This is another thing people worry about when they’re thinking about becoming a personal stylist. They imagine they’ll need to know every designer and every trend. But honestly, you really don’t need to be a fashionista to do this job well.
A lot of that confusion comes from mixing up fashion styling with personal styling. Fashion stylists are usually working on editorials, campaigns, shows and shoots, where the focus is much more trend-led and image-led.
Personal styling is completely different.
As personal stylists, we’re working with real people who want to look and feel better in their everyday lives. Our job is to help them understand what suits them — their body shape, their colour palette, their lifestyle, their wardrobe dilemmas and their budget. We’re building wardrobes that work in real life, not just looks that photograph well.
The reality is that you will naturally become aware of trends anyway, because they’re simply what’s in the shops. If a certain style is popular, you’ll see it everywhere. The important thing isn’t memorising trends. The important thing is understanding whether that style will actually work for the person in front of you.
That’s why training focuses so much on the foundations. Once you understand body shapes, colour analysis and style personalities, you can look at any item and work out whether it will suit someone or not. That’s what makes you the expert.
It’s also worth saying that there is often far more work available for personal stylists than fashion stylists. Personal stylists are solving real wardrobe problems for everyday people, and that demand is huge.
So, if you’re worrying that you don’t know enough about fashion trends, don’t let that put you off. Ask yourself something much simpler instead.
Do you like clothes? Do you enjoy shopping? Are you a people’s person? Do, people naturally come to you for help when they’re not sure what to wear?
If the answer is yes, then you’ve already got a really good starting point. The rest — understanding why something works, how to analyse it properly, and how to explain it to a client — is exactly what you learn through training.