Literally everybody in Sophie Deedes’ family has their own business. Her parents are self employed, so is her brother. Even her grandparents were entrepreneurs.
“It’s in my blood!” she says joyfully.
So it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that in 2006, Sophie decided to become her own boss by launching High Heel Personal Shopping, the company in which she employs her skill as a personal stylist.
“I was always into fashion,” says the 37-year-old. “I loved it. I love shopping, I love to research it and I love to study it.”
Before sailing on her own, Deedes worked as a stylist for fashion brands such as Freda Design, Mulberry and Jenny Pakham. She also styled photo shoots for models’ portfolios.
A Plunge Into Deep Water
Sophie admits that it was “terrifying” to go from a good salary to almost nothing - but it’s been the best decision she’s ever made.
Nowadays, she has about 50 regular clients and gets calls from people interested in her services almost on a daily basis.
If people want to work with Sophie, they’ll book an appointment with her where they’ll discuss their taste, their current fashion style, what they are looking for and their life in general. This meeting is free.
Then, if they’re interested, they can either book her for a full day which cost £575 or half a day for £350. During this time with her, they’ll go shopping, or she’ll look after their wardrobe at their home. Sophie also gives tips and advices on grooming.
“That would be fun to have a personal stylist, but it’s way too expensive for me,” says Virginia Rapallo, a 23-year-old sales assistant at Primark.
The majority of Sophie’s clients are either mothers or successful businesswomen who don’t have time for shopping. She works for men, too.
“Women want to be out and see your ideas, see different examples of what looks good on them, whereas most men just want the clothes. They hate shopping,” Sophie explains.
Hardwork
Even though styling people for a living is a lot of fun, it also can be tedious.
In order to know what type of clothes would suit her clients’ body shape and taste, Sophie dedicates at least three hours almost every day to researching what high end and middle market fashion brands are doing, what is in and what is out, and new trends.
“It’s just keeping your eyes open to where the next thing is, what’s popular, what people are wearing, working out what brands sell. Basically, it’s simply keeping up to date with what’s going on in fashion and what’s wanted out there,” explains Sophie.
Olivia Palermo looking stylish, as usual
Picture by 木木 曉儀 under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license
Sophie is able to play up with many different styles and trends, but the classy socialite Olivia Palermo is her personal style icon.
“A lot of people love Kate Moss or other celebrities, but Olivia Palermo is my favourite. She just has such a creative yet so fresh and feminine style,” says the art exhibitions lover.
From fashion to lifestyle
It’s doubtful that we’ll ever see Sophie mentioned as the brain behind some starlet’s glamorous red carpet moment as for now, her ultimate goal is to turn her fashion brand into a lifestyle one.
On top of replenishing people’s wardrobe, she’d also like to refurbish their homes. So far, Sophie has already been able to redecorate a few homes.
“If you have two major key things to focus on, you concentrate on that and your business can build. However, if you take too many things on, you can never do one job properly,” Sophie explains.
If you're thinking about up shaking up your wardrobe, you can drop by High Heel Personal Shopping
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