We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ariana Weisner a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Ariana , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How has Covid changed your business model?
Before Covid I was doing mostly red carpet celebrity styling in Los Angeles. Then Covid hit and we were all forced to stay home. I found out that shockingly enough people were still shopping online during Covid. Of course they were shopping for more lounge wear pieces but they were shopping! Wives wanted to look good at home for their husbands! At the time Elyse Walker was the only store open, and they were allowing staff and affiliated stylists (me) to come to the store and pull clothes for their clients. Desperate to fulfill my creative bone I tapped into that market and started putting pre styled looks together with their merchandise and posting it on my Instagram so my clients could shop directly from my page. Thats when I realized there was a market for me to do personal shopping and work with every type of client and not just celebrities. Shortly after that I moved to NYC and started focusing more on private client styling. This allowed me to work with a much bigger pool of people rather than the tiny pool of only celebrities.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
2. After I finished college it was time to get a job and that’s when I started interning. I was lucky enough to land an internship at Vogue Magazine in Los Angeles and that’s when I realized that fashion was destined to be my career. During my time at Vogue I would intern from 8 am to about 7:30 pm five days a week. I still needed to work and make money so at night I had to work as a waitress to pay my bills. It was a real hustle and grind but if you’re going to work those kinds of hours you better do it while you’re young! Making woman and men look and feel their best through their wardrobe is my passion. Your personal style is your brand, it’s what you’re saying to the world about who you are. Since pivoting my business to personal shopping for private clients I am able to help more people and hopefully in some small way I am making their lives better. That feeling is irreplaceable. I think what sets me apart from others in my field is the longevity I’ve had. Most people who want to be a stylist try it out for a couple years and when the going gets tough (which it will) they quit. I’ve been perfecting and honing in on my craft for over 15 years. It’s the only job I’ve ever done and I don’t plan to quit anytime soon. When my clients text me and tell me they’ve never felt better or they’ve gotten so many compliments on their look then I know I’ve done my job well. Fashion isn’t saving lives but it’s helping people live a more confident and reassured life. It’s helping them wake up every day and put their best foot forward. I’d love to continue to expand my business so I can be able to help more and more people live their best life!
Have you ever had to pivot?
3. In the year 2020 I was at a career high. I had 3 clients scheduled to go to the Met Gala. For those who don’t know the Met Gala is the mecca of fashion and it does not get any better than that for a stylist. When you have clients attending the Met Gala you can say you’ve made it in your career. Cut to March 2020 and the entire world fell apart, and all the clients I was working with in LA moved away and essentially disappeared. I had been working in the industry for over 10 years and found myself without any clients and no jobs. I took a leap of faith and moved to NY in November 2020. I had 1 client at the time. I knew I wanted to pivot and do more personal shopping so I decided I needed to show the world what I could do when it came to day to day styling, not just red carpet for celebrities. I somehow coerced Bergdorf’s to let me take a dressing room for the day so I could put my pre styled looks together from their merchandise and upload them to my Instagram so I could show the world what I could do. It was a real career humbling moment. One minute I have 3 clients attending the Met Gala, and the next I’m putting clothes on the floor of Bergdorf’s hoping someone would like what they saw and hire me. I I knew I had the talent and that’s what kept me going. It worked. Slowly but surely clients started hiring me and now I am doing double the business I was in 2020 before Covid. I still have yet to have a client attend the Met Gala though. Maybe 2024 will be my year!
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
That’s easy! As mentioned above I had to pivot in 2020 after Covid hit. I needed to let me followers know what I could do other than dressing clients for black tie events. I started really honing in on the flat lay looks that I started doing during Covid. Turns out my clients and Instagram followers absolutely loved seeing my styling work through these flat lays. Not only did they love seeing the styling, but they actually wanted to shop from these looks. I started posting non stop on my Instagram stories and letting my followers know I was available for hire and was not only working with celebrities. Through the flat lays I was able to generate two forms of income, one being commission from the pieces I was selling on my Instagram and the second was clients that actually wanted to hire me to style them for their day to day looks!
Contact Info:
- Website: ArianaWeisner.com
- Instagram: @aweisnerstyle