In this podcast I look at what it means to be inside the quiet period of a freelance styling career. I unpack the feelings. And I share an action plan on how to help move out of it.

The quiet is that specific slow that settles into a styling career when the phone stops ringing. When your diary has holes in it you cannot quite explain. When you start checking your inbox in a way that starts to feel embarrassing.

It does not arrive with a warning. It arrives after something good. A role that ended well. A career move that felt right. A stretch of busy work that just finished. And then the next thing does not show up the way you thought it would.

I have been having this conversation with stylists for five years. It comes up again and again, in different words, in different seasons, across every level of the industry. From stylists who are just starting out, to ones who have been working for twenty years. The quiet does not care how far along you are. It can visit anyone, at any stage.

In this episode I share what I have learned about it, both from living inside my own, and from walking dozens of stylists through theirs.

I talk about the role I left. The comparison that quietly destroyed me while I was inside it. The identity loss that came with going from constantly needed to absolutely nothing overnight. The daily loop of refreshing, scrolling, comparing, waiting. The pressure to perform being fine on Instagram while something very different was happening behind the screen.

And I share what actually moved me out. Which was much less dramatic than I had been waiting for.

If you are inside the quiet right now, this episode is for you. It is not here to tell you it is easy. It is here to name what you are inside, remind you that you are not the only one, and give you a small, practical place to start.

If you know another stylist who might be inside their own version of it, send it to them. This is the kind of episode that is easier to hear from a friend than to find on your own.

If this resonated, press the heart. It is the best way to tell me you want more of this. If you have thoughts, drop them in the comments. I want to hear from you.

With love, Emily

Stylist Elixir is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Find us here:

Instagram: @stylistelixir

The Studio of Stylist Elixir: [LINK]

1:1 Mentorship Calls: [LINK]

This is the first episode of the Stylist Elixir podcast on Substack. And if you have been part of this community for a while, the work will feel familiar. This is just a new way of delivering it.

The newsletter continues exactly as it always has. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. This sits alongside it. Some episodes will be free. Some will be for paid subscribers.

At some point writing stopped feeling like enough. Some things need to be heard.

You might already know Stylist Elixir is faceless. No photos. No personal content. Just the work.

We work in an industry that is obsessed with how things look. How you look. What you wear. Who you are seen with. And somewhere along the way that started to bleed into how knowledge gets shared and who gets taken seriously and whose voice carries weight.

I wanted to build something where none of that was the point. Where what you know and how you build your career mattered more than your aesthetic or your following or whether you looked the part.

The podcast is the same. You will hear the voice. That is enough.

Episode one is about what a fashion stylist actually is.

Not the job title. Not the Instagram version. The real thing. What it takes. What it costs. What keeps people in it and what burns them out. The things that sit underneath every conversation about rates and clients and career decisions.

We talk about the sectors. The assistant years. The mental load nobody mentions. And Katie. Whose name I changed but whose story is completely real.

If this resonated, press the heart. It is the best way to tell me you want more of this. If you have thoughts, drop them in the comments. I want to hear from you.

With love,

Emily

Stylist Elixir is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Find us here:

Instagram: @stylistelixir

The Studio of Stylist Elixir: [LINK]

1:1 Mentorship Calls: [LINK]