What’s the first thing you do when you open the doors of your client’s wardrobe? You look for their theme i.e. what do they have a lot of. In fact you should ask yourself the same question. Even myself if I went to my wardrobe now I know I would see lots of colour; my most flattering colours of course but block colouring is what I do best. What you won’t see is any print. Why not? I honestly don’t know; print is something I just don’t gravitate to.

We Personal Stylists are there to point out to our clients what they tend to keep buying and it’s usually something that keeps them in their comfort zone. It could be prints, it could be the colour black or grey or it could be lots of oversized jumpers and skinny jeans. We don’t point it out in order to belittle them we do it to point out to them that unconsciously they are just buying the same things over and over again. The hoarder doesn’t usually have lots of clothes in lots of varying styles and colours she usually just has the multiple quantities of the same items.

This works in a Personal Stylist’s favour for two main reasons. Firstly it’s easier and quicker for us to edit her wardrobe and eliminate the clothes that are not complimenting her. If for example we’ve established leopard print is not a flattering print for her by the time she’s shown us her third leopard print top she’ll know for herself it needs to go! Likewise if you’ve explained and shown her how her go to pencil dress for the office is actually making her look bigger she won’t need to show you all seven of them hanging on the rail. Instead she will be more open to your suggestion of the type of dress that will create her a slimmer silhouette, which as a result will make her feel way more comfortable!

Secondly once you know what her theme is you can dangle the carrot of a different look for her. Let’s face it, if she loved her personal style and existing wardrobe you simply wouldn’t be in her house. You are there because she’s requested your help and professional advice on how to update her look. So whatever she’s doing a lot of you can suggest the opposite; if there’s lots of print suggest she does more block colouring and advise her to colour block within her palette. Now because she’s so used to only doing prints she’ll need your further help on how to create that look and will more than likely purchase your colour analysis and personal shopping service.

Our goal as Personal Stylists is to create her a fresh up to date look, getting her out of a style rut, where people start to notice she’s looking different and by different we mean in a good way. Wondering what’s she’s up to because she looks so good we definitely don’t want to help her buy more of the same clothes she already owns, that something she needs zero help in!