the-returnist-blog

[the-returnist-blog]

THE IMPORTANCE OF ASSISTING

So much of what it takes to be a great stylist boils down to experience.  Putting together great looks is the easiest part of the job.  You can find a ton of people out there that are capable of putting together a show stopper outfit, but wouldn’t necessarily be great stylists.  The trait that separates the great stylists from the average ones is experience.  How do you get experience?  You find a way to get on set.

Most of the stylists I know got into being a commercial stylist through a back door.  It wasn’t their original plan for a career.  For example, I started off as a photo assistant.  Through my years of assisting, I kept one eye on the stylist because I knew that’s where my passion was.  Stylists noticed that I wasn’t a weirdo and a hard worker, and started to ask me to assist them.  I probably only assisted stylists for 2 years, but I was on set as a photo assistant before I broke away as a lead for almost five years.  I learned so much even as a photo assistant about how to trouble shoot, how to work under pressure, how to work with time limitations, and how to act around clients.  You really just need to get on set and be part of it all.  

Obviously you want to assist for the best people you can, but there is also something to be said in learning what not to do.  I told myself that in my 20’s my goal would be to have as many experiences as I could, good or bad.  I said yes to everything because I wanted to learn every side of the industry and see as much as I could.  If you only assist one person, you only get one perspective.  Even if that person is at the top of their game, you’re going to be limited to what you can learn.  You only learn as much as you see and you should try to see everything.

How much experience do you need to get on set?  None.  NONE.  Stylists don’t care about your personal taste (at least not this stylist), they don’t care about your past jobs  (unless you’ve already assisted other stylists or have been on set) , they just want to know that you’ll show up on time, you’ll be respectful, and you’ll work harder and longer than any other crew member.  You need to be a linchpin and you do that by not only helping me, but also offering to help other crew members when there is down time.  I guarantee that if you’re the hardest working member of the crew, people will notice and they’ll start sharing your name to other crew members.  It happens like a wildfire.  

It’s also so important to capitalize on every opportunity.  Don’t just show up and ask the crew members what their name is, study the call sheet before you arrive.  Google all of these people.  Learn about them.  You want to do your homework because a name is nothing if you don’t know their back story.  

Lastly, remember every job in the freelance world is a job interview.  They don’t have to hire you again.  Work like your job is on the line, because it is.  If you treat every opportunity like it could be your big break, eventually you’ll break big.  You’ll be working multiple jobs a month and gaining all of that experience that is necessary to eventually be able to spread your wings as a lead.  These things don’t happen overnight.  Expect to go through ups and downs, busy and slow times, and at least a couple of years of busting as an assistant.  The more you know, the better you’ll be as a lead.  This is why assisting is so important.  

[the-returnist-blog]

CREDIT

You need it.  It’s your biggest tool.  You can’t be a stylist unless you have it.  You MUST have great credit and you MUST have lots of it.  

Most people don’t know that you use your own credit cards when you’re a stylist.  There are some cases on large motion productions where you are given the production company’s card, but for the most part it is all on you.  

Building your credit should be the first thing on your todo list to becoming a stylist.  A credit company isn’t going to give you a $20,000 credit line straight out of the gate.  You need to build trust with them before you pop the question that you want to raise your credit line.  You do this by opening a card that has a good point system, start charging everything, and make sure you pay it off in full EVERY SINGLE MONTH.  It’s less important that you wear designer clothes to look cool at a shoot and more important that you’re able to fulfill all of the clients requests before you hit your limit.  You need to live low to to the ground when you’re starting off and make sure you pay off that card every month.  I can’t stress this enough.  You can’t have a styling career if you don’t have a ton of credit.  

How much credit do you need?  I’d aim for the goal of $50,000 on one card.  I’ve been doing this for 15 years and have only spent over $50,000 ten times or so.  The absolute most I’ve spent is $75,000, so I feel that $50,000 is a good goal.  It’s good to have this on one card because it will make your returns easier.  Personally, I have three main credit cards I exclusively use for reimbursables, or wardrobe and props.  Collectively with those three cards, I have about $150,000 in credit.  I use Business Southwest Chase (the most lenient with never blocking your card even though you’ve spent over $40,000 in one day), Capital One Business (the safest of cards for theft), and Amazon Business because I buy an insane amount from Amazon and Zappos.  

A big benefit of being a stylist is that you can earn a ton of points towards whatever you’re into.  I love to travel and for years flew for free because of all the points I accrued.  If you’re super into the J.Crew, use their card, but if you’re not, don’t EVER open a card at a particular store.  If you have too many credit cards because you wanted a one time discount while checking out, your credit score will be lower, which will make it harder to raise your limit.  Keep it to just a couple of good credit cards.

Lastly, do your homework.  Understand your benefits and use them to your advantage.  Do a ton of research before you open a card and don’t take it lightly.  It’s a commitment and you don’t want to keep opening and closing cards because again, that lower’s your credit score and makes doing this job a whole lot more challenging.  Run out of the gates with a good system behind you.  You’ll be happy about it in the future.  

[the-returnist-blog]

THE ART OF SHOPPING UNDER THE GUN

If there is one point of pride in my career, it’s that I can shop like the wind.  I often imagine myself on a Bravo TV challenge and impressing the hell out of the judges with my swiftness in how I can accurately acquire the most amount of options for a project.  Here are some of my secrets.

Know your city.  I know where to go to hit the most number of stores with the least amount of hassle with parking.  This is so important.  Where you park in proximity to a store is everything when you’re pressed for time and carrying a ton of loot.

Lists are your friend.  On top of having my notes, layouts and sizes, I make a list to map out what stores I’m going to hit and with sub-list of what I can buy at each of those stores.  I also put the stores in order of how I’ll be driving to them.  By the end of a vigorous shopping day my lists typically look like the map to find the hidden pirate ship in Goonies.  

It’s all about getting the most bang for your buck.  That doesn’t mean buying things at a good price, it means what stores are worth spending your precious time to get the most amount of options in the shortest amount of time.  This can also be decided by the parking situation for that store.  As I mentioned before, knowing where to park is everything in a big city.

Go to the stores with fastest check out procedures.  Goodbye Zara, hello Nordstrom.  

If you only find 5 items or less that work for the project at the store you’re at, don’t bother.  It’s not worth wasting the time in line.  Again, see ya Zara.  

Try to carry the smallest handbag you can get away with when you’re in the stores.  You don’t want to add anymore weight to the insane amount of clothing you’re hauling around.  

Always ask if you can keep the hangers.  This saves an incredible amount of time once you hang everything on the rack.  Target, Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, Kohl’s and many more let you keep the hangers.

Order your shoes or buy them from places where you don’t wait for a sales associate to go into a back room and bring them back to you.  I’ve used Zappos for years.  I can order shoes after store hours when I get home and knock out a big chunk of my shopping day in no time.  The shoes also come in less than 24 hours.  If you know me, you know I can’t say enough good things about Zappos.  

Bring Ikea bags into the store.  Ikea bags are bought at Ikea and are made out of burlap.  They are nearly indestructible and hold an outrageous amount.  Don’t mess around with flimsy store bags and risking the hassle of having one break.  

Stick to one credit card for the day and only keep that credit card with a back up card and your id in your wallet.  You don’t want to keep having to search your bag.

Eat trail mix and drink lots of water.  You don’t want to get hangry.  If you removed the seat in my car I’m pretty sure I’d make a squirrel’s day.  

Wear sneakers with support.  Shopping for a large production is a sport.  You’re on your feet for 5-8 hours while carrying extra pounds.  Don’t me a dummy, dress smart.

Happy Shopping!

[the-returnist-blog]

THE BEST WAY TO CALM THE CLIENT

Have a fitting prior to the shoot.  I know that this isn’t always possible due to budget restraints, but if there is any wiggle room to make this happen, I promise it will make it so the client and the agency will sleep better at night.  Let me explain.  

We now all have these cameras in our pockets and it’s pretty easy to take pictures whenever we want.  I often get asked to take photos of the wardrobe prior to the shoot so that the client and/or agency can see what I’m buying.  This is either done by taking photos of the clothing while I’m out shopping or I do it when I get back to my house by arranging the clothing on hangers into outfits on a peg board.  There are a couple of problems with this.  A) Taking photos while I’m shopping when there is so limited time slows me down.  It will make it so that you have less options because I ate valuable time taking sad looking pictures of wrinkly garments under bad lighting while I was in the store.   B) It’s hard for me to live quietly under the radar at a store when I’m stopping to take photos.  They might get uncomfortable and ask me to leave.  Now I can’t source from a place that has good options.  C) Clothing that is on the hanger has no life.  It never looks as good as when it is on the talent.  D) Fit is everything.  I can show you a great outfit, but it means nothing unless we know it fits the talent.  I might be showing you a top that everyone loves on the hanger, but we find out on the day of the shoot that it doesn’t fit the talent.  Then we’re back to square one.  We truly don’t know anything until we see how it works on the talent.

I would say that 60% of my jobs I get asked to photograph the wardrobe before the shoot and I find that 90% of the time it only confuses the client.  For example, I once had to shop for an actor that was 6’6” and 240 pounds.  When I presented his wardrobe as photographed on the hanger, the client’s feedback was that the clothing looked baggy.  They weren’t wrong, an XXL sweater on a hanger looks like a blanket holding onto a pin.  It’s hard to know from the photo what my intentions were for that garment.  Now the client is worried, and it’s only because photographing clothing without people in it and having it look good is nearly impossible.  

Fittings solve a lot of problems.  You get to try things on the actors to make sure it fits AND you get to nail down some looks prior to the shoot, which later saves time on the shoot day.  Granted, you can’t guarantee the looks picked out during the fitting are absolute options because there are issues that can come up when they’re on set, but it really helps narrow down the options and gives everyone a better idea of where we’re are.  It also allows me to go shop after the fitting if we’re not feeling great about the options presented so that we know we absolutely have what is needed by the end of the fitting.  Now we can all sleep soundly the night before the shoot that we nailed the wardrobe.  

[the-returnist-blog]

WARDROBE STYLIST vs. PERSONAL STYLIST

There is loads of information on how to become a personal stylist and plenty of examples of people who have built successful personal styling careers.   There is very little written on the world of commercial wardrobe styling.  Because of this, people often assume I take on personal clients because I am someone who shops for a living, but the fact of the matter is that personal styling is a complete different skillset than what I do as a commercial wardrobe stylist.

As a commercial stylist, I’m communicating with the producer, photographer/director and the ad agency prior to the shoot.  Everything is so fast moving in advertising, I usually start getting information at the last possible minute, at most one week prior to the shoot.  I’m often on a conference call to go over the layouts and direction of the project, then I’m giving a list of talent and their sizes.  I almost never see anything more than a headshot of the bodies I’m shopping for prior to going out to shop, and often have to shop for 10 or more people with only a few days prior to the shoot.  There are certain “rules of thumb” that I need to follow when I’m shopping for projects because there are certain things that across the board never look good on camera.  For example, no heavy prints, nothing that is billowy in shape, NO LOGOS.  Beyond that, I have to also think about the client requests.  I’m often shopping within specific color guidelines, for the opposite season of what is actually available in store, and for particular demographic for the product we’re trying to sell.  These are just examples, the list of what I need to consider when I’m scanning through a store can even be longer than this.  You can equate it to an actor remembering a script before they go on stage.  If you get it wrong, say you buy the wrong size pants for one of the talent because you misread your notes, buy pinks and maroons even though the client requested no red because that is the competitor’s brand color, then all of that work you put into finding those items gets wasted.  You now not only can’t use those garments, you also will need to do more returns once the project is over, on top of having to shop more for the correct items.  It is critical that you are organized and accurate notes before you shop and it helps to have most of it memorized so that you don’t look suspicious having to read your paper over and over again while you pass the employees.

A personal stylist meets with the client, they get to see their body in person, and they discuss with their client what they’re hoping to achieve with their look.  It’s a much more personal connection with a lot more communication from beginning to end.  You really get to learn throughout the process what the client likes and dislikes, and you’re able to see what works on their body.  If items don’t work, you often have the option to go out and shop some more.

I like to think of commercial shoots with the same type of weight as a wedding day.  Unless there is a fitting prior to the shoot (often for television commercials they ask the actors to come in the day before the shoot to makes sure the wardrobe fits and is liked by the agency) it’s a one and done deal.  You HAVE to be prepared with a ton of options and sizes to make sure there will be plenty of things that work because you can’t tell the rest of the crew to sit tight on the shoot day so that you can go grab some more options.  Today is the day.   Commercial shoots generally cost on the low end $25,000 to 1 million dollars for a television commercial.  If the wardrobe is off, the shoot is off, and a painstaking amount of money is lost because you didn’t come through with your end of the deal.  Being prepared for every little hiccup that could come your way is what the experience stylists get paid to do.  The easiest part of the job is putting together outfits, the hardest part is knowing what to prepare for because there will be hiccups.

There are also different goals for a wardrobe and personal stylist.  For a personal stylist, you really want your client to look and feel great, and most of all be happy with the outfits you curated for them.  For a wardrobe stylist, it’s not about the outfit that looks the best on the talent, it’s more about the outfit the works the best within the total concept of the campaign.  It may have to do with the story that each garment is telling, or the color palette of the overall look.  Unlike what the personal stylist is considering while shopping, the current trends may not matter, the cute heels aren’t speaking to the right demographic and the perfect fitting jacket that works beautifully with the story and fits the talent like a glove actually has a logo on it that hasn’t been approved by the legal team.  

If you’re still with me after reading all of this I hope you can see that wardrobe styling and personal styling are two very different jobs.  I think it would be hard to be really great at doing both types of styling.  I have never dipped into personal styling because my interests lie in telling the story through the wardrobe.  It is still important that I have an understanding of trends and fit, but I like the challenge of executing it within a larger concept.  I also have no interest in “fixing” someone’s style.  When I see someone who’s style is all over the place I take a mental note of what that is saying about that person.  How to go about changing their look so that they feel great is not where my passion lies, it’s rather all about the stories we can tell through what we choose to wear.  

[the-returnist-blog]

THE STORY BEHIND THE RETURNIST

Many moons ago prior to birthing two humans, I spent a lot of time writing my thoughts and opinions about the trials and tribulations of being a wardrobe stylist.  My blog was called THE RETURNIST, a spin off of the famous fashion street blog, The Sartorialist, because my career is a weird niche with a whole lot of returns to make.  Then life happened in a big way, and my blog went to the wayside.  After spending the last 5 days on a solo trip in Mexico City, it made me think about where I am in my career and how I would like to pay it forward.  I know that there is so little written out there about the world of a commercial stylist.  You can read and watch reality television shows about being a personal stylist or celebrity stylist, but my breed of styling has been hushed.  I even find that other crew members, people from the agency, and clients have a lot of questions about how I got 6 racks of clothing in 2 days.  Do they think you’re weird when you bring up 6 different sizes to the register?  Do they hate you when you bring it all back?  How much credit do you have anyways?  

I’ve always considered myself very candid with any questions thrown my way, even from fellow stylists who one can view as competition.  I’m not helping anyone by keeping what I do a secret.  I’ve watched a lot of Food Network in my life and I’m still not a great cook.  I can tell you everything I know, but you’re not going to replace me.  You’re most likely going to take the tools and become your own mark in the industry.  It also has become clear to me that if more people really understood what goes into styling on the agency side then the process could go much more smoothly.  The more everyone knows about each of the roles on a crew the better the ship will float.  We need all hands on deck.  It’s a HUGE team effort.  So here I am, back after a 6 year hiatus from blogging about to spill my guts about everything I know as a wardrobe and sometimes prop stylist.  I’m here to help, here to start a discussion, and here to make sure that I’m keeping my end of the deal by paying it forward.  

[the-returnist-blog]

HOW TO SET UP YOUR $$ AS A FREELANCER

I like to describe being freelance as being professionally unemployed.  You have no idea when the next job is coming and you need to financially set yourself up as if the job you’re currently on could be the last.  It’s an absolute must that you keep your overhead as low as you possibly can in the beginning.  You can do this by living in the cheapest place you can while still being safe, not having car payments, and going out to eat as little as possible.  You need your money to last because it might take you longer than expected to start having regular jobs.  

What you can’t do is get a side job to cover you (at least in the photo/commercial industry).  This is the kiss of death.   You can’t turn down last minute opportunities to freelance because you have to bartend that night.  This especially goes when you’re first starting out.  People are only going to reach out to you once or twice before they give up on you if you’re unavailable.  You need to ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE.  This means that you’ll be living on a set sum in your bank account for a while because don’t forget, you’re now professionally unemployed.  I can’t stress this enough, you have to be ultra thrifty in the beginning.

If you want to be a stylist you need to start working on your credit.  Open a card and start charging everything but only if you can fully pay it off at the end of every month.  This is CRUCIAL.  Start building that credit score so you can start working on raising your credit card limit.

You should have one card for personal expenses and one card for business expenses.  Don’t cross your purchases on your cards because you want to keep the two separate for tax reasons.  You can charge all of your write offs to your business credit card.  A stylist can write off things like purchases for their kit, ink for their printer, sneakers for when they work, gas for their car, etc.  It’s easier if you practice keeping your business expenses from your personal expenses from the get go.  You’ll be happier when you need to organize for your taxes.  

Start using an accounting/invoicing site like Quickbooks or Freshbooks.  Again, your life will be easier down the road if you do this as early as you can.  You want to be super organized with your finances and keep track of your invoices.  You’re going to be scraping at every penny in the beginning and you don’t want to lose any of that hard earned cash by being sloppy.

Put aside a third of your check for taxes.  The best way to do this is to set up an account with your bank that automatically withdraws every month to a savings account dedicated to your taxes.  You don’t want to have to scramble at the end of the year.  

Find a good accountant.  Ask your fellow freelance friends.  People are always excited to share who they are using.  Make sure you find an accountant that deals with other freelancers in your industry.  If you don’t, your accountant isn’t going to be aware of all of the write-offs and they’re going to charge you more to file your taxes.  

Health insurance is a must.  Being on set can sometimes be dangerous.  If you hurt yourself and end up in the hospital, you may need to get a full time job and have to say goodbye to your freelancing life to pay the bills.  This is a necessary bill to pay every month.

It’s a good idea to have a car.  You don’t want to turn down a job because it’s out in the suburbs and you have no way to get there.  It’s also a must to have a car if you’re a stylist assistant.  The cheaper the car, the better.  You don’t want to have to make car payments.  You just need to get from point A to point B.  

Lastly, maybe not in the first year, but eventually you will want to contribute to an IRA.  This is how you will be able to retire.  The sooner you do it only increases the chances you won’t have to work until you’re 90.

All of these suggestions don’t need to be in place before you take your first freelancing gig, but they are all things that you should be actively working towards in your first year if you hope to continue freelancing.  The sooner you get your ducks in the row, the greater your chances you’ll have at having a fruitful freelancing career.