We were lucky to catch up with Kaylin Awan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kaylin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s go back in time a bit – can you share a story of a time when you learned an important lesson during your education?

Structured schooling never seemed to be my thing. I loved learning, but not in the traditional way. Perhaps that’s why it wasn’t until attending art school at Academy of Art University that I felt motivated, passionate and intelligent. It’s the only school in the country that provides you with a Bachelor’s Degree for Fashion Styling, which was the main reason I packed up my things, transferred all of my credits from a traditional University and moved to San Francisco.

There were many great things I learned there, but the most important lesson learned was to make connections. I’m aware of how simple that sounds, but it takes a lot of self-work to do so. In the creative industry, a simple friendly connection can ramp up your career for a lifetime. There are a lot of people I owe my early success to, which has prospered into many more fruitful opportunities in the past eight years of my styling journey. If I didn’t show up as myself, attend the recommended collaboration meet ups, keep up with relationships, and remain kind and humble, I absolutely think I’d have less experience and a harder time finding jobs. That’s why, while working hard is an obvious requirement, so is creating and keeping relationships strong.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Kaylin and I am a Freelance Fashion Stylist originally from Philadelphia, PA and living in Nashville, TN. My services include personal, commercial and product styling. I create content on the side on both Instagram and TikTok (@thriftinstylist). This helps me share my passion of thrifting and sustainability while also sharing outfits and tips and tricks with those interested and looking for inspiration.

Finding my way into Fashion Styling took a lot of twist and turns. I started college as a Criminal Justice major, and slowly shifted into Communications, Journalism and Advertising majors all within my first two years. Eventually, I found my way into the creative side of school in Advertising, and loved it, but the courses focus on graphic design and marketing wasn’t enough. After taking one year off from school, I did a lot of thinking and research. I wanted to be in Fashion and a hand on creative in the industry, but how? Well, turns out that exactly what I wanted to do was offered as a Bachelors program and had a name – Fashion Styling at Academy of Art University.

I went on to move to San Francisco for three years. There I spent my time developing relationships, learning styling techniques, producing, directing and styling my own shoots, and becoming signed to my first agency. It’s been eight years since beginning my career in Styling and many publishments and top clients later. I have been so blessed to have worked with Vogue Italia, Amazon, Wrangler, Hanes, Saks 5th Avenue, Virgin Hotels, to name a few.

My passion for all of this comes from a place of feeling shy and self conscious as a child and early teen. I’ve always wanted to create and experiment with my outfits, but didn’t always have the guts. My career is in honor of my younger self and to any one that can relate. Wear what you want and let the confidence come and find you, even if it takes a while to catch up. I only regret the things I didn’t do or try out of fear of judgement or lack of self confidence. That statement about sums up my goal as a stylist and creative. With both my styling work and sharing my own personal style online, I aim to inspire whoever needs it in that moment and share that you can be whoever you want to be by staying true to yourself and letting your creativity, wants and desires guide you.

Kaylin Awan Fashion Styling now serves the Nashville area for freelance Commercial Styling services. For Virtual Personal Styling and other inquires, please email [email protected].

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

While my social media audience would be considered ‘small’, it is mighty! I think that is what makes a great presence and sets it up for future success. By mighty, I mean engaged followers who truly enjoy and are interested in your content. Most of us are aware a ‘like’ doesn’t mean much these days. A truly engaged audience comments, saves and most importantly, shares. One of my best examples of this is when I tagged a fellow thrifter in an Instagram story of mine. She has a large following (100k) and reposted it to her own story. 100+ followers came pouring into my page, effortlessly, because of that. My biggest advice is to be SOCIAL on socials. The more you genuinely interact with others, the better it is for you. I admire so many of the people I follow, and genuinely like their content, which makes it effortless to engage in. You have to be real, supportive and passionate. Then the right audience will come to you.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

I’ve found the most effective strategy for growing clientele is word of mouth. Since my styling work is most often freelance, the people who choose to speak your name when they hear of an opportunity is often your key in. This is why it’s so important to craft honest and strong relationships with the people you meet in and out of the field. You never know who will use your name highly in the right room. I feel the need to mention, this works best when you are also a hard worker and a kind person.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kaylinawan.com
• Instagram: thriftinstylist

Image Credits

1. Urban Outfitters
2. Nicole Anthony @nicolerachellestudio
3. Mackenzie Benson @mackenziebensonphoto
4. Allison Sowle @sowlephotography
5. Edison @ravelaz