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Segment 11 - Senior Portrait Experience: Building a Style Closet

we talked about the what to wear guy, and that's how you educate them. So now how do you put that to use? Ah, wardrobe consultation is where the style clause that comes in. So what I did was I just started building slowly, slowly, slowly, right. I used to show up to a session with my tackle box that I got from Target on. It was just full of jewelry and maybe I'd throw a scarf in my car. Maybe I throw a hat. My car was just stuff that happened to have. It wasn't necessarily built specifically, but little about little started building more and more. So even if you want to start out really small and just have jewelry that is going to help your seniors and it's going, Teoh elevate their experience, to be honest with you. So you can carry a little tackle box with you to every session until you can maybe build it up bigger and have this style closet so it could be a small auras. Bigas you want, um, so with the style closet, what comes? The things do you include in the style closet, right? Le...

t's talk about that style cause it must have jewelry. Absolutely. Must have because again it finishes off any outfit. Right? So that and again, that's how I started just with a tackle box of jewelry. So if you have nothing else, have jewelry, statement necklaces, long necklaces, earrings, statement rings. All of these things are good things. I mean, you can pick him up from Target. You can pick him up from forever. 21. There are so many inexpensive. And if you guys have charming Charlie, you ever heard that? That's an expensive right? Yeah. So there's there's ways and you don't have to invest a whole lot in the in. One thing that's going to make a huge impact. Okay, so that's important. What else? Let's see. Scarves. I think scarves are awesome. That's a Mustapha. You can have winter scarves. You can have summer scarves. This right here's a summer scarf. It's lightweight. It's got a lot of pattern. So if a girl showed up with a solid, let's say she showed up with a salad yellow dress and she didn't have any jewelry, and maybe I didn't have any joy to go with it. I could add this to it and give her a pop of color up there and then take it away and have a different look. So things like that help fall scarves those air awesome, because when you're layering for fall and you have a jacket, sometimes scarf is great toe. Add to it. So different things like that. Of course, I could bring all my scarves, but I have Thich ones. Thin ones, all different colors. Target has great scarves again. That's an inexpensive by that you can have that makes a lot of impact. Maybe they even brought just a white shirt and you're thinking, Oh, gosh, I gotta add color to make her pop A scarf will do that for you. So that's a good thing. Printed salad, you name it. Another thing is hats and hair accessories. Those air important because again, that adds a finishing touch to the outfit. So let's say they wanted to look country chic, right? And they have a plane. For some reason, country chic always comes out as a cream dress. For some reason, that's like a popular thing that kind of depicts that characteristic. But maybe you want to add something you need like a head van these again and expensive. You could get him from Target. You get him from forever 21. Anthropology has great ones that they put on sales to try the sale rack there. This just adds a little something to it. I had a session not too long ago where the girl had this white lace dress on and she brought her own floral like headband. And it just made that outfit so much more interesting than just the white dress. So that's good hats or the same way. We'll tell you that when you had a hat to a senior most of time, they get a little bit of an attitude. It's funny to watch, so you're like and they go, you know, like, Oh, that's nice And they kind of got this different attitude. Don't look good on me, but so that's cool, cause then you can get a whole different vibe from the girl and you can take it off and put it on. And two different looks, right? So that's important. Think about with hats. Think about winter hats versus spring and summer hats. Obviously, straw is a big thing in spring and summer wide straw hats, but more cowboys. Schatz fedoras things like that and then felt hats for for winter time again for doors or both. Beanies, Beanies, air, Great toe add so inexpensive and going, etc. And about 10 of Beanies and all that good stuff and then jackets, jackets is it must have. And the reason is that the layering piece it adds something. So this outfit will see if I had this plain dress cute, right cue by itself. But then we could add this Jean jacket to it and give it a whole another look. And then they could take it off, you know, and have a couple of pictures with a couple of pictures without, of course, I'd have jewelry with this. So it finishes awful. Look, it gives you something to hold, you know, like I said earlier. So jackets are great thing. Jean jackets. Awesome. They go with everything, put him over a sundress. Maybe the client brings a sundress. You have a jean jacket in your style closet, and you're good to get right. Um, blazers are also a good thing that go with just about everything and have a lightweight blazer. You can have a winter blazer. I have a J crew blazer that I wears a coat because it never gets cold in South Carolina, so that's about as much as I need. But it looks good over a plaid shirt. I mean, it's good over plaid shirt, just like a flannel Flasher throwing a blazer. I feel like I am more complete because of it, and it looks good as far seniors in their photos. OK, so that's the must, even a leather jacket, cause she could get begin leather nowadays like really inexpensive. It doesn't have to be really leather. I have a turquoise leather jacket I got from forever 21 that I actually got for a shoot out. It was a concept shoot, and I got it for that. But now it's in my style closet and girls were it all the time. So just adds a little bit of fun, a little layer to the to the outfits, and then the last thing is something that stands out. I like to have this because every now and then I'll get a girl that's a little bit more adventurous that's willing to wear something fun and unique, but maybe they don't have that a unique piece that they don't necessarily have in their closet. For instance, this sequin jacket. I'll use this all the time because most people do not have a sequin jacket in their closet. But almost everybody loves it, right? So this is a good thing. I also have a sequined skirt from anthropology. I have a couple of tulle skirts like I have three people Tulle skirt that's in my style closet at home. Those are good, especially if you get a ballerina that maybe might want to do something fun and her session to show off her talent of ballet. Then you've got that tulle skirt, and you've got this whole book for that portion of the of the thing of the federal shoot. So something unusual is always good, something unexpected, something unusual that they can incorporate. Set up the fifth thing that's a style closet must have. Okay, so what can you do if you maybe don't want to do a style closet? How can you help your girls with what to wear past the what to wear guide that you know, is not a style closet. Your partner with a boutique okay. And you can send your girls to that boutique and say, Hey, they know my style. They know you work with that boutique to really kind of talk to them about what they can help the girls with and just send the girls. They're Teoh, help them get ready for their federal shoot. You can, you know, how do you partner with a boutique? A lot of people ask that you need to go into a boutique with things that you can offer them and not what they can do for you. So things like shoot a look book or shoot some photos that they can hang up in their store or if they're having a fashion show, volunteer to you, shoot that team up with them for senior night events. We just did a fashion show at Fabric the week before I came here, back to school fashion show All my model all my senior rips, slash models got to model in the fashion show, and we just had this huge senior night. It was awesome. We had tons of turnout. Fabric did a great job. They sold a bunch of stuff. It was awesome. Several of my clients are coming up for their senior shoots came. They watched the show. They bought some stuff for their their their actual senior shoot. So that's a great thing again you saw earlier that I included a postcard in my welcome guy that gives all my girls 1/5 20% off. If you do nothing else, get them. I mean, of course, there gonna do that because that gets them people in the door. So that's a good thing on Ben, you know, suggest that your seniors go to that boutique for helping them with their war drive. So those airways that you could do it while making sure that they are prepared and what to wear without necessarily having to go the style closet route because not everybody wants to do that. But that's a way around it. OK, so what's the other thing you can dio is you can work with the stylist, Okay, so maybe you don't love shopping as much as May, but you want to do the saddle closet, but you don't want to actually go out and pick the items will. Then you need to find a stylist that you can work with and, you know, talk to them about the different style profiles of what you wanna have in your closet and then send them out to purchase it. Or maybe you send your girls to her and she does the wardrobe consultation instead of you, and that's fine. But either way, they're getting an extra piece of the puzzle that's going to help them for their session. Help them ready for it. So again, you can partner with the stylist. You can include a stylist in the session, or you can have the stylist pull together outfits that you have in your closet. So there, a couple of different ways you can work with that One thing with the stylist is try to find somebody that maybe is up and coming because they're gonna be a little bit more willing to work with you. Um, for trade, which is good. You can ever trade something that's always better because not gonna cost you anything. So I think that that's a really good thing is try to find somebody that kind of up and coming. Maybe you can work together and both build your your businesses together, and you have the same clients and do all that good stuff. So I think that's really away that maybe somebody that's not the most fashionable Maiken still offer what to wear. So because I think it is so important that you help your seniors with what to wear. That's why I have these different options that you can do because not everybody shops 24 hours a day like I do. I'm just kidding. Just really only just getting okay. So, um, there's the Rachel Zoe quote style is a way to say who you are without having to speak, which is why they why fashion is so important because you are taking a photo. You are trying to capture who they are. And one of the ways to do that is to do it through style because you want to know who they are and you want them. Teoh feel like themselves, feel like they're expressing their style and really capturing who they are. So that's what's important there. Um, okay, okay. So I know we have Jared on the phone, but do we want to answer any questions? Let's take a couple of questions that are related to everything that you just went over because that was that was pretty dense. You really answered. A couple of people were asking about What do I do if I don't? Yeah, I know about style. So we talked to that. But some of these some of the specifics like M. C. P. Is asking, Do you take this style closet on location? No, they come to me. That's when the wardrobe consultation comes in handy. They come to my home. I have this set up in a spare room in my house. I treated as if they are coming into their girlfriends closet on. We're just kind of hanging out, picking clothes and having a good time now. Granted, if you have a studio, you could totally do something in your studio. I guess you could take it on location, but, like I say, I have them come to my home for a wardrobe consultation, which is when we go through the style closet on Ben. Yes, for the session. If they pick something like, let's say they came to my house. We did a wardrobe consultation. They wanted to wear this on their session. I would take this with me to their session. So that's how we do that. And you'll see that when we go through the actual wardrobe complication. But yeah, I don't take a known location. Now, before I had a closet, all I have is a tackle box. I took that with me because that was easy. I mean, that's easy to take. So yeah, if you have something smaller and things and you want to take it, have it on hand in case you can throw something on to make a outfit. Look finished, then And I say, Yeah, go for it. Great. And we did have a number of people asking. So you have individual pieces here. What do you do? Because obviously not every girl is the same size, that style. Exactly. And let me just say that because of that, you can't necessarily have a size of everything because you're not a boutique. If you were a booty, you would have, you know, 246 8 10 Whatever. Because you have to buy a style run on. Do you have to buy two of everything? That's the way they work. But I'm not a boutique. I would love to eventually get there to be honest with you. That's my goal is to have a full on boutique as a part of my photography business just because, like I said, when I was growing up, I wanted to be a fashion designer and then that turned into having a boutique. So if I could do that, then that's what I would want to do. But that's not what I'm doing now, so I pick up pieces that are different sizes. Generally, if it's a small medium large, I could go with a smaller medium and mostly accommodate my clients. If you get one size bigger, you can always clip it. That's a great stylist trick. Um, you know, opportune, like I'm a stylist when I'm really a photographer. But that is that's a trick for stylists have those clips. So it's always probably better to have something bigger that you can grab right here because you're not photographing generally and then you have to move the clip like let's say I was photograph in the back of them. Well, then I move the clip right here showing things like that. So you've just got to try to, you know, get a sense of what your clients who they are. And then another thing you can do is maybe you wanna ask. I don't know. I don't actually have this on my question here, but Ken and I were talking about this. I think maybe if you ask them their size ahead of time, then you could go out and purchase something that you think. My reading, those answers to that question inerrancy. And okay, she's really into pretty valuable blah. I'm going to pick up a couple of things. I know her size. I could pick up a couple of things, and, you know, if she doesn't pick it, then you can return home. Or maybe you save him from the next girl in your style closet. That would help answer that question, but yeah, I would have. You know, like I said, this is a small, but maybe I would get this something medium. Maybe just have a few different things you can't have. You can't high. I mean, I would not have every size of this, but maybe I would have this in one size. A leather jacket, another side, things like that. So there's you just have to realize you can't accommodate every possible style. Because you're not, you know, you're not Nordstrom. I mean, anything you work with what you got. And again, you can always ask them their size and go out and buy something special that you had them in mind and thought. OK, In fact, this dress I purchased for a girl who, when she books, she said I'm really, really tall and very, very skinny because she was. I mean, she was super tall, so I was like, Oh, this would be great on her because long and it is little. And I thought so. I bought it for her mind. And then I just keep it in my closet and somebody else come weird as well. So yeah, eating up abs. Do you limit how many times somebody wear something? Yeah. So that isn't five girls from that school haven't worn that. Totally. Yeah, that's that's something you need to do. Because not every girl's gonna wanna wear your get everybody from Riverside High School. Where? This because eventually. Oh, yeah. She asked if if you limit the amount of times a different girl can way or something. So not every girls wearing the same thing. Generally, not every girl picks the same thing. So in general, that's not that hard to do. But if people started picking one thing over and over and over again, I would definitely limit it. Because nobody, I mean, it's like prom. Do you want to show up to problem with same dress, somebody else? Unfortunately, all three years that I went to promise him I have my drills. So but no, you don't want You don't want that to happen. So, yeah, you just need Teoh. Keep track of it in your mind, you know, pull it from your style closet. It starts getting used too much and put it back out after a while. Recycle it. That's always a good thing, so, yeah.