There is no distinct difference between a fashion consultant and a personal stylist. It all just depends on what the stylist wants to call herself, a fashion consultant or a personal stylist.
A personal stylist can also be called a stylist, style consultant, or style coach. All these titles essentially offer the same services which is a wardrobe edit and closet cleanout and personal shopping. Highly skilled personal stylists and style consultants offer a proper personal style consultation. Some personal stylists and style coaches offer coaching within their packages as it relates to style and confidence-building – therefore their packages maybe be more creative than other stylists. However, to sum it all up, a personal stylist, style consultant, style coach, and fashion consultant all dress and style clients.
Fashion Consultant versus Image Consultant
Some image consultants started calling themselves fashion consultants because they noticed that many image consultants were more mature, perhaps on the frumpy side. They specialized more in color consultations and dressing in modular outfits rather than looking fashionable. It was the fashionable image consultants who started calling themselves fashion consultants to distinguish the fact that they had an eye for fashion and a taste for style.
So why call yourself a Fashion Consultant?
A person who calls herself a fashion consultant should be able to:
- Identify the seasonal and annual fashion trends
- Know the different names for styles, textures, and silhouettes
- Have an eye for fashion – what looks good
- Have a sense of fashion – how to put fashionable looks together
- Understand that it’s not about just picking the right brand
- It’s understanding if the item looks good or not at any price point
Fashion consultants are not fashion stylists. That’s also another misconception.
A fashion stylist is a person who works with models, magazines, photoshoots, and styles looks based on designer fashion trends. Fashion stylists do not usually consult people unless they are celebrity stylists. Celebrity stylists become stylists to celebrities because they first worked with fashion magazines and through that connection they started to work with celebrities. However other than working with celebrities and styling photo shoots, fashion stylists are not really geared to work with people. Fashion stylists typically do not dress the person in their optimal colors. They usually don’t have any idea about that. Nor do they pay attention to an individual’s body proportions or body silhouette. They are focused on creating creative outfits that look fashionable and stylish for a photoshoot or to tell a story – much like what some fashion bloggers do.
When you work with people you have to take into account their likes, preferences, needs, and goals, then dress the client accordingly. You’re not dressing the client according to your own creative and visual taste. You’re dressing the client according to their own style preferences and hopefully advising and consulting the client to add new items in their wardrobe with some taste, that looks fashionable yet still appeals to their style. This is what a fashion consultant and personal stylist does.
However, some people call themselves fashion stylists in the U.S. that style their clients for their photoshoots. These fashion stylists don’t necessarily work with celebrities or style magazine photoshoots. However, they could be working with an entrepreneur and photographer to develop their personal brand image. Some image consultants develop personal brand images. However, they do not style their client’s photoshoots. This is all semantics.
If you see people on Google calling themselves fashion stylists when they are working with people to go through your closet and personal shop for them – they are just saying they are fashion stylists to attract people who want a stylist to dress them fashionably. This misinterpretation of the term happens mostly in the Middle East and not elsewhere.
If you’re into fashion and styling, try our Introduction to Fashion Consulting and Styling online course for US$97.
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If you want to learn how to develop your own signature style
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