Answer in brief
A stylist works with what you sent. Four sets of inputs — photographs, measurements in centimetres, your week counted in days, and your climate and calendar — turn a paid timeline into decisions instead of fact-finding.
What preparation actually is: four sets of inputs
The short answer: a stylist needs photographs, measurements, a description of your week counted in days, and the facts about your climate and calendar. Everything else is conversation, and conversation does not turn into decisions on its own.
The photographs split into two groups: you and your wardrobe. The measurements are centimetres, not size labels. The week is described by how many days you spend in each setting. The climate is a temperature range plus the time you spend outdoors.
Those four sets close the questions that otherwise have to be worked through before anything can be decided. Gathered in advance, the meeting opens on a choice between options instead of on reconstructing basic facts about how you live.
The rest of this article covers what to shoot, what to measure, how to phrase the week and the climate, and how that preparation maps onto the packages published on the VITON13 styling page.
What the fixed price actually buys
A Look Audit costs $30 and is delivered in 1 working day. That day is spent on your material. With no material to work from, the stylist starts by requesting it, and the calendar stretches out into correspondence.
Schema.org describes a service partly through serviceOutput, the thing the service produces. It is a useful way to read the purchase: you are paying for a written result that stays with you, not for time inside a chat window.
For a Look Audit that result is a review of your current wardrobe, image notes and priority recommendations. How specific the document can be follows directly from what you handed over before the working day began.
Preparation does not shorten the stated timeline and does not reduce the fee. It changes the density of the result: the same $30 document either describes your wardrobe or describes assumptions about your wardrobe.
Photographing the wardrobe: what, and in what order
Shoot in groups: tops, bottoms, outerwear, shoes, knitwear, accessories. Each group is its own run of frames. Without that structure the stylist receives a hundred unsorted files and spends part of the working day sorting them.
Lay each piece out flat on the floor or a table, shoulders and sleeves spread, and shoot from directly above with nothing cropped off the edges. A garment photographed on a rail inside the wardrobe hides its cut.
Add one frame of the composition and size label wherever it is legible. Fibre content explains why a piece behaves the way it does, what it will survive, and how it will perform in the climate you actually live in.
Photograph shoes as pairs, from above and from the side, with the wear included. A worn sole or a collapsed heel counter is a fact about how you walk, and the recommendations have to account for it.
Photographing yourself: three angles and flat light
Three full-length frames: front, side and back. Stand straight, arms at your sides, feet together. Keep the camera at hip or chest height; shot from above or from the floor, the frame changes your apparent proportions.
Wear something close-fitting and plain, such as a vest and leggings, or underwear. Loose clothing hides proportion, and proportion is precisely what the stylist is reading across those three frames.
Use a plain wall with no pattern, and daylight from a window at the side or in front of you. Overhead ceiling light throws shadows that change the visible shape of the shoulders and the waistline.
Add one frame in the shoes you wear every day and one in the work outfit your clients see you in. Those are two separate reference points, and the brief needs both of them to be useful.
Measurements instead of size labels
A size label does not travel between brands or countries: the same number means different things on different rails. Centimetres travel. That is why a shopping list is built on measurements rather than on a letter from a tag.
The minimum set: chest, waist and hip circumference, inside leg, shoulder width, sleeve length, neck circumference and foot length. Write them in centimetres, in one list, and in the same order every time.
Measure over the underwear you normally wear, with the tape flat and not pulled tight. Ask someone to help with shoulders and back, because those two are hard to take accurately on yourself.
Put a date next to the numbers. Measurements go stale, and the stylist needs to know whether they are a month or eighteen months old, or the shopping list rests on figures that are no longer yours.
Your week in days, not in moods
Describe the week by counting days per setting: client meetings, the shop floor or a warehouse, video calls from home, the school run and sport, evenings out. Count days rather than intentions.
That arithmetic turns “I need work clothes” into a proportion. If four days out of seven are video calls, weight moves to the upper half, the collar and the shoulder line, and away from footwear.
Mark the days that stack settings back to back: a morning on site, an afternoon meeting, dinner in the evening. Those days need pieces that survive the change of context without a trip home to change.
A Capsule Wardrobe costs $70, takes 1-2 working days and includes 2 rounds on the capsule list. The proportion of your week is what every line on that list gets checked against.
Climate, commute and calendar
Write down the seasonal temperature range where you live, and humidity if it is noticeable. The same wool behaves differently at a dry minus five and at a damp plus eight, and the brief should say which one you have.
Describe the commute: on foot, driving, public transport, and how many minutes outdoors in each direction. Someone who walks ten minutes to a car and someone with a half-hour interchange do not dress the same way.
Note what happens indoors: air conditioning in summer, an overheated office in winter. Layers close that gap, but the stylist has to know the gap exists, otherwise nothing in the plan accounts for it.
Add the next quarter of your calendar: travel, shoots, conferences, family events with a dress code. That turns a capsule from an abstract structure into a set of clothes with dates attached to it.
The occasion brief: Event Look
An Event Look costs $55, takes 2 working days and includes 1 round. It is one complete look for a named occasion, built from your own wardrobe first, plus a shopping list with links and sizes.
So the occasion has to be named precisely: what the event is, what the invitation says about dress code, where it is being held, and when it starts and when it ends.
Add the physics of the evening: whether you stand or sit, whether there is open pavement between the car and the door, whether there will be photography, what you carry, and where your coat goes.
Purchases, alterations and on-the-day dressing are not included. Plan the schedule around that: an order has to arrive and be tried on with room to spare, rather than on the evening before.
Budget, and the boundary of the service
Give two numbers: a ceiling per item and a total. Without them a shopping list is assembled blind, and the revision round gets spent bringing prices back to reality instead of improving the clothes themselves.
VITON13 does not buy the clothes and does not do alterations. A Look Audit does not include the clothing budget itself. A Capsule Wardrobe does not include the clothing budget and any tailoring.
A Styling Day does not include the clothing budget and alterations. Styling Day Express does not include purchases and alterations. It is the same boundary, stated separately for each package on the service page.
The practical consequence: budget time and money for fitting as a line of its own. A piece from a shopping list often becomes yours only after a tailor has been to it, and that part stays with you.
The list of what you will not wear
Constraints save a revision round. Write down the fabrics your skin reacts to, the colours you do not wear, the cuts that have already failed you, and the care routines you will not keep up.
“Dry clean only” is a constraint, not a detail. If you never take clothes to a cleaner, those lines on a shopping list are dead on arrival, and striking them before the list is written costs nothing.
State what cannot change: glasses, a wedding ring, a watch, a haircut, footwear worn for medical reasons. A stylist builds around fixed points quite happily, as long as they are declared in advance.
Add the return terms of the shops you actually use, and their delivery times. A shopping list you cannot return, or one that arrives in three weeks, works less well than it looks on the page.
Matching your preparation to a package
Look Audit: $30, 1 working day, 1 round on the written notes. It fits once wardrobe and self photographs exist, and you get a review of the current wardrobe, image notes and priority recommendations.
Event Look: $55, 2 working days, 1 round, fits a named occasion with its physics described. Capsule Wardrobe: $70, 1-2 working days, 2 rounds on the capsule list, fits once the week and the climate have been counted.
Styling Day: $120, one session, scheduled within 3 days, covers occasion styling, look planning and visual continuity. It is remote by default; travel is agreed and quoted separately rather than assumed.
Styling Day Express: $180, 1 working day, booked within 48 hours, 1 round, and it adds a written follow-up on the same day. Speed of that order requires the material to be ready before the booking, not after.
Comparing providers, and the file you keep
When comparing stylists, ask each of them for the same fields Schema.org defines for a Service: who provides it, what the output is, where it is delivered, on what terms, and at what price.
An answer that holds up in those fields can be checked against what arrives. An answer resting on general statements about taste has nothing to check against, and the difference shows before any money moves.
The document you receive should be readable. WCAG 2.2 works as a checklist here: text as text rather than pictures of text (1.4.5), sufficient contrast (1.4.3), and text alternatives for images (1.1.1) if you publish looks yourself.
Keep the brief, the dated measurements and the photographs in one folder. The next engagement, with the same stylist or with another one, then starts from an update rather than from a blank page.
Practical checklist
- Photograph the wardrobe in groups: tops, bottoms, outerwear, shoes, knitwear, accessories.
- Take three full-length frames in daylight: front, side and back.
- Record eight measurements in centimetres and write the date beside them.
- Count your week in days per setting and add the seasonal temperature range.
- Name a ceiling per item and a total before any shopping list is written.
- List the fabrics, colours, cuts and care routines you will not accept.
Questions and answers
What does the first step cost, and how fast is it?
A Look Audit costs $30 and is delivered in 1 working day. It covers a review of your current wardrobe, image notes and priority recommendations, and it includes 1 round on the written notes. The clothing budget itself is not included, because VITON13 does not buy the clothes. To spend that working day on the review rather than on requests, send wardrobe photographs and three full-length frames of yourself before it starts.
What has to be sent before an Event Look?
An Event Look costs $55, takes 2 working days and includes 1 round. It is one complete look for a named occasion, built from your own wardrobe first, plus a shopping list with links and sizes. Send the name of the event, the dress code exactly as the invitation words it, the venue, the start and end times, and your measurements in centimetres. Purchases, alterations and on-the-day dressing are not included.
How does a Capsule Wardrobe differ on timeline and revisions?
A Capsule Wardrobe costs $70, takes 1-2 working days and includes 2 rounds on the capsule list. The output is a capsule structure, a shopping list and look combinations. This is the package that needs your week counted: how many days you spend in each setting, and what your seasonal temperature range looks like. The clothing budget and any tailoring are not included.
Is a Styling Day held in person?
A Styling Day costs $120 and is one session, scheduled within 3 days, and it is remote by default. Travel is agreed and quoted separately. The package covers occasion styling, look planning and visual continuity. The clothing budget and alterations are not included, so keep a tailor as its own line in your own schedule and budget.
What does Styling Day Express add?
Styling Day Express costs $180, runs in 1 working day, is booked within 48 hours and includes 1 round. It adds a written follow-up on the same day. Purchases and alterations are not included. That speed only pays off when photographs, measurements and the description of your week already exist before the booking, rather than being gathered after it.