What We’ve Learned From Styling You
Since we launched our digital styling services about a year ago, we’ve had the pleasure of working with nearly 1,000 (!) clients to help curate their closets and develop their style. Here are our takeaways.
Style is a journey, not a destination
Everyone loves a makeover story. From Anne Hathaway as Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries, to…Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada, it’s incredibly fun and satisfying to watch someone instantly transform from ‘ugly duckling’ to literal princess in the blink of an eye.
And sure, you could pay someone to give you a full makeover complete with a shopping spree for a whole new wardrobe. But, if style is all about expressing your true self, then a movie makeover won’t work. It might look good on the surface, but it won’t feel right because you just can’t outsource self-understanding and self-expression.
We’re seeing this in how clients are utilizing our styling services. Over 80% of our styling clients have become repeat clients, whether that be by working with us on a weekly basis through The Feed or by collaborating on multiple Lookbooks (or, both!).
Not only is that a great signal for our growing business (hi, potential investors! 👋🏻), but it also says a great deal about how style really works: it’s a journey!
Our stylists aren’t robots handing over a plug-and-play checklist of what to buy to “get the look”, they’re acting as guides with real human empathy, here to help you finally figure it all out for yourself. Each outfit delivered through The Feed or The Lookbook isn’t just an outfit, it’s a vehicle for you to learn critically about your likes and dislikes, open you up to new possibilities, and transfer that crucial expert styling knowledge.
It isn’t so much about the outfits themselves, but what you learn from them
What I just said might surprise you: it’s NOT about the outfits!
For the service to be a service, we had to create a tangible deliverable: outfits. 10 outfits make a Lookbook, and 2 outfits a week make a Feed. And, we certainly want to get those outfits “right” as much as we can so that you can take an outfit your stylist sends you in the app and wear it right out the door. That’s just cool.
But, we hear over and over again from our clients some version of:
“Oh! This service wasn’t just 10 outfits. This was the knowledge and inspiration for me to go create 100 more new outfits that I wouldn’t have thought of before and that I LOVE.”
We’ve found it hard to communicate that larger value prop to someone who hasn’t yet experienced it without sounding pretty woo-woo (if anyone has ideas how, we’re all ears!). But hey! We’d rather surprise clients with just how much they get out of the experience than disappoint them, so we can’t really complain.
By the way: this is also why we’ve become comfortable with our policy of not guaranteeing revisions on The Lookbook. The value of the service is in what you learn from the outfits, not necessarily the outfits themselves. If there’s something that you don’t quite like about one or two of the outfits in your Lookbook, we’ve seen it be WAY more valuable for you to work through that discomfort yourself than to throw it back on your stylist.
Why don’t you like the outfit? Can you articulate what feels “wrong” about it to you? What swap might alleviate that feeling of “wrongness”? Can you make that swap yourself and try it out? What does that tell you about your larger likes and dislikes? Does what you’ve learned from this swap apply to other outfits you’ve worn before that feel close but not quite right?
This critical thinking is at the core of truly figuring out your style and is something your stylist can help *prompt* but would be very, very difficult (if not impossible!) for them to entirely “solve” through a revision.
Your #1 style mistake = thinking your problem is not having “the right stuff”
We hear this one all. the. time. It goes something like:
“Oh, well I don’t think I’d do The Lookbook yet because I actually don’t really like my closet at all. I REALLY need to do an edit and get rid of some stuff. I also want to buy some more things that fit my style better. It would be a waste for someone to make outfits for me with the stuff I have now because it just doesn’t suit me very well”.
First off: who doesn’t need to do a closet edit at this point!? I’ve never heard a single person say that their closet is in great shape, they wear every single piece, and they couldn’t possibly get rid of anything. If that person exists, I’d honestly love to meet them.
But I’ve also seen enough to say that you’re not simply one closet edit or one new blazer away from loving your style. We’ve been made to believe that style is about WHAT you wear (and therefore, what is in your closet) when it is so much more about HOW you wear it.
I’ll let these real reviews speak for themselves:
“Ellie exceeded all my expectations! She explained why she was putting together her recommendations which will allow me to recreate it for future looks. She also helped me feel proud of the clothes I had when I wasn’t sure if I should just scrap most of it and start over. THANK YOU!”
“I really loved this, Heather! Thank you for taking the time to really consider how my wardrobe can be styled to actually reflect the style I love. I also really appreciated that you found Australian shipping for the recommendations! I am so excited to wear these outfits. You’ve given me a whole new look at my wardrobe and I no longer feel like throwing everything out and starting again! I can’t thank you enough!”
“The experience was even better than I could have imagined! Kim combined neglected pieces in my wardrobe, giving them new life and showed me that I don’t need to buy a lot of new items…I just need to see what I can do with the items I already own! I asked for suggestions for additions to my wardrobe and Kim provided ideas for 5 items: a pair of shoes, a belt, two bags, and a jacket. All incredibly versatile staples that will coordinate well with my existing pieces. Out of a jumble of wardrobe items, Kim got a better sense of my personal style than I had myself. Her suggestions were 100% spot on! This experience was a great use of my wardrobe budget as it will prevent me from throwing cash into my closet in an effort to find something to wear! I can’t wait to do this again in the Fall!”
I’d say that all three of these clients learned through styling that it wasn’t about having “the right stuff” or “better stuff” or “new stuff”. It was about getting expert help in executing their ideal style with the perfectly good stuff they already had.
This is why I URGE you to stop waiting on “the right stuff” because it just doesn’t exist. And even if you do end up doing all the things you say, too - editing your closet and buying some new things - then working with a stylist first will give you so much more clarity on what you should get rid of and what you should buy. Why would you start a journey without a guide?
Note: if you want to make sure your stylist doesn’t style certain items in your wardrobe because you secretly hate them, we have an app for that! Long press on an item and tag it as “do not style” to hide it from your stylist.
Having limited information about you can be freeing
Okay, this one might be a bit controversial.
You might notice that we don’t ask you to input a *ton* of information about yourself before we start styling you. We’ve heard a bit of…skepticism…from some potential clients about this approach. They want to tell us everything. They want to take ALL the quizzes. They want to swipe left and right on EVERY outfit they can. They want to link five different Pinterest boards, their birth certificate, and their tax return.
And look, I get it. I’m not saying all that extra information wouldn’t help us. But let me also share why we’re comfortable operating without it right now.
First, I’d argue that you have already done a LOT to tell us about you: you’ve uploaded your entire freaking closet!!! That tells us an incredible amount.
My personal theory is that many people underestimate how valuable their closet is in communicating about them, returning to the idea that many people perceive themselves as not having “the right stuff”. They don’t want their closet to talk for them because they don’t feel like it currently represents them.
But again: you have the right stuff! Or, at least mostly the right stuff. And at the end of the day, even if it’s not working for you *right now*, you chose all that stuff for a reason and that context is incredibly rich information.
I’ll also share that we heard from one of our stylists just last week (I’m paraphrasing):
“I actually love that you don’t show me that much information about who the client is. It’s freeing. If you told me things like the client’s age or size super upfront, I worry that I might make unconscious assumptions about how they want to dress”.
If true style is really ageless and sizeless (which, we wholeheartedly think it is!), then why do we need to know your age and size to style you? Food for thought.
Maybe someday we will collect that type of information (if you want to give it to us!), but what we know for sure is that we want to be super thoughtful about how it’s applied.
Ready to give our digital personal styling services a try? Check out our stylists and then download the Indyx app for free on iOS or Android to digitize your closet and book your first service.
Devon is a co-founder of Indyx and currently leads Growth for the company from San Francisco. She enjoys admiring other people’s gardens and sleeping in with her French Bulldog, Reggie.
