We love brilliant ideas for photographers, so we present to you: Style & Select.
Friends and photographers Holly Beach and Melissa Grindstaff created Style & Select, a service that lets you or your clients coordinate, select and buy the outfits for their photo session. Say goodbye to the tedious process of going back and forth with your clients to understand their vision, creating vision boards or Pinterest pages to show them what will work, and being disappointed when your clients outfits just don’t work together.
We sat down with Holly and Melissa to learn more about how Style & Select will help photographers nail the aesthetic of their photos sessions every time.
How did Style & Select come to be?
It truly was the perfection combination of two ideas coming together based on how we, as photographers, were styling our clients. We were handpicking outfits from different retailers, putting together a style board in Photoshop and emailing all of our finds to our clients. It was very time intensive and we knew a lot of photographers were doing the same thing when it came to styling clients.
As photographers, we all know how our hearts skip a beat when a family climbs out of a car dressed to the nines. We wanted to make that possible for every session, but without the time spent scouring the web or loading up the kids to go to the mall three times. That is when the lightbulb turned on. What if we just showed clients what to wear and where to buy from other retailers?
It used to take us one to two hours to style a family of four because we had to go to different retailers to find different sizes and looks. Now we can now style a family of seven in 10 minutes flat!
Image by Locke Photography (@locke.photography), featuring Jesse Salter (@jessesalterphotography) and her daughters.
Why will photographers love Style & Select?
There are so many reasons to love Style & Select. First of all, the time that you will save going back and forth, helping clients understand what looks good together and deciding on a final product is priceless. You can also be certain that your clients will be beautifully coordinated in a way that will make your photos look amazing. Style & Select will show your clients immediate results that will match their family dynamic and links them to the retailer to buy the items. It is a fully customized experience that will help your clients have even more confidence in you. It’s a win-win for everyone.
“Style & Select made it possible for me and my clients to build wardrobes for an entire family, from a wide variety of styles, within minutes! From their couch, my clients can build and order wardrobes for their family that are beautiful and add that perfectly styled touch to their galleries! I include my access code in my styling email that Iris sends out six weeks before their session.“-Kayla Locke, Locke Photography
How often do you update your clothing and accessory options?
Style & Select results are updated every 24-48 hours. We are continuously adding new and fresh items and also removing sold-out items on a weekly basis. It is also a great way to show clients what would visually look good together and let them leverage similar pieces in their own closets (khaki chinos, a blue button up, tan wedges, a maroon hair bow). We work diligently to make sure the results are up to date and that retailers have at least three different sizes in stock.
Give us a quick overview of how the process works if you’re a photographer.
The process is really quite simple: Style. Select. Shop. Once a photographer becomes a member, they will receive a welcome email with a styling access code. Members can utilize the site one of two ways: photographer can style clients and email results to them or they can give clients access to the site to style themselves.
To begin the process, you enter your styling code to unlock the Style Questionnaire and fill out the required items.
Results are shown immediately for those specifications and that is when the fun begins! Clients can browse through items for each family member, check the retailer site to make sure the sizes that they need are available, and select their favorite items to populate the Coordination Bar at the top of the page. The Coordination Bar is incredible because it allows you or your clients to view the pieces that have been selected side-by-side to see how colors and patterns coordinate before a single thing has been purchased! Once the perfect outfits and accessories have been decided, you or your client will receive an email with all of the images, prices and shopping links to the outfits that have been selected.
Style & Select offers yearly, monthly and 15-day plans. You can start now and save 20% on a membership with code IRIS20. Once you have your access code, it is easy to drop it into your workflow in Iris by including it in your prep email that goes out several weeks before your session. You’ll never have to worry about mismatched or poorly coordinated clients again!
Where can I find Style & Select? You can follow Style & Select on Instagram and on Facebook.
Now is a great time to start your FREE 14-day trial with Iris and see how easy we make booking, contracting, invoicing and workflows. Get started HERE.
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