Photo Credit: TLC
Clinton Kelly of "What Not To Wear" admits to a few fashion faux pas' of his own.

"I was in the emergency room until 2 (a.m.)," he says, apologizing if his thoughts seem scattered. "It was really painful."

It's not enough to keep his mind off fashion, though. Kelly, 38, acknowledges his sense of style goes back quite a ways: to the first day of sixth grade in his hometown of Long Island, N.Y., if you want to know the truth.

"I had my outfit all picked out," he explains. "Corduroys, a button-front shirt and a little sweater vest."

There was just one small problem.

"We were having a heat wave that year, and it was about 85 degrees, and the school didn't have air-conditioning," he says. "And there I was, sitting in my sweater vest, refusing to take it off because of an outfit.

"I almost passed out."

The things some people will do for fashion.

That's not to say Kelly never had an occasional lapse in judgment. In fact, he clearly recalls a pair of jeans he owned as a teenager that simply defy description.

"They were high-waisted, tapered, acid-washed and pleated," he says, laughing. "They were disgusting - and I just thought they were the hottest thing ever."

Kelly says he didn't realize exactly how disgusting the jeans - which set him back $50 - were until he saw a picture of himself in them.

"I looked absolutely ridiculous," he says. "It was just awful."

Maybe it's that self-awareness that makes him so good at steering the fashion- impaired in the right direction on "What Not to Wear." The show, in which Kelly and co-host Stacy London turn the clueless into fabulous, is currently in its fifth season.

After filming nearly 200 episodes of the show, Kelly says he has concluded that participants have three distinct personality types, which he refers to as the frumpy, the overtly sexy and the "wackadoos."

The frumpy types, he says, are the easiest to make over and are usually happy for the help. The overtly sexy women must learn how to tone down their wardrobe, he says, and the wackadoos just have no idea what they're doing. As a result, they are frequently the most difficult to transform.

"They just have their own bizarre sense of style ... and it becomes very hard to talk to them into what they perceive to be "blending in" (with everyone else)," he says.

Some of the show's participants adapt to the changes (which include hair and makeup, too) better than others, but Kelly says the majority handle the constructive criticism dished out by himself and London.

"I haven't had anybody really get upset about anything I've said to them," Kelly says. "I think it's because I say it with a smile and a laugh, and I make it more about the clothes than I do about the person. I don't say, 'You're an idiot for picking out this shirt!' I say, 'This shirt is doing nothing for you.'"

Kelly is currently sharing his fashion advice with women across the country, via workshops and fashion shows at Macy's department stores. He will conduct a petite fashion show at Macy's Menlo Park in Edison at 2 p.m. Saturday, but stresses his workshop applies to all body types.

"I will be addressing the concerns of women of all shapes and sizes," he promises.

No matter the size of your clothes or the shape of your body, Kelly says he cannot emphasize a proper fit enough.

"If you don't have fit, if clothes are too tight on you or they're too big on you, you will never have style," he advises.

Kelly also believes women shouldn't be so uptight about following fashion trends. Some of this season's trends are perfect for women of every age, he advises, including mock-crock purses and embellished pieces, such as metallic trench coats or blouses with an adorned neckline.

"A lot of women are afraid of looking too trendy over a certain age," he explains, "and I'll be damned if I'm going to stick a number on it. I would say you're never too old to be participating in trends. You just have to be careful about how you're doing them. You don't want to be doing a trend head-to-toe, because then you'd look like a trend ho."

More information on Clinton Kelly is available by visiting www.clintonkelly.com.