New Year, New Career?

Do you have a passion for all things style, image and fashion? Maybe you’ve recently taken redundancy, are seeking a fulfilling part time career to dovetail with your existing business or are wanting to swap your corporate shoes for new stylish ones?

If this is you and your contemplating a career in the image industry read on – Miriam’s story is just one of the many success stories I’ve had the pleasure of being involved in – it’s one which took her from feeling unfulfilled in her role as an assistant manager to carving herself a niche in the industry specialising as a vintage hair and make-up stylist.

Miriam’s Story

My journey began while I was working as an assistant manager in a Red Cross Charity shop.

Feeling fed up, stuck in a rut and fancying a complete change of direction, I set about finding myself a new job.  While searching for jobs that involved things I was interested in I stumbled across Image Consultancy.

Excited by what I was reading and after some more research and I found myself going along to an Courses over Coffee event at Absolute Image – I knew within minutes of meeting Lorraine this is what I wanted to do.  Lorraine was so approachable I was blown away by her passion for her work and I knew with her wealth of knowledge & experience she was the right person to train me.

I loved everything about the training and couldn’t wait to get my business started – my vision was to use my new skills to help women to look and feel fabulous and to have loads more confidence.

I tried networking to promote my new business but felt very out of my depth within the business world, and wasn’t confident this was the right way for me to move my business forward. There were also established Image Consultants in the area that I felt had cornered the market so I looked at the elements of the role of Image Consultancy that I enjoyed the most.  Having always loved make-up and enjoyed making women look and feel better about themselves, I decided to look into training as a Makeup Artist.

I completed a course in Makeup techniques at the London College of Fashion and once established in Make-up I decided to do some extra hair styling training as the two seemed to go together and I was often asked if I did hair as well as make-up.

That was 6 years ago and I now in addition to working as a Make-up artist for the National Charity Look Good, Feel Better, which supports women undergoing treatment for cancer and offers them make up and skin care advice in group workshops specialise in vintage hair and make-up styling working with many fantastic clients including The Sun newspaper, ID Magazine and Rare moments Photography.

I know this is the job I was meant to do.   I love every minute of it (even the early starts and working most weekends) and get great job satisfaction from it.  While my image journey hasn’t really gone the way I had imagined it has led me to discover what I really wanted and love to do.  It doesn’t feel like work most of the time!”

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