Why You Should Hire a Personal Stylist
We all manage to get dressed everyday, but few of us have ever worked with a personal stylist. It is a little odd to think that many of us hire personal trainers for physical fitness, therapists for mental wellbeing, or professional coaching for career development - but when it comes to facing the behemoth that is style, we all seem to choose to fend for ourselves.
But choosing not to work with a personal stylist is a logical choice when you learn just how expensive traditional personal styling can be. Today, personal styling today is often synonymous with personal shopping - and a decent personal stylist can start at thousands of dollars, not to mention the astronomical shopping budget that most demand on top.
Most personal stylists also still operate in the analog age, only meeting you in-person for exhausting hours-long sessions that require you to rearrange your entire schedule to fit in. And in-between those sessions? Good luck trying to get in touch with them! Poof, you are on your own yet again.
Even if you convinced yourself to invest all that money and time, you might only realize that you hired the wrong personal stylist for you half-way through. So when personal styling services are expensive, inefficient, and a bit hit-or-miss, it’s no wonder that most of us shy away from it.
But the truth is that we could all use some help from a personal stylist. Contrary to popular belief, no one is born with style - it is a skill that is built over time. The right personal stylist can help you navigate the overwhelm and anxiety about dressing yourself. They can be a trusted style advisor instead of a commissioned personal shopper, supporting your style evolution by teaching you how to dress rather than simply dressing you. And rather than focusing on just helping you with buying new, they can help you curate and circulate your wardrobe as a whole, from purchase, to style, to resale.
Style, ever so mysterious and elusive, is a learnable skill. Let’s explore how we built Indyx to teach you just that.
Why Indyx Personal Styling is Different
The superpower of Indyx is our stylist’s ability to have full visibility into your existing wardrobe, any time and from anywhere. We get it: digitally cataloging your wardrobe can feel like a big task. But this is the key unlock that totally changes the game.
We just laid out three reasons above as to why personal styling hasn’t yet gained mainstream popularity: it’s expensive, inefficient, and hit-or-miss. Let’s address each of these reasons one-by-one - and why Indyx virtual styling with visibility into your digital wardrobe turns those detractors on their head.
It’s efficient
Because Indyx stylists can access your wardrobe at any time and from anywhere, this work becomes much more flexible and efficient. Rather than spend hours driving to your house and wading through your physical wardrobe piece-by-piece, stylists can instantly access your digital closet and simply scroll through your items.
On your end, this also means that you can access your stylist on a much more day-to-day cadence as they can always pop into your digital wardrobe for help. And, rather than depending on memory or inconvenient PDF lookbooks, your styled outfits are always saved right in your Indyx app.
It’s affordable
That increased efficiency? It totally translates to a much lower price than traditional styling. Our services start at just $25 a month for our subscription service, The Feed. At the time of publishing, there is no other service out there offering human personal styling at this accessible of a price. It literally can’t be beat - and without ever sacrificing quality of styling.
It’s low-risk
Traditional personal styling requires you to make a BIG commitment, which can also turn into a BIG mistake if you find your stylist isn’t right for you. With Indyx, styling is much more bite-sized, so if for whatever reason you don’t vibe with your first stylist it is easy to swap to a new one before investing very much at all.
How Do I Find a Personal Stylist?
You could navigate Google Search or other platforms like Thumbtack or Fiverr to try to find a local stylist in your area. We’ve also broken down some of the best Personal Stylist Apps.
But with Indyx, it’s easy! Simply sign up for free, digitally catalog your wardrobe, and we’ll do all the hard work to pair you with one of our vetted virtual stylists.
What Does A Personal Stylist Do?
In short, a personal stylist can give actionable advice to help you feel more confident in how you dress every day.
But when it comes to personal style, everyone is different. We are different in what we consider visually pleasing, in how clothing drapes on our bodies, in how much we are aware of our own likes and dislikes, and in how we see style as a life-long passion or mere practicality.
However, we found that while our style preferences can be wildly different from one another, what a stylist can tactically do for you generally falls into four categories:
Clarify your style
Outfit from your wardrobe
Clean out your wardrobe
Recommend new items to add to your wardrobe
In each of these categories a stylist can be a coach and guide, helping you work through challenges or mental blocks. They can also offer very specific and tactical advice: for example, how to balance your proportions in a specific outfit, or what items they’d recommend you add to give you more wardrobe versatility.
We offer a few different service offerings (more on that in a moment!), and any of them can be used in different ways to help with any or all of those four basic needs.
We’ve all opened our absolutely overflowing closets and still thought to ourselves: “I have nothing to wear”. We know it’s outrageous - of course there must be something in there. But all alone in our closets, it never seems to feel that way.
And that’s exactly the trouble: so often, we are completely alone with our style. Humans absolutely crave connection, support, and validation. Yet, we think we can tackle something that is core to our identity and perception of ourselves and each other…completely alone! A personal stylist means that you always have someone in your corner whose job it is to help you look and feel your best.
What Styling Services Can I Choose From?
I’m glad you asked! We’ve done all the hard work to figure out what service structures are most beneficial, and these are the three options we’ve landed on. You can try one - or, all three! They’re designed to work together.
The Feed
This is our most convenient and affordable service - if you don’t know where to start, start here! But it is particularly great if you:
want to work on developing your style and evolve your wardrobe over time
are stuck in a rut of the same old outfits, and are in need of a fresh perspective on new, unexpected pairings
would love the convenience and confidence boost of a stylist-approved outfit for every occasion
For just $25 a month, you’ll get up to two expertly styled outfits every week, all from your own closet. You can even make requests for specific help from your stylist, like to style a tricky item or for a special occasion. It’s a really easy and practical way to learn how to style great outfits that you already own, and having a bank of professionally styled outfits to fall back on just makes getting dressed in the morning so much easier.
I particularly love using The Feed as a way to validate whether you should take the leap with a particular purchase. Simply upload the item you’re considering buying to Indyx, submit an Item Styling request with that item, and get your stylist’s feedback on whether they think it’s right for you - and, three outfits with the item styled into your existing wardrobe! It is incredible to know exactly how you’ll wear something before you even buy it.
The Workshop
The truth is, most of us are super confused about our style. And it’s no wonder, when we’re all subjected to an endless stream of media about what we should be wearing.
We designed The Workshop to directly address this problem, and so it is definitely for you if you are:
completely confused about your true personal style
feeling jerked around by an endless trend cycle
tired of buying things that only end up sitting in the back of your closet
But, we’re not into instant makeovers - and, our belief is that style is a journey that only you can ultimately define. A stylist can be a guide…but the truth is that to find your true style, it’s work that you have to engage in. And so, The Workshop is a 8-week course that will give step-by-step guidance to:
Build an inspiration board that reflects your true personal style
Develop your three style words
Audit your current wardrobe
Build an intentional wishlist of potential new additions
And so, in short: The Workshop is a total reboot!
The incredible news? You can access the self-guided course content completely free! Just sign-up in our app and we’ll send you the course content every week.
The Lookbook
The Swiss Army knife of our style offerings, The Lookbook does it all! Completely customizable to your preferences, this service gets you a set of ten (10) outfits styled entirely out of your own closet or with a few new suggestions mixed in. It’s really great for anyone who wants a quick wardrobe refresh of professionally styled outfits, all in one go.
The possibilities of how to use a Lookbook are endless, but to get you thinking, a few of our favorite reasons to book a Lookbook include to:
build a perfectly packable capsule for an upcoming dream vacation
design a seasonal capsule of everyday outfits to reach for without triggering decision fatigue
discover a few new pieces to add to your wardrobe (and, understand how to mix-and-match them into outfits before buying!)
Before your session, you’ll be asked to fill out a quick questionnaire so we can learn more about you and your intentions for the Lookbook.
How Much Does a Personal Stylist Cost?
With Indyx, you can work with a real personal stylist starting at just $25 a month. With a subscription to the The Feed, you’ll get two fresh outfits a week all professionally styled out of your own closet.
If you’re looking for a bit more all in one go, the Lookbook starts at about $100 for a set of ten (10) perfectly styled outfits out of your own closet, or with a few new pieces mixed in.
Who Shouldn’t Hire A Personal Stylist?
Wait…I thought this was all about why I should bring a stylist into my life? That’s true - and, I hope you’re now feeling excited about the prospect!
But there is one situation where I wouldn’t recommend it and that is if you are someone without an open mind to style.
In order for advice to be helpful to you, you have to be open to it. If you already know exactly what you like to wear and exactly how you like to wear it, then congratulations: you are already your own best stylist! Hiring a personal stylist is incredible to give you new perspective, but if you don’t need or want a different perspective, then it isn’t going to be a productive experience.
I suspect that if you’ve made it to this point in the article, this isn’t you - you’re not totally satisfied with your wardrobe and how you dress. You want some help, and you’d love for a fairy godmother to help your style dreams come true.
The tricky part is that we have to be realistic: not every suggestion from your stylist will totally hit the mark. But the goal is, bit-by-bit, to discover the true guardrails of your style and the only way to do that is to sometimes push you out of your comfort zone. And, the longer you work together, the “hit rate” of their advice will only increase as you get to know each other better over time.
And so, let’s get started! We all manage to put on clothes each morning, but few of us really get dressed - and that is exactly the magic that a personal stylist in your pocket brings.