How Your Wardrobe is Impacting Your Brand ft. Hollywood Stylist Dina Cerchione
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Transform your personal brand with expert insights from Hollywood stylist Dina, who has spent over 25 years transforming celebrities and reality TV guests into style icons. Dina's journey from high school fashion enthusiast to a Manhattan denim brand employee and finally a top stylist in California, offers rich, inspiring stories. She now leverages her Hollywood experience to help modern entrepreneurs, speakers, and coaches create authentic personal brands through style.
Discover how style plays a pivotal role in visual and emotional branding. Dina shares the secrets behind creating a cohesive vibe through colors, fonts, language, and personal appearance. She also dives into the cultural shift driven by social media—a place where authenticity can significantly impact consumer trust and perception. Learn how to align your appearance with your brand identity to avoid missed opportunities and build lasting, trustworthy relationships with your audience.
Victoria and Dina explore the balance between relatability and professionalism, stressing that authentic doesn't mean unkempt. Dina provides practical tips on building a standout personal wardrobe that reflects your career aspirations, emphasizing the importance of proper fit and how it affects confidence and productivity. From the dangers of homogenized fashion trends to the power of unique branding, this episode is packed with actionable advice to help you make a lasting impression through intentional style. Whether you're an entrepreneur, speaker, or coach, Dina's expertise will guide you in creating a polished and impactful personal brand.
A wardrobe stylist’s backstory [02:40]
Going way back to high school, Dina was not always the best dressed of all of her friends. She had always liked style, but never felt like the clothes that were trending at the time really worked for her. It wasn’t until she had her “pants epiphany” where she really stepped into finding her own style. They were a pair of designer jeans that made Dina feel amazing! After that, she found color and what colors worked for her. Fast forward to after college, when Dina was living across the country in California, working for a woman who was putting together television shows with brands. She was having such a great time with it all but one day she pitched herself to a television show to not only connect them with brands, but also provide the styling as well. The rest was history.
From styling celebrities on television to styling entrepreneurs and keynote speakers [07:50]
Television styling is a seasonal career, so to supplement, Dina wanted to add in personal styling. At first, she had thought that she would offer personal styling to women who were at an age where they didn’t know how to dress anymore because they didn’t know what their style was. The funny thing was, Dina actually couldn’t relate to this. She knew who she was, and she knew her style. Dina ended up reflecting on what she was able to do in the past really well, which was telling people’s story with style. Dina has always had the ability to see someone and be able to pull out their story and help them be able to see that version of themselves as well.
Style impacts personal branding [09:53]
Style, in terms of branding for Dina, is part of your visual and emotional branding. Since branding is really about creating a feeling, a vibe, style is a huge part of that. Especially when you are the face of your brand. When you’re going after your dreams and building your business, if you don’t get your style just right, it may not set you back or cost you anything. But when you do get your style right, it will elevate everything and bring your business to the next level. Style is important because you let people see you the way you want to be seen, not them seeing you by default because you just didn’t get it together. Whatever you’re wearing is talking, so let it say what you need it to say.
Is showing up as your authentic self impacting your brand’s style? [15:55]
There are people showing up on social media, first thing in the morning, no make up, and doing all the things. People are wanting to be relatable, and be seen as relatable. This can be good for your brand, but Dina said that unless you’re doing it right, it can have negative effects. Showing up with your hair a disaster, dirty sweats, and the “this is just me” attitude, doesn’t work. Instead it’s showing that you don’t really care. Dina comes from television where everything is “Smoke and mirrors” which means that even if you don’t think they have make-up on, they have a little foundation on. It’s good to be relatable in a way, but you cannot be extreme in it. You have to always be thinking about your brand. If your brand is to be showing up as a frazzled mom of little kids, then go for it, because that’s authentic to you and what your audience is expecting of you. But if you’re showing up as a professional and you’re selling a premium priced offer, professionalism matters and you should dress appropriately.
Key elements of a strong personal style to enhance your professional image [19:44]
The first is probably the most obvious, but you want to look like what you say you do. When Dina goes out and has a conversation with someone who asks her, “what do you do?” and Dina responds with “I’m a stylist”, we would expect the other person to go “that makes sense!”. Just based on how Dina is styled. The second element would be to consider what the intention is. Think about what you’re doing and showing up. The last element Dina shared was consistency. Whatever your style becomes, make it your thing, consistently. It doesn’t have to be the same thing all the time, but you want to be consistent in the way you show up so that people get to know you. It’s building that trust and that likability.
Does your personal style inform your professional style? [25:30]
Dina would say that it has to happen simultaneously. You are the brand, or the face of the brand, and that is personal. The professional part is what you’re doing and this is where you have to be super intentional to really take a good look at you, your brand, and your brand values. Think, who am I as a person, who do I need to show up with, and who do I want people to see? Then, take from each place and find the cross section of where personal style meets professional style.
Common style mistakes that negatively impact personal brand [28:10]
Dina starts off by re-mentioning that looking sloppy or unkept does not equal being authentic. It doesn’t look good and it doesn’t come across as professional. Another point that Dina shares is that not everyone has to be a trendsetter or even wear trendy clothing, but you do want to look current. Even if you have a classic style of white shirt and a blazer, the shapes will still change or the fit of the blazer. When you have an outdated style, it makes you feel like you’re irrelevant. An area where people can get wrong is the fit of the clothing. Whatever you think is flattering on you, you want to ensure that it’s fitting you properly. By not finding the right fit or size, you’re doing yourself a disservice because, again, it can lead to looking sloppy, unkept, or looking like you don’t care.
Style in a WFH post-pandemic world [30:38]
With many people bringing the workplace into their homes, the work from home style is potentially affecting our personal style. Dina would say that it’s had a negative impact for many reasons. The pandemic affected people’s style because they got lazy and when you do that for so long, you almost forget how to get dressed the way you were before. Style is a muscle, if you don’t use it, you lose it. If you don’t continually do it, then you’re going to forget, and that happened to a lot of people during the pandemic. The other area where it has negatively impacted us has been in our confidence and the way we mentally view ourselves.
From external style to internal confidence [34:18]
When you put something on that looks good and feels good, you feel amazing on the inside. When you feel amazing on the inside, it automatically brings confidence. There have been many moments when Dina has witnessed someone she was styling put on something more elevated, look into the mirror, and she could see the grin on their face as they are recognizing the potential that they have in themselves. They put on the right clothes and then all of a sudden they can see themselves differently, and that brings confidence.
Feeling trendy while having individuality [36:44]
Social media has inundated us all with images and suggestions on how to dress a certain way. The way you can feel trendy while still having your own personal style to it, is to stay current rather than trendy. Pull from the trends that relate to you and your personal style. Figure out who you are first, and then look at what is trending. From there you can add in the trends that you feel is most “you”. Another way you can maintain your personal style is to seek out the stores that are more unique, like local boutiques, or online shopping. Find something that you can turn into something of your own, rather than just buying the latest trend that everyone else is wearing. Unless you’re intentional about it, you’re going to end up looking like everyone else.
A practical approach to overhauling your wardrobe to reflect your personal brand [41:15]
Be intentional about it. Don’t go shopping to pull a bunch of things from the rack. Get to know yourself, go through your camera roll, see how you’re showing up. Are there items that you like that you’re wearing in a certain photo? Are there items that you don’t like? Then you can go down a deep dive on Instagram or Pinterest and start saving images. Once you have a good amount of ideas saved, look at them with a discerning eye to figure out what it is that you keep being drawn to. Once you figure that out, you can make a smaller version and go through your favorite items to see what it is that you like about what you already have. Are you able to start using what you have currently in a different way? If not, then consider buying them. Dina would suggest to buy the best quality that you can, which is a different level for everybody, but buy with intention. Buying without intention, is why you’re at where you are already. Lastly, Dina shared that if you have no desire to do this on your own, or you can’t figure it out, there are many stylists out there that can get you to where you need to be.
Victoria shared a tip on this as well that she learned from a stylist on Instagram, but she does this now while out shopping herself. If you find an item that you like and want to add to your wardrobe, stop for a moment and think, would this piece of clothing work with something else that you already own? Maybe two to three pieces? If so, great! If not, maybe reconsider purchasing. If you need help remembering what cute outfits that you already own or have put together, you can always take a picture when you’re wearing it and save it to an album on your phone so that it can be a quick reference whenever you’re trying to find a cute outfit to pull together.
Key Quotes
“Whatever you’re wearing is talking, so let it say what you need it to say.”
Dina Cerchione
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