Former model dresses others for success

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A former model, Mindy Matter Diamond launched an image consulting business and resurrected her flair for fashion.

A Barbie doll with a pink satin gown and fur sparked Mindy Matter Diamond's interest in fashion at age 8.

More than four decades later, she still credits that doll with teaching her to ''dress for success'' -- a motto she now uses as an image consultant.

The Miami Beach resident and former model launched her company, Prosperous Outlook, about six months ago. She said she now has a client base of more than 100 men and women, from billionaires revamping their wardrobes to lower-income clients reentering the workforce.

Last week she launched her website, www.prosperousoutlook.com, and is networking by word of mouth.

She takes a hands-on approach. Within five minutes at Saks Fifth Avenue in Bal Harbour, Matter Diamond combed through dresses and selected three summer items for a client.

Matter Diamond said she meets with clients to understand their personalities, then takes them shopping for clothes that enhance their confidence. Most clients return to her for more styling help, she said.

''What I love to capture, what I am asking them to share with me, is helping them step into their power,'' said Matter Diamond, dressed in a fitted dark suit with a white blouse.

She's confident her new business will survive because she keeps up to date with trends and is experienced in the fashion industry. She hopes to create a family business that her two sons can inherit.

Matter Diamond, 54, sold clothes and modeled during her junior and senior high school years and continued to work in retail during college. She worked in banking in her 20s and then held several jobs, including director of membership for the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce.

She was hired at Saks Fifth Avenue in 1995 as a Donna Karan New York specialist and later became a sales associate. From 2001 to 2003 she worked simultaneously as a sales associate for Saks, model, consultant for the Chamber of Commerce and broker for a jewelry designer. She left the jobs around 2003 because ''I just needed to take a rest,'' she said. She later worked as a paralegal.

While volunteering at Unity on the Bay church in Miami, she received compliments on her style and decided to reenter the fashion world. About a year ago, she came up with the concept for Prosperous Outlook.

Matter Diamond said she operates under the motto ''Dress impeccably, they notice the essence,'' a version of Coco Chanel's famous line.

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