Veronica Webb's No. 1 rule for fashion: sack the sweat suit

NEW YORK — Put down the sweat suit.

So says model Veronica Webb, co-host of Bravo TV's new show, "Tim Gunn's Guide to Style" (9 p.m. Thursdays). Gunn may be the one who knows how to make clothes on the show, but she's the one who knows how clothes make you feel.

And, generally speaking, Webb believes a sweat suit can't make most women feel — or look — good.

"If you're wearing a sweat suit and you're not going to or from the gym, you've given up," she says. "Fashion creates images. It breaks down boundaries. It can be a starting point for anything you want to happen. There's something to be said for dressing the part."

Webb, 42, learned her best style solutions modeling for Isaac Mizrahi, Chanel and Calvin Klein, among others. She wrote an essay on individual style for "Individuals: Portraits from the Gap Collection," a book published last year whose proceeds supported Product Red and Global Fund initiatives targeting HIV/AIDS, and she is editor-at-large of Interview magazine.

On this day, Webb wears a headscarf, no makeup and her favorite "sweat-suit alternative" — a breezy little dress — the kind of easy look she says most women could get right with just a little planning and a better sense of what actually flatters them. (Makeovers on the show encourage women to figure out things such as their own best sweat-suit alternatives.)

A fashion slump, she says, is almost always emotional, and women seem to have a particularly hard time getting their groove back after having a baby. It's something she's had to do twice since she's the mother of 3- and 4-year-old girls. "I am now defined by how good I feel instead of weight and size."

Still, she has her days when she reaches for her favorite empire-waist dress; it's her current go-to item when she isn't feeling her best. Everyone, Webb says, should identify in her closet the item that always makes her feel attractive and reserve it for those days when she needs a lift.

"That's when you don't want to think about what to wear. You want to have that outfit ready. If you don't, you'll end up with a pile of clothes on the floor, you still won't feel good and you're late," she says.

The most common faux pas she's seen working on the makeover show is ill-suited jeans. "People wear jeans that are too old or too young for them. There's more out there than 'mom' jeans or club-kid jeans," Webb says. Finding better ones would require an investment of only a few minutes, she says, and the payoff would be worth it.

Another good idea: Have a great trench coat handy because it can pull everything together.

"When you get fashion right, people will be drawn to your confidence."