The Trendy Image Consultant: Why the Sterling Style Academy is No Longer Part of AICI

Hi. I’m Michelle Sterling, founder of the Sterling Style Academy.

I started my business in my 20s and since then my business has evolved and taken me on different twists and turns but it always leads me back to my top passion which is related to image, fashion, and style!

When I was younger, I used to be super uptight about the image I projected, perhaps it came from my upbringing and society values. But over the years I’ve learned that the image that you project should be one that’s natural and authentic to you; one that you’re happy with. Because I buy luxury brand accessories and shoes for myself and not to impress other people, but most of the time when you socialize with certain type of friends, you may feel like you need to keep up with them. And that’s when it becomes a competition between what so-and-so is wearing and what you’re wearing.

Getting dressed should be all about what makes you feel good in the outfit that you’re wearing. We all have outfits that wow us, some more than others and if you strive to pull yourself together for perfection every day you’ll just end up stressing yourself out. So be kind to yourself, get dressed according to your values and what’s important to you, rather than trying to be someone you’re not. There’s a time and place when you need to look dressed up or dressed down, depending on your lifestyle and for some they need to be dressed to impress at all times and for others they don’t. But it’s a choice.

So I first joined AICI because I was in my 20s when I started my business and I felt I needed more credibility. But in fact my values didn’t quite aligned with the members of this organization and as I previously mentioned we all go through changes that make us grow and evolve as a person. I preferred to wear more fashion forward, trendy clothing as well as branded clothing, while I didn’t necessarily see that within the organization. So when it came to renewing my certification and needing a certain number of CEUs as part of the renewal process, the organization didn’t give me more time or an extension to complete the 0.2 CEUs that I was lacking for renewal, as I was traveling all over the world and conducting my classes and couldn’t make it to a CEU provider event. Plus I had asked them if they had any webinars that I could take online, and the answer was no. And what infuriated me even more is that two months later they came out with CEU webinars!

So that was the cause of my split with AICI. Since then their marketing department has asked us if the Sterling Style Academy would like to be featured as one of their image consulting training providers, and we politely declined.

And the truth of the matter is our students and graduates have gone on to become celebrities and be known in the field of image, fashion, and style without being members of AICI. We set them up to develop their brand, to develop their business concept from start to fruition, to ensure the success of the majority of our graduates who wish to be that shining star.

Moreover the Sterling Style Academy is known for producing trendy image consultants, some of which have been awarded the title of best dressed by Bazaar Arabia magazine in 2016.

So if you want to be a trendy image consultant, join us at the Sterling Style Academy at one of our future training programs worldwide or online. And you can follow us on Instagram for video clips regarding a day in the life of a trendy image consultant from New York, LA, San Francisco, to Dubai, as well as see how our course curriculum is aligned with the standards of AICI in order for you to qualify as a certified image consultant through that organization, if those are your goals.