How to Become a Personal Stylist

Personal stylists work to help individuals discover and ultimately achieve a particular “look” that matches their personality and flatters their appearance. As creative workers, personal stylists provide a valuable service to people who struggle to make decisions about their wardrobe and overall style.

As a personal stylist, you may have the following job responsibilities:

• Hold consultations with clients to understand their needs
• Create personal style guides based on in-depth discussions and assessments
• Analyze wardrobes to identify missing components or areas requiring improvement
• Find clothes (online or in brick-and-mortar stores) that flatter your clients
• Recommend fabrics, colors, or styles to your clients
• Stay up-to-date on the latest fashion trends
• Balance a schedule with different clients
• Actively listen and communicate with clients
• Understand different body types

No two clients will be the same. You’ll need to be able to adapt your approach and advice according to factors like lifestyle demands, budget, client preferences, and body type.

Personal stylist vs. celebrity stylist

A personal stylist works with everyday people rather than celebrities or models. This is what differentiates a personal stylist from other types of stylists, such as fashion stylists and celebrity stylists.

While these terms are often used interchangeably, they have slightly different meanings:

• Personal stylist: Works one-on-one with noncelebrity clients. This could be a one-time job helping to pick out an outfit for a special event or a longer term arrangement that involves updating the client’s wardrobe or helping them create a signature look.
• Fashion stylist: Often works for clothing brands and provides a wide array of services to achieve a certain look or aesthetic. In addition to picking out clothing and accessories, these stylists may take part in photoshoots and other events and make decisions about factors like set design, lighting, and casting.
• Wardrobe stylist: Provides similar services to fashion stylists but only handles clothing and accessories.
• Celebrity stylist: Provides personal styling services for high-profile celebrities and helps them create and maintain a signature look by working with fashion designers rather than shopping at retail stores.
• Personal shopper: Only handles a client’s shopping needs (without providing specialized fashion advice).

As you can tell, there is still some overlap between the professions we’ve listed. When pursuing a career as a personal stylist, you may find yourself branching out into these other domains or taking on new roles.

We spoke to Kate Breen, a professional personal stylist who founded the service GetDressedGo, and asked her how her job compares to the work of other stylists, such as fashion or wardrobe stylists. She said personal styling involves a greater emphasis on personal relationships.

“Empathy is a key skill in being a personal stylist; you have to listen really well and genuinely care about the long-term success of your clients’ efforts to feel better about themselves in clothes,” she told us. Plenty of people feel vulnerable when seeking out personal styling services, so kindness and patience are incredibly important.

You don’t technically need any formal education, training, or experience whatsoever to start a personal styling side hustle, which is what makes it an excellent job option for fashion lovers and trendsetters. However, you will need certain skills and knowledge to succeed.

Required skills

We asked Breen what kind of skills you need to succeed as a personal stylist. She told us that basic administrative skills (e.g., scheduling and accounting) and people skills are key for the job.

She also told us that sewing skills go a long way since most people aren’t fully satisfied with off-the-rack clothes without some type of adjustment. “An understanding of garment construction and tailoring has been a HUGE help to me,” she said.

Do you need a degree to be a personal stylist?

You don’t need to have a bachelor’s or master’s degree in fashion to become a professional stylist. With that said, you should have some form of education. This doesn’t necessarily mean attending classes—you could be self-taught or acquire knowledge from free resources like books, videos, and podcasts.

The bottom line is that if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’ll be tough to make a fruitful career as a personal stylist. But if you’re starting from scratch, don’t worry. There are plenty of ways to build up the foundational knowledge needed to get your foot in the door.

Alternative ways to build knowledge without a degree

Instead of going to school or enrolling in a personal styling course, try learning by doing. A good way to get started is to practice on people you know. Breen told us that before she started her personal styling side hustle, she had done a lot of unpaid work for friends and family.

“For many years I styled friends and family at no cost, just because I loved them, and they wanted help,” she said. “Those sessions were extremely valuable to me, helping create and hone the services I offer now and the way I run my business.”

She also said relevant work experience helped to build her knowledge base. “My passion for clothes led me to work in my first job ever as a window dresser in a thrift store, then in retail, then in theatrical costume design and production, then to side-hustling as a stylist where I incorporated skills from all those jobs,” she said.

She recommended this kind of work experience for anyone who wants to start their own personal styling business. “The reality of working with clothes and clients all the time is quite different than the fantasy, so before going all-in on a styling business I really recommend testing the waters with retail,” she said. “Plus, before you get your first private clients, a background working with clothes will give your styling business credibility.”

Personal styling can be a tough field to break into. However, your journey will be a whole lot smoother if you follow the tips below.

1. Study up on fashion trends

A key factor determining whether you get jobs as a personal stylist is how skilled you are at what you do. You’ll start off strong by building up a good reputation from your first few jobs if you first spend some time cultivating your knowledge of fashion. In addition to fashion trends, Breen says you should study up on different garment types and relevant terminology.

You can do this without spending money on fancy courses. Here are a few free or low-cost resources you can take advantage of:

• Blogs
• YouTube channels
• Magazines
• Social media
• Books from your local library

Just make sure that the information you’re getting is up-to-date. While learning fashion history can be useful in some cases, most of the work you’ll be doing will require knowledge of today’s fashion trends.

2. Learn from professional stylists

Many pro stylists will tell you that the best way to get your foot in the door as a personal stylist and acquire hands-on experience is to train with veterans in the industry.

Look up personal stylists in your area using local directories or job boards and reach out to ask if they’d be up for taking you on as an assistant, volunteer, or intern.

You might not get paid this way, but you’ll quickly learn the ropes, acquire practical experience that’ll help you secure jobs later down the line, and even make professional connections that’ll further your career.

3. Consider enrolling in a course or training program

Educating yourself can be time-consuming and overwhelming for some. If you feel stuck or want to speed up the process of preparing for a career as a personal stylist, you can invest in a short training program or course to become a certified personal stylist.

Getting certified isn’t required, but it’s something you could do to make it easier to find clients. It can also ramp up your earning potential.

However, if you don’t feel like attending classes, you can also teach yourself or use free resources like books, videos, and podcasts to gain the knowledge you need.

Ultimately, many prospective clients will care more about experience and talent than education. Nevertheless, a certification can make them more inclined to take a chance on you when you’re brand new to the field.

4. Decide what type of personal stylist you want to be

Whether you want to take up personal styling as a part-time job or full-time career, you’ll need to decide what route to go down. You have three main job options as a personal stylist.

Online personal stylist

As an online personal stylist (also known as a virtual personal stylist or digital personal stylist), you get to do the bulk of your work from home. You’ll need to have a computer, and you’ll still need to deliver clothing and accessories to your clients, whether that be in person or by mail.

Breen says you can also mix working online with working in person to expand your reach as a personal stylist. “It’s common for personal stylists to offer online services,” she said. ‘Online styling works surprisingly well and can open up your potential client base much more than if you only do it in person.”

Freelance personal stylist

Freelancing might not get you consistent work, and you’ll need to put in a lot of effort in the beginning to get your business started. You’ll also have to get used to juggling clients, scheduling, organizing stock and shipments, and managing payments.

However, this way of working also offers great flexibility and, when properly executed, can be the most lucrative and rewarding personal styling job option.

For Breen, freelancing as a personal stylist had been her dream job since she was a teenager. She’d done it as a hobby for friends and family, but it was only during the COVID-19 pandemic that she properly pursued it as a career.

“I started GetDressedGo as a side hustle to try to connect virtually with people, never imagining how fast the business would take off,” she said. “I was able to leave my day job 15 months after launching my first website and have been supporting myself as a full-time stylist ever since.”

If you want to try the freelance option, but you’re not sure where to find clients, try creating a profile on a freelancing platform like Upwork, Thumbtack, or Guru to advertise your personal styling or wardrobe styling expertise. However, bear in mind that you’ll generally have to sacrifice a cut of your pay.

Retail personal stylist

If you search personal stylist jobs on regular job boards like Indeed or Monster, you’ll find part-time, temporary, and full-time personal styling jobs advertised by department stores and clothing brands. These jobs don’t offer very high pay, but they do ensure you have a steady income.

When working as a personal stylist for a clothing store, you’ll generally need to interact with customers and perform tasks on site. You’ll also be limited to recommending only the items sold by your store or brand.

Breen thought these jobs would be a less obvious choice for newbies. “I think it would be difficult to get a job as a retail stylist without any experience or connections,” she said. “If a person were trying to do that, I’d recommend putting together a portfolio of looks styled on other people, not themselves, to show their talent and skill level.”

5. Build an online portfolio

Having a portfolio that showcases your skills and style is incredibly important, especially if you don’t have any personal styling certifications or a college degree. This is what potential clients will look at when deciding whether you’re a good fit as their personal stylist.

The only way to get material to put in your portfolio is to actually do some personal styling work. If you can’t find an established professional willing to let you shadow or assist them, then you may need to do some very low-paid or even pro bono work in the beginning to get before and after photos for your portfolio—and ideally some testimonials, too.

Breen agreed that unpaid work can be valuable, mentioning that she’d gained a lot of experience by offering free personal styling for friends and family. One thing she emphasized, however, is that you should always ask for permission before you feature anyone in your portfolio. “Many clients will not be comfortable with you sharing before/after photos,” she said.

6. Promote yourself in other ways

In addition to building your portfolio, you should take other steps to promote yourself. In particular, establish an online presence by creating your own professional social media accounts on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

As well as online promotion, Breen recommended word-of-mouth. “Start with the website, tell your friends and family you’re doing this, and ask them to spread the word,” she said.

Personal recommendations are also very important. If your clients recommend you to others, you’ll grow your personal styling business, get more clients, and make more money. And the best way to make this happens is to ensure that they’re satisfied with your service.

Yes, personal styling can be a good side hustle. It can be highly lucrative, and there are also other rewards, as Breen explained. “The best thing about being a personal stylist is absolutely the moment when a client is truly excited to see how great they can look, and when you know that they are going to be changed in a positive way long after you work together,” she said.

However, personal styling also has disadvantages as a side hustle. In particular, Breen warns that it’s an “extremely competitive” field to break into, adding that, “The trickiest part is juggling the business aspect of freelance styling with the creative side; you really have to be willing to work just as hard at both parts, and to wear a lot of hats at once.”

Before you decide whether to start a personal styling side hustle, weigh up the advantages and disadvantages.

These pros and cons assume that you’re working a side gig as a freelance personal stylist. Working for an employer has its own benefits and drawbacks, like higher entry requirements but more stable working conditions.

How much does a personal stylist make?

The earning rates of personal stylists vary drastically. ZipRecruiter claims that personal stylists tend to make anywhere in the range of $9–$33 per hour, but freelance stylists on Upwork charge anywhere from $5 to $600 per hour. 1 2

Breen says it’s difficult to pinpoint typical earnings: “There’s really no way to say what you can reasonably expect when starting out,” she said. “It so much has to do with who you know, how you present, your confidence, and your ability to sell yourself.

However, she did mention that she now makes significantly more per month than in her previous office job, which was in finance.

Setting rates for your personal styling services

Instead of charging by the hour, most personal stylists use a payment structure based on services or packages. Breen stopped charging by the hour after several clients told her that they’d rather just pay upfront. She now accepts payment in full before offering any service and considers this to be more efficient in terms of billing people and chasing them down for payments.

Although the artistic nature of this field means that you can pretty much charge as little or as much as you want, many stylists start off with lower rates and gradually charge more as their career progresses.

Breen says she’s now making about three times the rate she asked for when she started her personal styling side hustle, but she says it’s good to be conservative with your pricing when you start out. “Start at a low enough price point to attract people to practice with while you hone your services,” she advised.

Alternatives to becoming a personal stylist

If you’re not committed to a career as a personal stylist but you still want a side hustle or your own business in the fashion industry, consider the following jobs similar to personal styling:

• Personal shopper: Buy clothing, groceries, and other items for clients according to their budget and preferences.
• Hairstylist: Cut, color, and style your clients’ hair according to their tastes and needs.
• Makeup artist: Offer professional makeup services for celebrities or everyday people attending special events.
• Retail/sales associate: Work in a clothing store or for a particular brand or designer and help customers find the items they need.

Personal styling isn’t the only side job you can do if you love fashion and want to use your creative perspective to help others. You can even take on more than one of these roles—it’s all up to you.