This week I took two classes for aspiring wardrobe stylists at the School of Style located at Smashbox Studios in West Hollywood. Although they offer a total of three classes, I only took the first two with the intention of taking class 3 at a later date. I had a great time and the instructors Luke and Lauren gave us the read deal about the business of styling. In addition to learning many invaluable tips about the business, I also made some contacts and now have some next steps for my career change.  Here is a breakdown on the classes.


Class 1 is about the actual business of wardrobe styling. I think most people that are interested in wardrobe styling are stylish and can put together an outfit. But no one ever tells you that wardrobe styling requires you to also be a business owner. This class dispelled a lot of myths for me! I watch the Rachel Zoe Project and see racks and racks of beautiful clothes and endless rows of expensive shoes, but I never knew exactly how the stylist got the clothes. Let me tell you, it takes more than a few phone calls to the Versace showroom in Milan. In this 2 day class we talked about the different styling jobs, prepping for a job, shopping for clothes, client fittings, returning clothes, and how to build your portfolio. Styling is a service business that is more than just shopping and being around fabulous clothes and glamorous people. It involves being organized, detail-oriented, and in order to be a working stylist, you need a good amount of credit because you are often buying the clothes in advance using your own credit card and being reimbursed. Since I already run my own business, I knew a lot of the business related things, but many of the styling specific things were new to me.



Class 2 is about styling people and fashion. I for one was happy they talked about fashion because I think it's the basis of this business but it's also a term that is highly confused. Many people confuse personal style for fashion and they are two different things entirely. The class touched on fashion history and we were given an overview of top designers, fashion icons, and our handout had a pronunciation guide for many high fashion designers (I was mispronouncing Maison Martin Margiela). It seems to me that many stylish people consider H&M and F21 high fashion, but they are stores that bring high fashion to the masses. The instructors stressed learning about high fashion by reasearching and going out and touching the clothes, so that you can bring it to your client's level, wherever that may be.We finished the fashion discussion with ways to go about trend forecasting and then finally we delved into HOW to style people. Just because you can shop and dress yourself, doesn't mean you can do it for other people. The styling part of the class taught us how to do pre-production research, build mood boards for inspiration, we learned about the components of a styling kit’s tool and needed supplies, tailoring, age appropriate dressing, dressing different body types, pre-styling for fittings and shoots, and styling do’s and don’ts. The biggest thing I took away from this class was that you need to really understand fashion because your clients are looking for you to be the expert.


Class 3 is a two-day portfolio shoot, where students learn how to style their own fashion/editorial shoot! Everything necessary for the shoot (studio, photographers, models, hair/makeup artists, prop kit, and clothing) will be provided. I haven't taken it yet, but I'd like to intern during one of the shoots so I know what happens behind the scenes, before I'm the lead stylist. Day one is a prep day where students work directly with the instructors to pre-style looks for the following shoot day and learn how to prepare for a shoot in order to create portfolio ready images. Class 1 is a pre-requisite so the student will be putting a lot of what they have already learned into use. Day two is the actual shoot where students gain hands-on experience working directly with a team of industry professionals to produce their final images. If you want to start building a portfolio, then I suggest you take this class.

I was super excited after I took classes 1 and 2 and can't wait to do class 3. They offer it again in LA in August, so I may try and do it then. I would recommend School of Style to anyone who is interested in wardrobe styling as a career.