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Three Things I Learned About Women After Becoming A Personal Stylist

everyone has “problem areas”, sometimes even imaginary

One thing I noticed early on as a stylist one was that almost everyone has some area of their body they wanted to hide. Sometimes for good reason. No, not because whatever ‘problem area’ they identified needed to be covered, but because they have been told by society they need to. This feeling wasn’t exclusive to my clients that were size 6 and over. My slimmer clients felt like this too. Even when a client of mine had a flat stomach, they still would still look in the mirror and sigh, “but my stomach”. This was baffling to me. I realized no matter what age we are that we need to learn to love ourselves more. Nothing is wrong with a nice peplum dress or strategic ruching, but we need to flaunt all our body parts, even the places we’re insecure about.

some people know themselves very well – don’t

Another issue that often arose among clients was the ability to identify their body shape. I never could really tell if this was an ego issue or just plain oblivion, but it was frustrating regardless. Please, for all things that are good, don’t call yourself an hourglass body shape when you’re a pear or heart. It makes a stylist’s job harder when we visualize outfits looking one way and it turns out wrong because they were given the wrong body shape.

Even if two people are both size 12s, if their body shapes are not the same that means they carry their weight differently. For example, if someone is a Heart, then A-line dressses can work really well on them. The bottom of the dress will balance out the bigger bust and create a shape. With that being said, I wouldn’t pull (read: pick clothes) an A-line dress for someone that’s an Oval shape even if they’re the same numerical size.

On the flip side, there were clients who would look at a pull and pick at it immediately. This is not only disruptive to the stylist’s thought process but also a disservice to the client themselves. Here’s why: every piece a stylist picks is selected with intention. They have a vision of how this piece will look on the wearer. They purposefully don’t pick certain items (eg. long culottes for a petite size 2 client). When a client right out the gate says they don’t like something without trying it on, it can be helpful to know but it also can be a missed opportunity. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard, “oh… I actually like this on me” after a client previously insisted something wasn’t their style, wouldn’t look good on them, etc.

sometimes friends can be the stylist best advocate or worst nightmare

When friends accompany my clients, it can either be the easiest or hardest task. Sometimes friends can hype each other up and be honest with each other the way a stylist can’t. There is a level of trust between people who know each other that a stylist can’t simply duplicate.

However, if the friend tries to override the stylist, that can be an issue. My colleague told me about a time her client’s friend tried to quote Queer Eye through out the appointment. She used terms from the show and tried to act as if she was Tan France. (Note to anyone looking to work with a stylist – let them do their job.)

Being a stylist is a fun, but difficult job. I really learned a lot from the career women I worked with. No matter what age, women deal with the same body confidence issues. Its only a matter of how much we give a f**k.