Do you like fashion and style?
Or maybe you see other people working as stylists and ask yourself the questions: “Could I become a stylist? How difficult is it? How long does it take? ”
Today, Italian fashion school teachers will answer these questions.
Styling Basics
To become a stylist, you need to learn certain basic knowledge of style, color combination, fashion trends, knowledge of how to choose clothes from the point of view of composition and how they sit on the figure of a person.
How to learn it?
There are two ways to get the basics of style.
- Fast. You can take courses in fashion schools, where they teach how to become a stylist, image consultant, personal shopper. It is the easiest way, because you immediately get the necessary squeeze of knowledge. You don’t need to look for some information on the Internet, in books. You get all necessary tools for work.
Training usually lasts from 3 to 6 months. If you are offered to learn everything in 1 month, most likely this program is ineffective. In order for you to have styling skills, first you need to have a look – a skill acquired through observing stylish images of people, practices for creating wardrobe images. Only in this way you will learn how to see the mistakes of style and how harmoniously or not things sit. This skill doesn’t appear earlier than after 3 months of your constant close work with fashion and style. -
Free, but long. You can study for free, developing the necessary skills, for example, going shopping with friends, constantly watching clothes in online stores, considering designer clothes, etc.
The problem with this approach is that it takes a lot of time, and you don’t get answers to any of your questions. You never know how correct is the composition of the image that you picked up, how fashionable is the set of clothes that you realized.
Create your own styling method
What does it mean?
There are many theories on creating styles, on choosing a wardrobe, colors for a certain person, but you should pass all this through yourself as a stylist and create your own unique method. There are no right or wrong styling methods, it is important how you work with the client, how you select the style, what your own taste will be.
The work of a stylist differs from other professions in that you work with clothes as creatively as possible. You pass all the fashion trends and rules of style through yourself and show your own approach and your own concept of style.
Start working with people
If you want to become a stylist, the most important thing is to start working with real people.
A stylist is not only a person who selects a wardrobe for celebrities, politicians or models. This is a person who creates a wardrobe for ordinary people: your neighbors, acquaintances, relatives.
That is why, from the very first days of training or from the moment when you decide to become a stylist, you need to start working with clients. It is not necessary to immediately conduct paid consultations for them. You can give them advice and offer to contact you for help, for example, when a person goes to the store. A person can send you photos and ask what suits him and what doesn’t.
If you have already been trained as a stylist and want to continue working with clients, then you need to decide in which area you will work, whether you want to work with plus size women or during the photo shooting of magazines, or if you just want to do personal shopping.
The more accurately you define your path for yourself, the easier it will then be for you to move along this path.
Learn all about fashion
Being a stylist means “spinning” in fashion, learning everything related to fashion, beauty, design.
If you see any webinars, seminars, conferences dedicated to fashion, you open some kind of fashion store, a fashion show is held in your city – be sure to participate, go to these events, because that’s how your taste will develop, that’s how you you will find your first partners and job offers as a stylist.
Believe us, the fashion world is huge, finding your place in this world is quite difficult if you do nothing and don’t meet new people.
Find other stylists who work in your city
Open the Internet and look for the stylists working in your city. Learn their Instagram profiles, see what they do, how they work with clients, what services they offer, how they dress at all.
If customers come to them, then you can also try yourself in this area.
You can even ask them to work as an assistant stylist at the first stage, when you have already completed training, but aren’t yet ready to work on your own. You can offer your services for free as an aid. So it will be easier for you to penetrate the realm of fashion and style.
Find a partner photographer
To work as a stylist, it is important to show pictures of the images that you create, it is important to show yourself, how stylish and fashionable you are. The best way is through the photographs.
However, simply taking photos via a telephone won’t look very professional. So try to find a photographer in your city, maybe a beginner, who needs free photos for the portfolio, and offer mutually beneficial cooperation. You will pose in different clothes or bring people in beautiful images, and he will take photos.
Thus, you and he will gain experience and a beautiful portfolio.
Opening an image agency, treat it like a real business
If you decide to become a stylist and open your image agency, it is important that you treat it not as a hobby, but as a real business, so you definitely need to get a page in the social networks/website of your image agency, print your business cards, give them out.
Show that you are really running a serious business.
