Anna's world

Anna Pastore
Fashion Stylist

15 November 2021

When I was a child, I used to cut out clothes and accessories from Marie Claire magazine and paste them on blank sheets of paper to create outfits and mood boards, then I started doing it on the computer. I memorized the collections after the shows and had very clear ideas about what I was going to do when I grew up.

I remember when at school my Latin teacher asked me what I would like to do when I grew up, and I answered with these words: "I'd like to do a job that I love, that allows me to be creative and to travel a lot". Needless to say, she laughed out loud in response. I couldn't understand why she laughed, and even though it hurt me, it definitely did not discourage me from pursuing my goal.

I knew exactly who I was and looked forward to the moment when I could express myself amongst clothes, fabrics, jewellery, bags, shoes, lights and flashes. And yet, I kept wondering whether there really was a job that could give me all those emotions.

Fortunately, as I got older, I realised that my place existed, I just had to find it.

When someone asks a stylist what their job is, there is always a lot of confusion and they end up being mistakenly associated with the fashion designer, a complementary figure yet different: stylists don't design, don't create clothes.

So, what does a stylist really do?

Stylists don't have a clearly defined task, they are a versatile figure and lend their eye in a wide variety of situations: in an advertising campaign, for example, they will be responsible for studying and embracing the style of a brand, for finding a way of visually promoting an image by carefully examining the target audience and the market segment to which it will be addressed; in a fashion show, they will work alongside the designers and the style department, and they will also often take part to the creation phase of a collection by analyzing trends; in a commercial, they will help the director and the client to get visuals that suit the product; in a celebrity-focused job, their task will be to bring out the personality and essence of the artist through his image, without distorting it.

The stylist is definitely an unrestful figure, always in movement. Indeed, the most distinctive feature of stylists is their constant travelling: today a shoot in Cannes, in two days a campaign on the Etna volcano, in a week the shooting for an album cover, that same weekend a commercial, without missing meetings, appointments and e-commerce.

You can immediately recognize a stylist: on social medias they have a Sex&TheCity lifestyle, surrounded by clothing, bags, jewellery and always tagged in a different place of the world, but in real life they are the personification of haste: hair out of place, comfortable shoes and many, many suitcases. Suitcases ready for all kinds of eventuality, no emergency is too much for a stylist with their beloved kit, in which they keep literally anything that might be remotely useful, from safety pins, needle and thread, scissors, tweezers, they are ready for anything.

The stylist's job can be summed up in these few lines.

It goes without saying that my mother still hasn't figured out what my job is, and honestly it makes sense.