity. Mm-hmm . You want cohesiveness so that there's a relationship between everything that you put on your body. Yes. It doesn't mean they have to match Exactly, but sometimes they do.

David Kibbe: And sometimes. That's fabulous, but there has to be a connection. So like a theme that connects things. A lot of times we'll use music. Like if you have a top that's doing a waltz, and the bottom that's doing a rumba, it's like a ba da da, you know? Yeah. You want everything to be in harmony, so that way, so that there's focus in what you're putting out.

Gabrielle Arruda : Or like if you're doing a scale, you don't want an off note. That's right. You don't want like, you know, da da da da da da. That's right, 

David Kibbe: that's right. You have to, everything has to be in the same key, you know? 

Gabrielle Arruda : No, this is reminding me of one of the exercises in the book, which I absolutely love, all about the movies.

Gabrielle Arruda : , , so I've been re watching them. I'm on the journey, and I'm doing it, and I was remembering, , in Funny Face, the [00:38:00] introduction about How to Think Pink. Oh, that 

David Kibbe: is so funny. We just watched that the other night again. I 

Gabrielle Arruda : know, and it's so wonderful, and it's, and if you haven't seen it, I highly encourage you to, but I was struck by the fact that, the editor, You know, she's saying everyone needs to wear pink now and then all of her like assistant editors all come out in their own version of a very similar outfit They all their own hats and everything different skirts different slightly different tailoring and then you know, they say but what about you?

Gabrielle Arruda : Aren't you going to wear pink? And she was like, I would never recall And it was kind of this funny little juxtaposition of like i'm gonna tell everyone what to do but I'm not gonna wear that. I know my style. 

David Kibbe: There's two messages in that. One is that the first thing that you said that even when you have something rigid there is a way to try to work within it.

David Kibbe: That's sort of the old way. And that we also were dictated to whether it was from Paris or whatever. Also, there is another underlying thing today, if we could take that which is the freedom. Because she's telling other people to do it but she's not gonna do it because it's not for her. And see, [00:39:00] today What's out there is freedom.

David Kibbe: It's freedom. So that's what this book is about. I don't want to control what people wear. I want to give them the freedom to have the choice. , but you don't have choice if you don't have technique it isn't just I wear whatever I want and I'll do a little of this and a little of this and a little of that.

David Kibbe: That's fine. And that is an element of it. And that is wonderful when you're six years old, it's so charming. And you know, when you're 15, you want to do what all your friends are doing. And that you're in your early twenties, you're doing still a little of that and you're stepping out a little bit. Then when you get a little older, your life changes and you have different ideas about, you know, what your life is about.

David Kibbe: So it starts. 

Gabrielle Arruda : as you age. 

David Kibbe: You know, let me tell you something about that that's interesting. Okay, so when I started doing this years ago, um, I noticed right away that the women coming in because they've come in all different ages. But when they came in around the age of 25, something like that, mid twenties, usually late twenties for sure.

David Kibbe: They started to [00:40:00] take it more seriously. Younger women coming in, I knew they thought it was fun. It was a fun thing to do. It was a trendy thing to do. It was an in thing to do. I knew they weren't going to do most of it. I knew they'd do some of it or maybe in some of them would not do it at all because they're going about their business.

David Kibbe: Okay. So then later on I learned that the brain develops in a certain way. And that when we, they call the, what they call the teenage brain is from teenage years to around the age of 25. And that is when the frontal lobe is fully developed.

David Kibbe: And when that happens, that is when we start to make choices in a different way. And I thought, well, that is exactly my experience. No wonder. And then I start thinking, you know, see style. It is an extension of you as a human being, so it is going to evolve as you evolve, and we go through natural rites of passage.

David Kibbe: , like, little children are first dressed by their parents. And in my case, my mother my mother was, in the WACs during World War II. She was a lieutenant colonel in the WACs. Wow. But she [00:41:00] also, Marilyn Roosevelt's military aide, but she also trained recruits.

David Kibbe: She was a drill sergeant, and that's how she So we were to do what she said, and we were photo ops. So that's what we were until we were the age that we could start to like, Now I'm gonna wear this. Yeah. Which is around six or something. And then you get to 15, and it's like you don't want to be anything at all. Like your parents, 

Speaker 4: but 

David Kibbe: you do want to be like your peers, and that's why trend is so important and because that's what trends are for, , trends mean everybody's doing it. That's the opposite of style, which is personal to you.

David Kibbe: Irregardless, maybe you do something that other people are doing, or maybe you don't, but it becomes about you. Then when you get to like your mid twenties, your life changes, . And as you go through life, we all have these rites of passage at different times. And your style, your style reflects that. Naturally it does. Naturally it would. You know. Advance 

Gabrielle Arruda : with these moments in time. That's right. We're trying to figure out, are we leading, are we following, and, 

David Kibbe: you know.

David Kibbe: There you go. You're [00:42:00] brilliant. You really are. 

Gabrielle Arruda : No, but I mean, I, I relate to that journey so much because as a child, like, I loved glamour and I, Oh, you still do. I know. I know. But like, I love the hardy girls and I wanted the corsets and like, I wanted high heels and my mom wouldn't get them to me. So I was like, I'm cutting salad top dressings and I'm going to glue them on my shoes.

Gabrielle Arruda : Did you really do that? Oh, that's amazing. I was committed. I love that. 

Speaker 3: Oh, that's so true. You know, 

Gabrielle Arruda : we developed this and then at a certain point we do kind of put our own kind of armor on. And I think this process is kind of removing that and getting in touch with like a very vulnerable side to ourselves.

Gabrielle Arruda : It is very 

David Kibbe: vulnerable. And, you know, sometimes people are very frightened, too. It is. I understand that. Of course. , but it's love based beauty, this whole technique is based on self acceptance . And that's what's wrong with the internet, too, because it's everybody telling you what to do. It's just more people telling you what to do. Oh, my goodness. And then they get mad, you know, because. Sometimes you got to 

Gabrielle Arruda : turn it off. Just be like, okay, thank you.

Gabrielle Arruda : It's 

David Kibbe: true. Yeah, you know, because you need to like, you sometimes you just need to go breathe, you know. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Yeah. And it takes a [00:43:00] while to digest all of this and understand the purpose of it and where you're going to fall. You know, I think that's why it's just like, it is a journey. It's like you can't skip the steps because if you go straight to the line, if you go straight to 

Gabrielle Arruda : The examples, you're just going to be like, I wouldn't wear that, so that's not me. And you're like, that's not the point. 

David Kibbe: It's not the point at all, you know, the point is to give you a choice, not just what, what you are attracted to, but what really works to tell your message,

David Kibbe: there's not a human being on earth that does not want to be seen, does not want to have their voice heard, and does not want to be respected. And understood. And understood, yeah, and understood. However Sometimes some of us are so damaged for lots of ways that we want to hide 

Speaker 3: and 

David Kibbe: you know that I respect that and I honor that as part of the journey too and you know, that's why also the beauty of do it yourself is you go at your own pace, you know You don't have to go further than you feel you can and you can come back to it And if you're not ready to do it, that's okay, too I say, you know [00:44:00] How you should approach this book and which is my work, come with an open mind and an open heart and you really be willing to change.

David Kibbe: You have to be willing to change. Now you don't have to change. That's up to you. But you have to be willing to, and if you're not willing, and maybe you're not, then wait. Do it later. Because it won't do you any good, you know. If you come to it like, well I already know this, I know I need a waster, I know I don't need to know any of these things, I just want to know what looks good on me, you're not going to get it.

David Kibbe: Because . There is no what looks good on you. Cause that's like five different people will give you five different answers and what you think looks good on you at any given time. Maybe because you know, you always felt like you were heavy and you want something that makes you look thin.

David Kibbe: So now you're not heavy and you weren't heavy before, but you know, you had this, maybe your mother put that in your head. So you're dressing to do that unconsciously. 

Gabrielle Arruda : I know 

David Kibbe: that's why it's so important to bring those things up and out. 

Gabrielle Arruda : , absolutely. I was like going through it and I was realizing how much like in my own personal style journey I was [00:45:00] like, oh, I have so much conditioning and so many preconceived notions that I'm having to work through And I was like my commitment as I go on this like process is basically to eliminate the phrase.

Gabrielle Arruda : Yes, but 

Speaker 3: And I was 

Gabrielle Arruda : like because I know that someone's going to say, Oh, you could be this because of X, Y, and Z. And then the first thing you want to say is, Yes, but I don't look good in a pixie cut, so I can't be that. Or like, or yes, but, but I have kind of narrow shoulders, so I can't be that.

Gabrielle Arruda : So it's kind of, you just have to be like, Let me see. Let me explore. Let me look at this as if it wasn't all these baggages that I've carried in my life. But if you had fresh 

David Kibbe: eyes, and what if they were kind eyes, and what if they're loving eyes? That's why the very game is My Three Loves, 

David Kibbe: because 

David Kibbe: if you can't start with self love, and you have to work at it, unfortunately life takes us away from that path, but getting back to it, we build muscles, we build muscles of love.

David Kibbe: But if you can't start with self love, you can't get to self acceptance. And if you can't get to that, you can't put yourself out in [00:46:00] the world. Because even if you're talented, it's not you, so, you know. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Exactly, and I mean, I think it's like a self identity journey. And that's why I was going 

David Kibbe: to go 

Gabrielle Arruda : back to what you said though.

Gabrielle Arruda : So is it kind of a myth? that you shouldn't start this journey before you're 25. Oh, I never said that to anybody. I know, I know. So it was more just that you noticed there was a good shift at this age. Yeah, and 

David Kibbe: that people tended to take it seriously. People always say, oh, you know, you're outdated 'cause you don't do trends.

David Kibbe: I don't do trends because there's nothing modern about trends, and trends come and going. They come back again. Yeah. Even though I was gonna try to write a book about trends, by the time I even got the first manuscript written before somebody else to read it. Oh, there'll be long gone. Especially today.

David Kibbe: Mm-hmm . Like you're going to a big box store. They change their whole stock. They turn it over every two weeks. 

Speaker 5: So, you 

David Kibbe: know, and it's always to get you to buy something new. 

Gabrielle Arruda : I want to ask you a question about that. So like, obviously the idea of lines and the idea of this, like connection points is like, we're not in a [00:47:00] vacuum though.

Gabrielle Arruda : So there's going to be trends that at. Some point we feel connected to. Yeah, well there's, and you can either, is that kind of a dance step you can take now that you know your lines depends 

David Kibbe: on what it is and why you're attracted to it. And also you can do anything you want to. I'm not out to arrest anybody if they don't do what I think that they to do.

Gabrielle Arruda : No, I, no, I'm not saying that, 

David Kibbe: if you're doing it for the sake of trend, because every, which is what, what a lot of people do and they. They insist that they're not. They insist that it looks great on them, but really their idea of what looks great is what they see everybody else in their peer group doing.

David Kibbe: So it's where your idea comes from. That's why I like to go back to those movies that you can't dress like, but you can see how artistry is used. , okay, so leopard comes in and out. Well, I, somebody asked me about this before. Leopard today is like a neutral, you know, like Jackie wore leopard, and Joan Collins wore leopard.

David Kibbe: Two completely different senses of style. Of course. But, you know, it's like, if there's something that's there that really you want, first of all, play with it. Have fun. That's great. Are you going to integrate it into your wardrobe? [00:48:00] You might find a way to do it, and sometimes it's just not.

David Kibbe: Sometimes it's just, it's It's just a fling, you know, and that's okay. I actually 

Gabrielle Arruda : tell people, wait six months and if you still love it, then figure out why. Yeah. Because if it's not being surrounded by it, sometimes it's kind of like peer pressure. Yeah. Peer pressure is an authentic style. And that goes 

David Kibbe: through life.

David Kibbe: , today, like when we reach a certain age, it's just as bad as teenagers. The idea of looking artificially young, . There is ageism in our society. It's just as bad or worse than anything else because it. It just cuts people off at a certain time. My philosophy is, we think of style as evolution, it's always about getting better and more and more and more and more.

David Kibbe: You're not trying to go back. 

Speaker 4: Like, 

David Kibbe: in nature. Everything starts very lovely, but it always blossoms into something more beautiful. 

Speaker 4: Like 

David Kibbe: the rose is the best example because the bud is just lovely, but the beauty of a rose is when it's fully blossomed. Or like a little cub is very cute, you know, but the lioness is the thing, but that's the purpose of that.[00:49:00] 

David Kibbe: soul's life, whether it's plant, animal, human, we're all connected in nature and that is the natural project, . So when women today, think that their idea is to look. Artificially young like they always did that creates a real problem, That means you're stopping your evolution, , the thing I want to reiterate to people about jumping to some result is you miss the magic of the discoveries along the way, the magic that is there, that then it's like, how do you build a house?

David Kibbe: Step by step by step. You have a concept, yes, of course, but then you have a blueprint, and the blueprint tells you how to make the foundation, and the foundation tells you how you're going to build the house, . But you build all the pieces so that they're a whole.

David Kibbe: You can't have, a roof that's designed for one thing, some other style of house, and, a basement that would come from some other type of house, because it'll collapse. It doesn't work. And 

Gabrielle Arruda : So you, you may try that. You may try the [00:50:00] crazy roof. And that's okay. And you try it and you're like, well, something's wrong.

Gabrielle Arruda : And then you go back and you start to see. Oh my God, if you could 

David Kibbe: see my closet, if I had a closet of all my mistakes, well, it would fill a stadium . I used to love trend when I was in that area. A Okay, so I just came of age early in the 70s.

David Kibbe: So fear. Ritchie was my big deal I love fear ritchie and this is in like a late 70s disco and that was so much fun I had these black sort of shiny pants and they were like, I don't know rayon or something And they were not type that they were, you know, high waisted and I had this sleeveless t shirt.

David Kibbe: It was all black and it had like a profile of Nefertiti and gold glitter on it. I love that so much. But I also, I was an actor, so we also had to present ourselves in a very commercial way or you wouldn't work. So I had these two sort of things going on all along, but I loved that. 

David Kibbe: But then it certainly became different from when I was in a trend era of my life. And so learning about yourself and learning like [00:51:00] how wonderful what the feeling is When you are really in your element, which is what you are when you're in your style That's why it's called the power of style how magnificent is the feeling?

David Kibbe: feeling and also, you know, what you're creating is, you know, you're walking down the street or in life and you see the reactions and \ you just have that experience. It's a whole different thing. . The greatest thing about image is when things are focused.

David Kibbe: In harmony with who you are, coming from who you are, it sets all the energy in motion, , it's like magic, you're telling a story to people, and people who want to hear your story come right to you, you bring people to you,

Gabrielle Arruda : and that's the power. That is the power. Because you 

David Kibbe: just think, when you see somebody really dressed, rocking like great colors, and they're in their style, it makes you feel wonderful. And that, I think, that's maybe the greatest gift in life, if you can make people smile.

Gabrielle Arruda : Of course. So what, like, I know you work with people one on one, you take them, and you bring them through this journey. What is [00:52:00] the biggest hurdle that you find most people have? 

David Kibbe: Uh Sometimes it's budget. Sometimes they let the budget rule them instead of, I'm not saying you shouldn't have a budget, but they'll eliminate things.

Gabrielle Arruda : I think that's interesting because I think you talk a little bit about that as like kind of deservingness. And understanding that like you're worth investing in that image. See, I always. The time, the money, everything. 

David Kibbe: Start, start with your dreams. Mm hmm. Let's do that because we can always. Take something out.

David Kibbe: Like, I'm a whiz at dealing with budgets. I'm really good. And I, and I get to the end and I'm ruthless. If we really have a budget, I'll only have this. And I know that we can't have this if we're having this. I know you love this, but then you can't have this. And if we don't have this, then you know, what are you gonna wear to work?

David Kibbe: You know, because you have to do this. And so I get all of that. But I say start with What if you didn't have those limits? I mean, I'm not saying we're gonna go shop, you know, in Paris on the Champs Elysees if, you know, your budget is for Zara. I'm not saying that. But let's dream 

Gabrielle Arruda : that. Yeah, but let's dream 

David Kibbe: it.

David Kibbe: Let's start with that. Because we can, we can bring it down easily. [00:53:00] But if I start with like here Then, oh, getting somebody to see something beyond that is, is hard. That's a big one because, you know, oftentimes, I've said this, I think, in the book, so often this happens. We get to the register and somebody illuminates something they really want and I've, I've tried to explain to them, well, get that instead of this.

David Kibbe: And they're being what they call practical. Then they go home, you know, and they call us two weeks later and it's , oh, they know they just can't, it's gone, you know, it's gone. And I can't push someone forward. I push the envelope as much as I can with people, but that is why it's really important before we work with anyone personally, we get, we have them do a dream board and we asked them all these questions about what they would love in their life.

David Kibbe: What is their dream job? 

David Kibbe: Not just like, where do you work today? I want to know that too. You've got to do that. But I want to know , if the sky's the limit, where is your heart? Because then, you know, we can find things that appeal to that.

David Kibbe: And that's how I wardrobe your future. Because you can't just think it today. You got to think it tomorrow. So that's a big one. Let's see what else. You're like 

Gabrielle Arruda : the stand in believer for them. When they don't believe in themselves, [00:54:00] you're like, I'll believe in you for you. I want to be the 

David Kibbe: very best friend you ever had.

David Kibbe: You know, I want to be your confidant. I want to be your mentor. Because I don't have Any skin in the game other than wanting you to have your dreams. , I, there's no way I would do this if I, that wasn't what I'm really doing for someone.

David Kibbe: Oh, I know. That's 

Gabrielle Arruda : evident. That's evident in your writing. You know, 

David Kibbe: like, I'll give you a secret. I hate to shop for myself. I hate it. I would have no clothes if Susan didn't go with me and drag me there. But I love to help a person transform. And I love to use the clothes as a part of that. When they come out You're like the 

Gabrielle Arruda : artist, right?

David Kibbe: Yeah, I really, that really is me. When someone comes out of the dressing room in the first First time and the first of the things when we've gotten to that point and always it's a surprise to them because it's something they wouldn't pick and they look fabulous and everybody around there that doesn't know they're going.

David Kibbe: Oh my God. Wow. Wow. Wow. And you watch that happen. That's what I do this for. 

Gabrielle Arruda : But that's the seeing is believing. They have to see themselves in a [00:55:00] new light. And some people still 

David Kibbe: can't. It takes time. Oh, it does. But 

Gabrielle Arruda : that's why it's a journey. It is a journey. And 

David Kibbe: you know what you have to do is you have to be willing to do it.

David Kibbe: And also, once you even have the clothes, you have to be willing to wear them. But here's the other thing. It's got to be in your closet. I made this saying up. If it's not in your closet, It can't be in your life. People always say, Oh, it's so much work to get dressed this way. If you have the right outfits in your closet, it's not any harder to get dressed in a great outfit as it is in one that looks like, meh.

David Kibbe: This is the rest of your life So think of it that way and you know try to see what you can come up but it's 

Gabrielle Arruda : our road trip We're not rushing it. We're not speeding. We're looking at the sites and we're slowly collecting little pieces that are going to help shape The next step, the next head to toe, the next new piece of data.

David Kibbe: I think the hardest thing is for people to really believe that their dreams matter. And that's very sad. I almost want to cry when I hear that. But that's honestly really the truth. Because I know life is hard, 

David Kibbe: and especially like when, you have kids. You have a mortgage. You have all these [00:56:00] things. And it's hard and, but, oh, when you let that diminish your dreams, oh, that's the saddest thing.

David Kibbe: One of the things I love to do and I try to do it I shop everywhere with people from highest high end possible to like the bargain basement But if we go to a place where I can get them an evening gown to try on, I'll do it at the end.

David Kibbe: Even if they think, I'm never gonna wear that, and they'll say that, I'll say, just try it on. I want you to see, yeah, well, sometimes, Susan always says, let's start with that. And I'm like, , I'll say, you know, like, just come out in it, , and , there's nothing like it, it's like it does take you in another realm,

David Kibbe: also it reminds you that you're more than the mundane, you know? There's more to you than getting up and going to your 9 to 5, 

David Kibbe: there's more to you than that and the magic that you had as a child, it exists. And you know, that's what, that's the power of style to bring that magic back into your life. But it's your magic. It's not my magic, I'm not trying to superimpose my vision or my view on anyone. I'm trying to help [00:57:00] you see.

David Kibbe: What your potential is. I, I see that, and I don't, why I see that the way I do, I I always have. If you want to do it astrologically, it's because I'm all water, okay? 

Gabrielle Arruda : Oh I'm all fire 

David Kibbe: When's your birthday?

Gabrielle Arruda : November 24th. 

David Kibbe: Oh, so you just hit Sagittarius. Susan's November 21st. That's good.

David Kibbe: So I have five planets in Cancer. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Okay. 

David Kibbe: And my moon is in Scorpio, and I have no Earth in my chart whatsoever. Alright? Yeah. Which doesn't mean I don't know anything practical. What that means, and they'll really tell you this, is I had to learn practicality, that's how I'm able to write a book, and put these abstract concepts into something that people can actually use, because I've had to learn to do that.

David Kibbe: , I have fire in my chart, so that saved my life. 

Speaker 4: But anyway, 

David Kibbe: I guess I'm a rebel. Somebody asked me, are you a rebel? I said, well, I guess so, because I never really would let people tell me what I had to be, because I am going to be what I'm going to be.

David Kibbe: I grew up in a small town, , but I always had a vision that I wanted [00:58:00] to Create I was always creating.

David Kibbe: It's not even a vision. I just did it. I always wanted to look at not what people presented to me, but what they could present to me. My ideas were not limited. I was not going to be limited by anybody's ideas. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Do you think that's because you and Susan both have an acting and kind of performer, that like it made you very malleable to the idea of potential and possibility and, and kind of carving your own 

David Kibbe: path? I think that, that We have something in us that drove us to seek that a lot of actors don't have that a lot of actors don't at all So it isn't like necessarily that I think you know for me I was just very fortunate to find a couple of good mentor type people along the way but the skill I learned, I practiced, and that's the same thing with what I do. I, every single day, I try to see, what can I do to evolve this system that I created? How can I make it better and more approachable and more practical and deal with what's available.

Gabrielle Arruda : So you have worked so hard and seen so many [00:59:00] people and walked these people through all of their, , transformations and obviously you've kind of collected that and created this new paradigm.

Gabrielle Arruda : I want to ask you about something that people get really stuck on is the heights. 

David Kibbe: Oh, okay. How 

Gabrielle Arruda : did you decide that, you know? It's 

David Kibbe: not about height. It's about length. Length. Okay, good. So this is like, okay, so when people say there's only three tall types. First of all, there's no types. Okay, that's not true.

David Kibbe: There's no types. Image identities are not types. It's a framework to help you along the way, give you focus if there's 10 soft dramatic in the room, they're completely different and their way of expressing it is completely different. They have some unity. We all connect with other people in certain ways.

David Kibbe: We're all like, but we're not. . It's not height it is because at a certain height, you have to have an automatic link. Okay, if we're talking about your silhouette, we're talking about the idea of, again, it's really vertical versus curve.

David Kibbe: So if you are at a certain height, you have to have vertical as a dominant because you, [01:00:00] nothing else could be dominant because the vertical line is so long. Like let's say, let's say you were vertical and balanced. Okay. Well, if you were. If you're like 5'7 you can't be vertical and balanced because to be balanced you'd have to be so wide that no human being could be that wide because that's what balance is.

David Kibbe: So the vertical is again, the eye has to travel. Just a longer line. going to. So yeah, it has to be. It doesn't limit you because you can do anything you want with it. Like if you're vertical and curve, you can do the same thing as somebody who's like a double curve in terms of effect, but you do it with your length.

David Kibbe: You've got to have the length honored. You're 

Gabrielle Arruda : honoring yourself. You can't 

David Kibbe: stuff like a really tall person into a really little tiny outfit. You cannot. do it. First of all, it won't fit. That's number one. And especially in today's, fabrics, they're flexible, but they're not going to, you can't stretch something out.

David Kibbe: You can't stretch a dress [01:01:00] out. . So it's not about the height. It's about the length.

David Kibbe: , you can have that length. And be smaller because the length can still be dominant in a smaller person. But when you're taller, the length has to be dominant that's why we call it vertical not length. But that's what it is. It's all about what your silhouette is going to require.

David Kibbe: So that's what it is. It doesn't limit anybody. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Oh, I mean, honestly, when I thought I was 5'6 I was like, this seems so much easier. It makes it, yeah, it does. But again, 

David Kibbe: then you're doing it the wrong way, because you're using that to determine your ID. It was before the book. It was before the book. Well, no, I understand that.

David Kibbe: Listen, listen, I get it. I'm battling everything in terms of history, and it's a heavy lift, and I don't expect people to get it like that. But I would like people to have an open mind and try it and not just say no, . But when people come to the table and say, oh, I can't wear a ruffle, or I could never, and yeah, you can if I find the right thing for you, you can.

David Kibbe: So if it's in the right silhouette, we can make pretty much anything work. 

Gabrielle Arruda : So 5 6 was kind of just like over time you just noticed that this was kind of the number that [01:02:00] made sense. 

David Kibbe: Yeah, because, As I changed it. The system has evolved. Yeah, so as clothes of all That's why I came up with this idea to work today.

David Kibbe: You have to understand your personal line But the truth of it is the clothes were so structured They were gonna be what they were gonna be like we go back to that new look of Dior Was small on top Artificially, I'm sorry, artificially cinched waist and huge amount of fabric.

David Kibbe: Everybody had to wear that. So, you will see Lauren McCall in a dress like that. You'll see Elizabeth Taylor in a dress like that. You'll see, , Connie Colbert in a dress like that. Um, it worked better on some than others. But, you know, you had all these different, What became recommendations to make that closer to you.

David Kibbe: And that's where essence comes in, you know, because it's not, you can't quantify a person's essence. That's to me, that's one of the worst things when people say, Oh, this is my essence, because you cannot give that a label. Because when you do that, you're denying the range of who you are. We're all, [01:03:00] all these things.

David Kibbe: You're boxing 

Gabrielle Arruda : yourself in. 

David Kibbe: You really are. And, , the smashing boxes is the main thing. So, the whole idea of the height has to do with what the silhouette requires in terms of length or curve, or where it fits. So, in the old days, the, the The height idea, to throw that in, it's the only way you can explain it.

David Kibbe: So I can't really explain length because everybody thinks, well, I look long, or this, that. It's not that. At a certain height, you're going to have that length. But in the old days, it was a little more nebulous, okay? So it wasn't as, now it's pretty clear, like 5'6 really is. the point when you're talking about personal line being there that it absolutely has to cut over.

David Kibbe: There's nobody that, and it has nothing to do with how tall people are in your part of the world or how short they are. Oh, I know. The average height, yeah. It has nothing to do with that because , if you're five, six or over, you've got to have a silhouette that's going to cover that. It has nothing to do with whether somebody else in your neighborhood is tall, . 

Gabrielle Arruda : It's the amount of fabric. 

David Kibbe: Yep, that's right. It's the amount of [01:04:00] fabric. And also, the placement in the silhouette. 

Gabrielle Arruda : So why do you think, now this is somewhat related, but why do you think people are so into the romantics these days?

Gabrielle Arruda : Let's give some yang love. Do you 

David Kibbe: think so? I think you may think that because you're a flamboyant natural, right? 

Gabrielle Arruda : Well, I'm on the journey. Okay, well let's say that 

David Kibbe: you are that. Okay. Okay, so I'm not, okay, so I shouldn't tell you that then. No, no, no, no. I love that. You be whatever you determine you are. Hey, I have you here.

David Kibbe: I'm going to listen. I think if you ask a romantic that she'd say there's no clothes in the store for me. They don't exist. I think that's very relative. Let me tell you. Okay. So here's the thing that's hilarious to me when I started Online, it was a slow process going in online Seeing what people were doing, being pretty horrified, um, then how am I going to help them change it?

David Kibbe: , also what's going on in the world, what's already changed that they have no idea that it's changed, how am I going to do that? This took about 15 years to do this online.

David Kibbe: But the first thing I saw was how everybody wanted to be what they called TR [01:05:00] one of the first groups that came in said something about tiara, tiara. And I thought, 

David Kibbe: were you 

David Kibbe: talking tiaras? What are you talking about? I never told anybody they need to wear a tiara. Um, no, they said it's a theatrical romantic.

David Kibbe: We have these abbreviations. That is hilarious because when I started doing this, if I told somebody they were a theatrical romantic, . They would be horrified. You know, time does all these things to people.

David Kibbe: And it's like, who knows why people idealize the people that they do. So that always cracks me up , like how I wrote the first book. I tried so hard to make every image identity equal. I literally would look at the words that I use and I would try to find a corresponding word for every single category that would make them think a positive thought about 

Gabrielle Arruda : themselves.

Gabrielle Arruda : So like the dream spinners and all that kind of like So 

David Kibbe: yeah, whatever it is, but also in the, in the whole descriptions. You know, all the literal descriptions. But here's the problem. People see it their own [01:06:00] way. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Subjective lens. 

David Kibbe: It's exactly that. Then they think, Oh, he doesn't like any of us.

David Kibbe: He only likes them. But I said all these fabulous things about the soft natural. I didn't tell anyone these crazy things you see online. You don't see that in the book. But if you have a preconception of what those words mean, those words don't mean that. They mean that to you. You know, that's one of the big problems of social media is the hive mind mentality because everything on social media is niche.

David Kibbe: Some are bigger, some are smaller, but they're all niche. So you go to people that sort of think the way you do. So if you have this prejudice, everybody does and then they think the whole world is and then they blame me for writing something terrible. But then if you go to another section, they don't feel that at all.

David Kibbe: They feel the opposite. You know, you got to understand your prejudice. Belong to you. To you, just like your dreams belong to you. It's the other side of the coin. So, To me, beauty is individuality. So this is a technique to unleash that. And if you bring prejudice to the table, that is [01:07:00] your issue.

David Kibbe: And I'm sorry that you do, and I try to honor what I can honor. 

David Kibbe: Style evolves from identity. Those are the important things, you know. And you have to start with self love, self acceptance, self celebration, and then sharing your light with the world. That's the whole point. 

Gabrielle Arruda : It's interesting. I feel like people have found so much solace in your system and so much community around it.

Gabrielle Arruda : And I think that this book is kind of like a full meal. Oh, thank you. And people have to go in thinking like that. Uh huh. You know, and you kind of have to separate out that. There's always going to be people who just like love the system so much and are so fascinated that they want to do the collages of all the exemplars or they want to have the junk food of the like, 

Gabrielle Arruda : what is this celebrity's ID? And it's because they just have a lot of respect and it feels like a safe space for them to play. And I think that you've cultivated that. 

David Kibbe: I think, you know, like when it comes to the celebrity thing, I almost never say anything about. Celebrities, sometimes I'll do like in an interview if there's a reason for it, like I did one a couple of years ago when [01:08:00] we were talking about plus size and there is a dearth of plus size, exemplars there, but , there always has been there more now, certainly than there were, but, , there, there weren't there.

David Kibbe: But you see, like, I think it was a podcast that I did, I talked about Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter. Well, you know, the podcast is like this, it's very far reaching. All anybody talks about are those two people online and 

Gabrielle Arruda : it's the junk food. It's the bag of chips. That's why 

David Kibbe: you see here's the problem as if you could learn anything from either one of those and I love them both I do ariana grande is so talented and she if she wants to It's going to be a major movie star because on broadway because she can do all these things and sabrina carpenter She's at the beginning, but she's Darling and so amazing, but neither one of them are styled right at all and neither one of them are good examples for anything.

David Kibbe: But I was trying to show, I had a reason for doing it, but you see it becomes focused on stuff that doesn't help people. And it doesn't do you any good to see things as they are. that, you know, their celebrity stylist has put on them for a reason, [01:09:00] like they're promoting a movie or like Zendaya, who is amazing, you know, they style her according to the movies.

David Kibbe: That doesn't help you. It's not. 

Gabrielle Arruda : She's so cool though. I met her in person and like, oh my gosh, I was just like, 

David Kibbe: no, she's a goddess. No question about it. More than that even. But you know, that's the point of what they're doing. They call it like method dressing because like, if she's doing dune, she's doing like this creature, but you're not going to.

David Kibbe: It's 

Gabrielle Arruda : themed, of course. It's 

David Kibbe: themed, but it's not like, it's different from, they're doing it for the movie, they're not really doing it for her, 

David Kibbe: and also the pictures of people, celebrities, they don't look like that. They're presented, they're posed, and you Google things, you know, you Google like a celebrity's measurements, they're nothing like that. Now I live in a neighborhood where there are celebrities on every side of me.

David Kibbe: Lady Gaga grew up two doors away from me. I mean, Lauren Bacall lived down the block from me. I walk past her every single day, walking her peppy on. Madonna has an apartment by me. You know, and I'll see somebody says, Susan Sarandon is like five eight.

David Kibbe: I'll say it on Google. She's like five. For at the most, you [01:10:00] don't know anything about these people. So to use them to teach yourself.

David Kibbe: It's not accurate. So I don't want to give people tools that take them down rabbit holes. There's enough of them.

Gabrielle Arruda : I agree with that and I understand that reasoning completely. Is there a celebrity that you've looked at in, like, let's say the past 10 years and you've just been like, wow, she just gets it.

David Kibbe: You. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Oh, no.

David Kibbe: Gabrielle Arruda 

Gabrielle Arruda : no. 

David Kibbe: Uh, it's hard to say because they all have designer endorsements, yes. And that really makes a big difference.

David Kibbe: There's some that I love, you know. Um, but. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Okay, then talk about a celebrity you love. You don't even have to talk about their ID. Just say someone that you just looked at on screen and were like, wow. . 

David Kibbe: You know, she's such a character actress, but she looked pretty good on the red carpet, but it's Julia Garner.

David Kibbe: She's just amazing. Yes. What an actress she is. And what, and, but who I love, love, love, love, love is Cyndi Lauper. Oh, okay. Oh my God. I would like she's it. 

Gabrielle Arruda : That's amazing.

David Kibbe: Let me tell you what I 

David Kibbe: think would be good for people we live in a celebrity obsessed culture.

David Kibbe: I would suggest you pull the celebrities, [01:11:00] if you're on a line in any kind of a group, pull them out of your main group and make one just for celebrity guessing. And do that just as a thing by itself. Yeah. And don't have it in the group where you're trying to really help each other because it, It's like amazing how all the, it sucks all the air out of the room.

David Kibbe: And so you're losing so much that you could get when you do that. So that would be my suggestion. I mean, it's fun. I understand it is, you know, but 

Gabrielle Arruda : You know what? I think it was interesting when you said Ariana Grande was a theatrical romantic. I think it also made people reflect on their own prejudices a little bit because they were so sure she was this and she wasn't.

Gabrielle Arruda : And so, you know, I understand why you don't want people to fixate on her style, but I think it shows that our preconceptions of these image identities need to be released. 

David Kibbe: Actually, a big part of why I did it when I did it. That really is, you know, and it is to sort of jostle everybody and sort of get them to sort of understand.

Gabrielle Arruda : You're like, you guys think you know, 

Gabrielle Arruda : but you don't. 

David Kibbe: You know, I want to get away from this whole idea that there's [01:12:00] anybody out there that's more fabulous than you. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Yeah, 

David Kibbe: there is not. Fabulosity comes from individuality.

David Kibbe: It is you as a unique being. That's why you're here on this planet. That's why you came here and we need your story. We all came together when we want your story. But we all have passion. If you get in touch with your passion, which your dreams lead you to that, that takes you to your purpose because you don't have a dream that is not connected to your soul. It wouldn't be your dream if it wasn't. 

It's your Authenticity your dreams are yours. , it doesn't mean that your dream is literally what you want in your life or that it will come true, but it will lead you to something. 

Gabrielle Arruda : It shows you a side of yourself that you need to uncover and tap into and explore and maybe it doesn't happen the exact way that you think.

Gabrielle Arruda : You don't know if you don't know. Maybe it leads to something better. And 

David Kibbe: Oh my dream of coming to New York led me to this. There was no possible way I could've [01:13:00] imagined doing what I'm doing. 

Gabrielle Arruda : And the new 

Gabrielle Arruda : book and the new things, it's all 

David Kibbe: That's right! But 

David Kibbe: the whole career that I have into this field did not exist and I uncovered along the way, following my path, which has gone into some pretty crazy places sometimes.

David Kibbe: That allowed this to unfold 

Gabrielle Arruda : and you're just stretching people's, you're expanding people, you're telling them that it's possible that they can go there. They don't have to believe it fully, but just a little nugget of it 

David Kibbe: But the great thing about 

David Kibbe: style, and the great thing about what you do and what I do, like you make, you design a beautiful dress for someone, you put her in that dress, even if she fights, it changes her, and she walks around in it, she just changed her life.

David Kibbe: She changed her life. The dress did that. Now, it's got to be the connection, but you as a designer see that. So you're giving that person, you're giving her a taste of her dream when you do that. 

David Kibbe: You 

David Kibbe: give people a taste of that. It's like when you taste something. I say that funny thing about avocados in the book.

David Kibbe: Like I, 

Gabrielle Arruda : I 

David Kibbe: don't even know where I had one, but then I had to have it one day. And like I eat avocado every single [01:14:00] day now. I love it. You know, there's so much, so much out there. That's, the world is just A gold mine, a treasure chest, like Alabama's cave of riches for you that you just want to connect to, you know, and we all have the ability to do it.

David Kibbe: We do. 

Gabrielle Arruda : I believe that too. Now, if you can give the audience like one little tip or one piece of advice, what would it be? 

David Kibbe: Well, one reason is one, you had to 

Gabrielle Arruda : distill it down into one thing. 

David Kibbe: , in terms of what? Love yourself? Well, yeah, that's the main, I mean, fall in love with yourself. That's really important.

David Kibbe: If it's about the book, it would be like come with an open mind and read it slow. And follow what's written there because it really is a journey. Like I tell you in the beginning, I'm your guide. . But this is a guide to help you unlock your dreams. I'm not telling you what your dreams are.

David Kibbe: I'm just trying to give you the places where you can explore them. That's what this book really is for. It's [01:15:00] a process. It's a book of process 

David Kibbe: and 

David Kibbe: the process will lead you to all these places. Everyone wants to know their image identity and I get it.

David Kibbe: You need to, and it's a wonderful thing to know. And you're going to find that along the way, but it's one piece of the puzzle. The puzzle is to open up your whole being so that you have the ability. To put your potential into life and to put it out there, you know, be kind, love each other, be kind, come from 

Gabrielle Arruda : joy and excitement and revel in the person you can become.

Gabrielle Arruda : My advice for people, which I think everyone should get this book, if you're interested in the system, I think that this is where you start. Thank you so much. Because it's gonna, it's gonna shock you that the process that's that it really is about and, um, in a good way. It's, it's a revelation. , 

David Kibbe: fun too, you know, 

Gabrielle Arruda : good.

Gabrielle Arruda : I mean, it should be right. Life should be fun. Not, not free of hurdles, but ultimately fun and joyous and rewarding. , my advice would be instead of saying [01:16:00] yes, but. Say, tell me more. 

David Kibbe: Oh, I love that. That's beautiful. 

Gabrielle Arruda : I just, I'm so grateful for you coming on here. I love that. Tell me more. I love that. Well, hey, we don't know what we don't know.

Gabrielle Arruda : You 

David Kibbe: got it. There you go. That is the hardest thing to get over. You know, that's the hardest thing to get over. That's a lovely thing to say. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Well, thank you so much. This has been like the highlight of my 2025. I love the book. It is amazing to have you here. So, can I 

David Kibbe: just tell everyone, if you can only see her face, she has this beautiful gown on 

David Kibbe: it's gorgeous. It's like, oh, it's like a popsicle, um, but also it's high glamour and gorgeous and, oh, gorgeous. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Well, I had to show up fashion royalty and all. Oh, that's, 

David Kibbe: oh, that's too sweet. Thank you so much. I've just loved, Love this and I think you're a great influence on people and I thank you for all the years that you've really put out what you've put out.

Gabrielle Arruda : Thank you. It's been an amazing time. Thank 

David Kibbe: you. Okay. 

Gabrielle Arruda : Until next time. 

David Kibbe: Bye. Woo. [01:17:00] Thank you. 

Gabrielle Arruda : That was amazing. Oh, 

David Kibbe: it was so much fun. I hope you enjoyed it. Oh my God. It was amazing. I just 

Gabrielle Arruda : loved it. I adored your book. I adore hearing you speak about it. It's obvious you're so passionate. Thank you. There's just real dedication there.

David Kibbe: Thank you so much.