Why I Quit Working As A Fashion Stylist

Actress Shahadi Wright Joseph x Critics Choice Awards styled by me

“I was talking to a friend and we went back to the question she asked about being fulfilled. With all of my skills and experiences, I am realizing that styling isn’t enough.” - March 2021

When someone finds out that I am no longer a personal fashion stylist, they are shocked and ask why? The most simple answer: God. I always say that my desire to stop styling happened abruptly, but when I look back over what I was thinking and feeling in 2021, I realize that I was headed in that direction for quite a few months and just didn’t know it at the time.

In college, being a stylist was not on my radar. I had plans to work in sports marketing. I worked as a marketing intern in the University of Pittsburgh Athletic Department and asked the Media Relations department to let me work during basketball games. The path I wanted to take after college was clear.

But when I started working part-time in retail while in grad school, my focus shifted from sports to fashion. I really enjoyed helping customers find the perfect outfit for an occasion. So the new path was to secure a fashion marketing job. But then the recession hit. I eventually secured a non-fashion related job but I still wanted to work in fashion so when the opportunity to attend Stacy London’s stylist training in New York presented itself (shoutout to my friend Lisa - hey girl! - who saw the announcement in the Washington Post and told me I should go), the desire to become a stylist was born.

I think the reason it’s so hard for people to believe that I have no desire at all to style anymore is that this was a career I was pursuing for about 10 years. I wrote blog posts sharing fashion tips. I shared outfit inspiration and tips on social media (my coworker would take my outfit photos for me). I had personal styling clients. I coordinated photo shoots to build my portfolio. I took additional training in New York and traveled to the city once a month to serve as an intern and assistant. I moved across the country to Los Angeles to work in the industry. And I had some amazing experiences as both an assistant and lead stylist with my own clients.

How does someone who was so committed just stop?

A shift happened during the pandemic and I started asking more questions about this calling God had given me and if it was enough; was this really what I was supposed to be pursuing?

Black Love creators Codie & Tommy Oliver styled by me

“One of the things that I asked God for was a sign of giving up styling is my sacrificial offering. Following the sermon I watched at TC [Transformation Church] last weekend [about God asking us to give up something that is sacred to us; something he gave us], I watched a sermon by Sarah Jakes Roberts called “Let Yourself Go.’ Where we have to let go of who we are used to being in order for God to mold us into who He wants us to be.” – April 2021

When the pandemic hit, I shifted my focus to online styling and spent months recording and sharing fashion-related content online weekly. But one Monday morning in April 2021, I woke up with no desire to do anything styling-related. Not one thing. I thought maybe I was tired or burned out. I mean by then we had been living through the pandemic for a year and emotionally it was a lot.

But when multiple styling opportunities started popping up and I turned them all down (this was the test to see if I would be faithful to what God was doing), I knew the writing was on the wall. I knew that God had decided that my time as a stylist was over. And I was and still am so at peace with that.

I’m often asked if I miss working as a stylist. I don’t. Out of habit, my eye will scroll through the caption of a fashion post on social media to see who the stylist was but I don’t miss it. As glamourous as it looks it’s a very labor-intensive job.

When I reflect on that time, I realize that I had defined myself by what I did and really lost a sense of who I was outside of my passion. If you were to ask me then “Keri, who are you?”, I would’ve answered “a stylist” instead of adjectives like describe who I am as a human being.

Pursuing that career had become consuming. And now that it is no longer my focus, I have used the last year as an opportunity to get back in tune with who I am and what I enjoy outside of work. And doing so has allowed me to reconnect and nurture my friendships (especially now that I am back on the East Coast and close to everyone again), find more joy in the simple things, getting back to doing things I used to do that I really enjoyed and consulting in the digital marketing space which is something I never considered doing before.

My anthem during the height of the pandemic was Jonathan McReynolds “Make Room.” And my life has been a testimony to making room for God to move even when I don’t understand or least expect it. Trusting that what is ahead of me is better than what’s behind me.

So why did I quit working as a fashion stylist? Because God decided that in order to step into who He wants me to become and the life He wants me to live, it was time for that season/calling to end.