It’s time for another exciting installment of Assistant Stylist 101!! A new little section that follows SOS’s assistant stylist through her day to day tasks. Today’s post is all about shopping and shoes. Those two words sound nice together don’t they? As stylists we love both words. However when you are shopping as a stylist those two words get a bit hairy when you put them together. Let us explain …

When you shop as a stylist (an assistant stylist to be exact) you are shopping not “shopping”. “Shopping” is a leisurely activity that you do with your girlfriends — you drink coffee, laugh, and dress all cute. Shopping, as an assistant stylist, is a full on physical activity. With any full on physical activity, some sort of uniform is a necessity. In this case it’s comfortable shoes (see how we bolded that one for emphasis), sunglasses, and clothes that aren’t constricting or overly ridiculous. Some people call that type of uniform “comfortable” attire.

Well our trusty SOS assistant got the memo a while back but clearly refuses to follow it. Today she wore 4 inch heels for 8+ hours of shopping. Lets just say, her feet aren’t exactly pleased with her right now. Our advice to you assistant stylist out there that don’t want to suffer (SOS assistant really does want to suffer in the name of fashion, silly girl) is to …

WEAR COMFORTABLE SHOES!! You will be carrying a ton of heavy garment bags and you will be walking a lot. Trust us on this one. We tend to know what we are talking about.

One of the many roles of an assistant stylist is doing pick ups. A pick up happens after the key stylist pulls the looks from the store, showroom, etc.  After the looks are pulled, the assistant stylist waits patiently for everything to be packed up and then loads it all up in his or her car. It’s a simple process really — pull, wait, pack, and drive to the next spot.

Simple, most of the time. Today we had a fun little experience when SOS’s trusty assistant walked out of an LA PR firm with an armload of clothes, only to find that her car had been towed. Yep, towed. Pouf, gone, and moved to another location. Rut roh.

All ended well but let this be a lesson, not only to assistant stylists but to all people who drive and enjoy seeing their cars when they get back: Read the signs and read them carefully!!! LOL!