Lisa Maria Pippus

I was fascinated by fashion long before I studied it. My father gave me a Vogue subscription when I was eleven years old and I loved the coherence of the visual worlds I encountered. Later I studied fashion in Toronto and Milan, yet much of what was fashionable never felt quite right on me. I kept trying to make trends, colours and styles work, believing there was a correct answer I simply hadn't found yet.

In 2003, while preparing a doctor for a presentation in Paris, I asked her what she wore when she needed to feel confident. Her answer was: "I don't know." As I worked with more women, I heard similar responses again and again. They looked to fashion magazines, trends and expert advice for answers, yet still felt lost. For the first time, I realised that what I had experienced myself was not an individual problem.

I spent the next twenty-three years exploring colour systems, archetypes and neuroaesthetics. What fascinated me was how visual expression is created, and why different people are drawn to different forms of visual expression. I came to believe that we all have an aesthetic heritage shaped by our past, our experiences and our values. Yet most people have never been taught how to examine it. The Visual Language System™ is the result of that search: a framework that helps people discover who they are through their aesthetic preferences and express it visually. Confidence comes from being yourself.