If you are wondering why you should hire a personal stylist, we are here to help.
Feel like you have a wardrobe packed with clothes but nothing to wear? Or perhaps you don’t like the garments you own anymore and don’t enjoy your reflection in the mirror? Then, it might be a good time to consider hiring a stylist.
If the thought of hiring a stylist seems overwhelming, read on! In this article, we will cover the following topics:
- Five reasons to hire a personal stylist
- The steps involved with hiring a personal stylist
- Why a personal stylist is a good investment
What is a personal stylist?
A personal stylist is an image consultant and style expert. Polina Milashevskaya, the personal stylist from Style It Green defines her job as: “to empower women to feel more confident in their own skin and clothes.”
Stylists will help you to find your authentic style and create a versatile, inspiring, modern wardrobe. You will learn how to choose clothing and accessories that best suit your body, lifestyle, and personality.
The five key benefits of hiring a personal stylist
The benefits are unlimited and really depend on your initial situation and the final goal, but here’s a round-up of the key benefits:
- You will save time and money. You will always know what to wear in the morning, and you will stop wasting money on items you don’t need or those that don’t suit you.
- You will learn how to make the most out of your existing wardrobe and get new outfits for free!
- You will have a modern, stylish, versatile wardrobe that is curated just for you.
- A personal stylist will help to build up your confidence and craft the image you want to present to the world.
- You will never again feel overwhelmed, sad, or disappointed opening the doors of your closet. Instead, you will feel inspired and excited about wearing your beautiful clothes.
Why hire a personal stylist?
Hiring a personal stylist might be a good idea if:
- You recently went through a lifestyle change: had a baby, switched careers, became an entrepreneur, or moved to a new climate. In these situations, you probably want to change your style to match your new life.
- You have a packed wardrobe but nothing to wear
- You feel frustrated every time you need to dress up.
- You don’t like shopping and always feel lost in a store.
- You don’t feel like your current clothes reflect your personality.
- You want to dress better, but you’re not sure how to do it.
- You’d like to have a cohesive capsule wardrobe that allows you to create numerous stylish combinations.
- You want to improve or change your style because of your professional or personal goals.
- You don’t feel your best, and you’d like some help with building confidence.
How to hire a personal stylist: the steps involved
We have discussed with Polina Milashevskaya from Style It Green how she usually works with her clients. According to Polina, the typical process of hiring a personal stylist goes like this:
Everything starts with an initial consultation, where you will share your current challenges and what you want to achieve. Then, you will discuss the exact next steps and the pricing for the services.
Then a stylist will send you a questionnaire for you to fill in before the session.
Based on that, the stylist will prepare their vision to address your challenges and achieve your goals, including visual guidelines and specific recommendations.
Then usually, an image consultation takes place. The stylist will present their suggested options and means to get to your desired image during the session. As a result, you will identify a clear style strategy on how to improve your image and style.
Afterward, you usually will proceed with a wardrobe detox (also known as wardrobe declutter).
Wardrobe detox quite literally brings a gasp of fresh air into your space and mind.
A wardrobe detox involves:
- Getting rid of items that no longer serve their purpose. You will also understand why they are not the best choices to avoid them in the future.
- Deciding which clothes you want to get rid of, which ones you need to tailor or fix, and which ones you want to keep.
- Understanding better which clothes suit you the most and why
- Creating new outfits with existing clothes.
- Identifying the gaps in your wardrobe to know which clothes you need to buy.
After the wardrobe detox, you may want to book a shopping session with a stylist. Or perhaps you will want to hire a stylist more regularly, for example on a quarterly basis to outsource wardrobe management to a stylist. It all depends on your needs.
When Polina works with a client, she always prepares a personal style guide – this is a file that will include all the personalized recommendations and a shopping guide.
The services a personal stylist provides
Generally speaking, personal stylists offer many services that will help you solve your challenge at hand. Services that a personal stylist might offer include:
- Image consultation
- Wardrobe declutter
- Personal shopping
- Creating a personalized style guide
- Styling for a specific event or a photoshoot
- Long-term wardrobe curation
- Seasonal wardrobe declutters and shopping.
Why hiring a personal stylist is a good option.
Is your wardrobe packed to the brim with clothes, yet still, you feeling like there’s nothing to wear. Why is that? The answer is complex and different for everyone.
Some people struggle to say goodbye to items, even if they never wear them. For example, some items of clothing might hold certain nostalgia. In contrast, maybe some items no longer fit but are kept as weight loss motivation.
On a different note, you may have been buying the wrong items for years. If you’ve been doing this, you might have collected a diverse range of clothing that doesn’t work for your body shape.
Stylists regularly hear that people buy items impulsively without really thinking about whether or not they are needed. Are there particular items, styles, colors, or cuts that you keep buying over and over again?
Why it’s important to feel your best
The clothes we wear can affect our moods, our performance, and the way others perceive us. So investing in your image and putting in the effort to make sure that you’re wearing clothes that suit you best should bring you joy.
Everyone who has ever worn a tailored suit knows that doing so evokes a feeling of power. In the same way, a classic, little black dress can give you an air of immediate sexiness, and a pair of sweatpants can deliver instant chill.
This is where a personal stylist comes in. A personal stylist will help you decide which items are best for you and will be able to give you a wardrobe well suited for a range of occasions.
Why hiring a personal stylist might be good for your job.
Our style is a powerful way of non-verbal communication with the world. Every outfit sends a certain message. So your style can either hold you back or propel you forward. Do you know if your wardrobe works for or against you?
Dress for success. We’ve all heard this many times, and scientific studies have shown it to be true.
Want to impress people at your work, then dressing well is a good option.
How do we know this? Because of the “halo effect.”
The halo effect refers to how a person’s overall impression will influence how you will feel and think about their character. See someone well-dressed at work in a professional outfit; subconsciously, you might believe they are capable at work.
Do you need to hit pause on spending mindlessly?
Some of us lead wonderfully chaotic lives, diving from weekdays in the office to lazy weekend brunches, moving from dinner dates during the weekday to staycations over the weekend.
Whichever life you lead, you need to have suitable clothes ready at home to help you move effortlessly and stylishly from one event to the next.
Fast fashion has become a staple of clothing, and many international brands bring in new lines every few weeks. This helped create a “see it, buy it” mentality.
This mentality leads to an entire wardrobe, but one full of clothes that might be barely worn. Having unworn items in your closet escalates that all too familiar chaotic feeling of having ‘nothing to wear.’
Hiring a personal stylist will make your wardrobe feel like a carefully curated shop full of items that are perfectly suited for you! You won’t keep buying the same items repeatedly; instead, you will be purchasing items you need in your wardrobe.
A good personal stylist will be able to:
- Advise best clothes for your complexion and preferred style
- Help you build the image that you want
- Find the right clothes for your lifestyle
- Help you understand what colors suit you best.
- Show you how to make the most out of what you already have
- Recommend which clothes you need to buy
- Help you to shop and teach how to make your shopping habits better
- Advise what to do with the clothes that you no longer need
This process should leave you with a closet that is well organized and curated just for you.
On an everyday basis, this will save you time as well as give you renewed confidence. Imagine opening your wardrobe and feel as though your entire wardrobe has been hand-selected for you?
5 tips for hiring a personal stylist
- Trust. Find out about a stylist’s style. Check out their website and Instagram. You should quickly get a feel of whether you like their style. While you don’t need to copy their style, you need to trust that the stylist is well-positioned to give you good advice.
- Process. You should ask questions about the stylist’s process. Will they be willing to repurpose existing items in your wardrobe, or do they prefer to do a total makeover? Either way, a good stylist should be ready to help you discover your style and shouldn’t be too overbearing when trying to change your style.
- Time frame. Do you want a one-time makeover, or instead, a personal stylist who can help you regularly?
- Cost. Set expectations early; does the stylist charge by the hour, the day, or over an even longer time frame? Understand the different prices so that you can choose the best option.
- Open-minded. Once you’ve found a stylist you can trust and are happy with the process and the cost, it’s essential to keep an open mind. For example, a personal stylist may pick out items that you usually wouldn’t choose yourself. But don’t just say no. Try it. And if you’re not sure about how you might wear a particular item, ask!
Which personal stylist do we like?
A personal stylist should be both creative and have an eye for detail. Hong Kong-based stylist Polina Milashevskaya of Style It Green combines fashion, style psychology and sustainability in her practice. Her mission is to empower women to feel more confident in their own skin and clothes.
Another unique feature of her work is that she is one of the first stylists here in Hong Kong who positions herself as an eco-stylist. It means that, among other services, she will try to bring a sustainable aspect into the process and help you to become more conscious of your choices.
Polina offers a full spectrum of services: from the initial image consultation and an “express wardrobe edit” to a more in-depth wardrobe detox, personal shopping, and other services.
Polina adopts a very in-depth approach to every client. Her main goal is to help you discover your authentic style that will help you feel confident, comfortable, and stunning every time you put on clothes (aka every day).
Key aesthetic guidelines
Polina doesn’t believe in strict classifications, “apple and pears” and other types. Certainly, there are some rules and guidelines that often apply and Polina draws on her vast professional knowledge of styling and fashion. At the same time, she believes that every person is unique and hence the standardized frameworks might not always work.
She also won’t send you to the store to buy all the latest trends. What she does believe is a rational wardrobe that has the right balance of essential timeless garments and more statement pieces.
Polina also focuses on sustainability and you will definitely learn something new about how to choose items more consciously, ethically, and environmentally friendly.
What can one expect from styling services from Style It Green? Discover your unique style, personalized recommendations, and a versatile, inspiring, modern wardrobe.
FAQs about personal stylists
Do only celebrities hire personal stylists?
No, personal stylists are not just for the red carpet. It is quite a mainstream service now. Everyone deserves to feel and look at their best every day!
Is hiring a personal stylist an investment?
Yes, hiring a personal stylist is an investment. But that’s the point; it is an investment, not an expense. The money you will spend on working with a personal stylist, will bring you various benefits in the long-term and ultimately save your money and time in the future.
In conclusion
It’s easy to sink money into the same outfits or the same pointless shopping splurge. But, rather than buying bundles of new clothes, you can reimagine the clothes you’ve got once you hire a personal stylist.
After you hire a personal stylist, we hope that each item fits your body perfectly and you know how to pair the items together.
Buried in the stacks of clothes, you already had gems you probably had forgotten existed. For example, a blouse you once fell desperately in love with but had nothing to go with it or a dress that you could not pair with the right pair of shoes.
You should come away from your time with a personal stylist knowing how to feel and look amazing in your clothes every day! Have we missed any tips on how to hire a personal stylist? If so, please let us know in the comments below.
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