Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sarah Sommer. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sarah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

In one word – mindset. I believe it’s important to define success for you and your business first, then cultivate a mindset to help you achieve that success. Once I determined what success means for me, I started to show up differently for myself and my business. I have financial goals that define my success, of course, and also I define my success by having the courage to say yes to opportunities that intimidate me, like public speaking or spending two weeks away from my family to style for a film. I’m also successful, for example, when I trust and follow my intuition about bringing on the right people or processes and making decisions in general that help me run my business and reach our goals.

I’ve also learned to enjoy the process to success, celebrating all the achievements, no matter how small, learning from the failures and using it all as motivation to keep moving forward. I’ve doubled my income each year since starting my business – woo! Although I haven’t reached my financial target this year, I’ve also made the decision to introduce new services that will take time and financial investment to develop – which I am super excited about investing and also means a potential delay in the successful fruits of my labor so having the right mindset and appreciation for the journey really is all the more essential.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a fashion stylist who specializes in wardrobe styling for film, commercial, fashion editorials. I’ve worked with many local and national brands bringing their projects to life through wardrobe. I’ve made expert style contributions to Glam, InStyle, People.com and have made appearances on local ABC, NBC stations.
I’m also a personal style coach working with entrepreneurs to showcase their authentic style and draw in goal-supporting energy, opportunities and people.

I understand the role and power style has in accomplishing goals and transforming your life. Clothing holds significant power, and when curated to reflect one’s authentic self on the daily or to convey a brand’s message in commercials or photoshoots, it can propel you to achieve your wildest dreams.

I unofficially started styling in my early teen years when I realized this incredible power of style while experimenting and trying to come into my own style. Shortly after, I started to get requests from my family and friends for what to wear for special events, parties or simply that day’s school or work outfit. When I was 16, I took a magazine personality test, as a teen of the 90s/early 2000’s was known to do, and wardrobe stylist was prescribed as my ideal profession.
As a fashion lover and avid follower of celebrity news and fashion at the time, I was absolutely intrigued, and also, associated the career with being a celebrity stylist and as such out of my reach – or so I convinced myself for almost two decades as I pursued a career in corporate retail management instead. Even though I always had the dream of being a fashion stylist, I loved my retail career, learned so much that would prove to serve well when the stars, and self-reflection, would eventually align for me to pursue my dream and start my styling business in 2021.

I’m a mom first and love that I can show my two kids what it looks like to go after your dreams. It’s not always easy, the mom guilt is so real and sometimes balancing all the things is impossible but I wouldn’t trade it for anything and know I’m on the path I’m meant to be and the one they are meant to see me on.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Transitioning from a corporate background to starting my business as a creative was exciting, liberating and perplexing, all at once. I was so used to a corporate setting with established directive on how, when, why, and what to do to meet the company’s goals that when it came time for me to put in place my own policies, procedures, processes, branding, all the things proven to be successful doing something I had never done before, I didn’t know where to start, to say the least.

I so desperately wanted a guidebook, a one-stop shop for all things starting, running and expanding a successful styling business. I spent thousands on mentorships, ebooks, masterclasses etc and ultimately realized that everything and everyone I was learning from had their own way of doing things, own paths that got them there and all had a level of success and accomplishment I saw for myself as a fashion stylist and business owner.

It was a long, hard and in some ways still ongoing process, with ever-evolving needs, technology and new offerings in my business, to determine the best way of running my business the way it works best for me, my family and my clients. I’ve learned there is no guidebook. The key in making decisions that lead to running the business of my dreams is trusting in my intuition, experience, knowledge and perspective only I have.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

My business exists as result of my resilience. Let’s go back to 2017, I was a young mom working retail and posting daily mom-style pics in hopes of encouraging other postpartum moms to ditch the sweatpants and get dressed. A friend who knew of my long-standing desire to become a fashion stylist, sent me a photographer’s post who was looking for a stylist for a model’s photoshoot the next day! Armed with only my mom-style Instagram feed as a my styling portfolio and a mindset ready to be rejected, I reached out to the photographer, and to my welcomed surprise, he said yes. This shoot kicked off my dream and I went on to do back-to-back test shoots, working for free, building my portfolio, skills and knowledge of the industry for the next year and half.

However, just as I was starting to gain traction as a fashion stylist, life had other plans and threw me a couple years worth of curveballs, putting my dream on hold. Helping with the care of my mom who had advancing Alzheimer’s in 2019 quickly lead into and coincided with the quarantine, self-reflective days of 2020. All the grief, self-discovery and epiphanies of those two years was just the catalyst I needed to completely commit to my fashion styling dreams.
By the end of that year, I’d jumped back into being on-set, meeting new people and putting my styling kit back together. I made it official with formerly starting my business in early 2021 complete with all the life experience and necessary mindset shifts I’d needed to make it happen.
My tenacity started my business and it will keep me going. There is no plan B. I’m obsessed with and so grateful for what I do, how I got here and credit a lot of it, among other things, to my resilience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.styledbysar.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/styledbysar
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@styledbysar

Image Credits

Nichole Kathryn, Bryanna Casey, Bonnie Nichoalds, Brad Reed