Why discovering your Clients Authentic Style is the Key to your success and their happiness
Styling, as a skill, has really come into its own post lockdown.
It’s always really important to get underneath the surface when styling clients in eyewear that they will love and cherish. It’s not enough to just look over the client, make a decision about who and what they are and pick some glasses. From my experience, I have learnt that initial appearances can often be deceiving and this is something you must consider with your own clients.
Take the recent post lockdown re-emergence for an example. For many people, particularly women, having no access to hair and beauty services has forced them into dressing in slightly different ways & many are not presenting to us in practice as they would normally dress.
Appearances can be deceiving
Usually I can look at someone’s, hair, skin, eyes & dress code & can be pretty muchon the mark when it comes to assessing their style personality, colours and also eyewear styles they will look great in. But interestingly, post lockdown, people are not dressing or presenting as their authentic selves.
In fact, the post lockdown weight gain phenomena plus lack of access to their normal hair and beauty regime, has meant that many of my clients are covering up to either hide excess weight or emerging natural hair colours, rather than wearing the things they feel good in!
So, it’s important that when currently approaching your clients, you elicit a conversation that will allow them to open up to you about this. This is how we can best help them discover eyewear which will work for the most authentic version of themselves.
Examine the Style Personality
An extreme and recent example was yesterday when a new client came in with tousled ash blond hair, a touch of lip gloss, mascara and a pretty long floral, floating dress. She presented as someone with soft colouring -so would suit softer tonal colours, rather than high contrast – and a romantic style personality suiting florals, details, beautiful flowing fabric, eyewear in soft feminine shapes etc- but when I went though my styling process, I discovered something completely different.
She usually colours her hair black, loves black leather, latex, fishnets, wears a strong eye with a red lip & has tattoos covering her legs and arms (covered today by her beautiful dress). She announced that she was ‘’only dressed in her in this awful dress’’ because she gained some weight over lockdown. In addition, her hair appointment was next week and she couldn’t wait to be back to black.
Colouring
The black hair against her pale skin and blue eyes will completely change her colouring type making her a clear; high shine blacks, high contrast colour combinations and bold colours will work much better for her and her style.
So we chose frames that were dark edgy and sexy in design to reflect who she really was rather than who she presented as. To compliment her authentic self!
Right now, the frames dominate her soft colouring slightly and didn’t complement her floral dress- but next week, with hair done- they will look incredible!
Authenticity Rules
As stylists we need to know who our real client is, and be able to style a person who may or may not be in front of us on the day, and that takes skill.
The biggest danger right now for Opticians, is that many clients may hate their eyewear in a few months once they’ve had their hair coloured or gone back to their preferred clothing style, unless they have been guided by an eyewear stylist who has asked the right questions, knows colours and styles which will work for them now and in the future.
BECOME AN EYEWEAR STYLIST
Throughout the fully interactive e-learning Eyewear Stylist Course I also offer full tutor support via email, zoom or telephone call throughout your studies. In addition you will have access to our private Eyewear Styling Academy community group on Facebook to ask questions and interact with fellow stylists.
If you want to learn more about Eyewear Styling, and you are ready to fast forward practice growth, why not schedule a call with me here:-
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