Living the Dream as a Personal Stylist: My Story

Hello! My name is Katelyn Milley. Thanks to The Style Core, I am living my dream of being a Personal Stylist. This May, I celebrated my business’ three year anniversary!

Here is my story…

In June 2012, I attended The Style Core’s Essential Personal Stylist training class. Having previously taken other styling courses, I wanted to build on my personal styling education. I really enjoyed the class and learned important skills that I use in my business today – most notably color analysis and how to give a fashion consultation. 

After completing the course, I went home and mulled over the information I learned from Carla. After a few months, I began creating my business. Over the next six months, I reserved my website URL, www.katelynmilley.com, selected a website template, and had my logo designed. I carefully constructed my brand. Business cards were printed and I wrote my website’s content. Then came the biggest challenge of writing my Fashion Consultation and Beauty Consultation guides. Finally, on May 14th, 2013, everything was ready to go, and I launched Katelyn Milley, Personal Stylist. 

Today, I offer seven different services to my clients including: Fashion Consultation, Beauty Consultation, Beauty Appointment, Closet Edit, Personal Shopping, Personal Styling, and Photo Styling. I work with my clients one on one in their homes, or as you can imagine, in malls and boutiques. Over the years, my client base has grown to comprise of many women from my area (near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), as well as from Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey.

I have worked with many women I absolutely loved taking on a styling journey. Here are a couple of their stories:

Amy’s Experience

A therapist her early thirties, Amy chose the following services with me to get her best style: Fashion Consultation, Beauty Consultation, Beauty Appointment, Closet Edit, Personal Shopping, Personal Styling and Photo Styling. I loved hearing her feedback about the process, and hope you do too!

Photography by:@bluepearphoto Styling and Make-Up by:@katelynmilley Hair by: @KelseyLamarra at@tribebeauty

K: What were your thoughts going into your styling experience?

“As a very (very) busy Mom of four girls, style had taken a back seat to the craziness of every day life. I love fashion and frequently look at blogs and spring/fall runways, enjoying the gorgeous details, colors, and artistic statements that a great wardrobe brings with it. In my closet, however, was basically a uniform of black shirts, black pants, with occasional grey thrown in. I had a jumble of clothes in piles that were unused but taking up space, and I was frustrated with the fact that I was wearing the same thing every day. I have a vibrant personality and my clothing was anything but a reflection of that. To add insult to injury, I am very petite, so finding well-fitting clothes is difficult. I would find myself frequently in the junior’s department, buying clothing that was far too young for me and still ill-fitting!”

K: Which part of the Fashion Consultation was your favorite?

“Katelyn had me choose a few paintings/photos that were inspiring/beautiful to me. I thought it was an odd exercise for a fashion consultation, but wow was it illuminating! As I described what I liked about each piece, we found that certain words kept coming up over and over again. As I thought through those words, I realized that they were reflections of my personality, and were things that I find beautiful about myself, too. And we were then able to take those words and apply them to a cohesive style sense that I found truly beautiful and reflective of what I wanted to put out into the world.” 

K: What were your thoughts and feelings after the Fashion Consultation?

“After the fashion consultation, I finally had a clear sense of what my style personality is! I was able to picture a cohesive wardrobe, instead of an ecletic mix of styles, many of which don’t work with each other (which results in buying lots of clothes that never get used).” 

K: What was your biggest takeaway from your Beauty Consultation?

“I have always been a minimalist when it comes to makeup. Which is okay, but I often found myself wanting to branch out and try some fun styles (a bold cat eye, for example), but was too afraid to actually rock it. Having Katelyn narrow down a perfect color palette for my skin, and then playing around with those colors, allowed me to branch out into a lot of different looks that I would have been too afraid to try otherwise!” 

K: What was most helpful about the Closet Edit?

“The most helpful thing about the Closet Edit was seeing just how many things in my closet I had overlooked! There were all these great pieces in there that I hadn’t worn in forever, or couldn’t figure out how to incorporate into my wardrobe, and Katelyn was like a magician – turning a piece that I would have given away to Goodwill, to a piece that will become a new staple in my wardrobe. On the other side of that, though, figuring out what isn’t worth holding on to was so helpful as well. I had a lot of pieces I was holding on to for who knows why, and it was time for them to leave my closet.” 

K: What did you like the most about Personal Shopping?

“The personal shopping was perhaps one of my favorite parts of the experience, and something that will forever change the way I dress myself. I was able to see, in person, how to sort through the enormous amount of choices presented by a store, and quickly decipher what will work for me and what won’t. As a woman who is very, very busy, being able to quickly see that the strap on a top will be to clunky for my small frame, or that the rise of a pair of jeans won’t flatter my proportions, will save me huge amounts of time and frustration in dressing room. When I go shopping now, it is such an amazing experience – being able to take all that knowledge that Katelyn imparted and put it to quick use is a life-saver!”

K: What have been your biggest takeaways from your styling experience?

“I think I have two biggest takeaways. The first, is that I have been able to define myself stylistically, and present myself outwardly in a way that matches how I feel inwardly. Expressing to the world who I am through the art of style is an important and wonderful skill to have!

The second is learning how to shop for clothes that fit my body. Learning how to scan for proportions on clothing has already saved me literally hours of time in a store, and much frustration. I am able to dress myself confidently in the mornings without fear that the look doesn’t work for me!”

K: Do you feel that you have become more aware of the importance of fashion and personal style in your life? If so, in what ways?

“I have definitely become more aware of the importance of style in my life. As I move forward with my career and with my life, how I present myself will be looked at and evaluated, and those evaluations with form the basis for my success. Using style to further myself and my personal brand now isn’t a huge hurdle to overcome, but a joy and a pleasure, and a tool that I can use skillfully and easily.” 

K: How would you say your styling experience has impacted your life?

“Apart from giving me the ability to confidently and easily dress myself every day, the styling experience gave me the ability to re-examine my own passions and priorities. As I learned more about how I project myself, I felt like I reaffirmed skills and gifts I have had, and uncovered new interests and ideas that had been lurking in the back of my mind, but hadn’t quite come to light. It gave me the time and space to make myself a priority, too, which had fallen by the wayside in my recent busy times. I am incredibly grateful for the experience, because I feel like I uncovered my most authentic self, both inside and out.” 

Andrea’s Experience

A pilates studio owner + instructor in her her early thirties, Andrea received a Fashion Consultation with me. She also gave me feedback about her experience…

Photo by Sarah Rachel Photography www.sarah-rachel.com

K: Why did you decide to hire me as your personal stylist?

“I needed direction for style, shopping and how to dress to highlight my body and express my personal style.”

K: What were your thoughts going into your styling experience?

“This will be fun! Finally, I will be able to shop with confidence.”

K: Which part of the Fashion Consultation was your favorite?

“Choosing the best colors for me.”

K: What was your biggest takeaway from your Fashion Consultation?

“Learning how much science goes into it, much more than I thought!”

K: Do you feel that you have become more aware of the importance of fashion and personal style? If so, in what ways?

“Yes – color, proportion and ways to make myself appear thinner or taller all have been a huge benefit to me.”

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Being able to work with women like Amy and Andrea is a huge blessing. Thank you, Style Core for helping me be able to style people for a living. It truly is a dream come true!

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