The key to having a well curated clothing store is to have a buyer who is well versed in the world of fashion. Jenny Marie Moore, a former buyer turned stylist gives her insights on her experience in the industry.
Fashion Buyer (noun)
Pronunciation: /ˈfæʃən ˈbaɪər/
A fashion buyer is responsible for selecting and purchasing the clothing that goes into a store. In smaller stores, a buyer may oversee multiple categories, while in larger companies, buyers typically focus on specific categories within the business.
Jenny Marie Moore began her fashion career as a buyer for a boutique in Miami before transitioning into styling. With a degree in finance, she initially worked in insurance for a year before relocating to Miami, where she secured her role in buying. She also served as Director of Wholesale for the belt brand Déhanche.
Moore had a strong intuition for curating what clients and customers wanted to purchase, which allowed her to excel in her role as a buyer. She utilized her intuition and buying experience to inform her work as a stylist, helping her better understand and meet her clients needs.
She is now a stylist on the app EMME, while also working as a stylist at Kirna Zabête to continue building and expanding her client base.
Inside the Buying Cycle
Buying is far more than simply selecting clothes based on personal taste. Moore goes into detail describing what a typical day looked like during her time as a buyer, centering around what she refers to as “the buying cycle”. This cycle revolves around market, such as Paris Fashion Week, New York Fashion Week, Milan Fashion Week, etc. Preparation for market includes researching trends, analyzing past sales performance to understand what has and hasn’t worked, and developing a clear point of view for the store. While at market, buyers are able to see, touch, and evaluate products in person before making purchasing decisions. After market, buyers determine order quantities and finalize what will be brought into the store.
Beyond trend selection, buying also involves a significant amount of administrative work. Following up with vendors, ensuring orders are processed correctly, and confirming shipments arrive on time. Equally important is building an understanding of the customers, as a strong connection to client preferences which drives successful buying decisions.
“Its really getting to know all of the business and how the business works and then being able to translate what the clients want into what you are buying”
There are many calculations involved in being a buyer. When determining how many units of an item to purchase, buyers need to consider the quantity needed, the retail price, and the initial cost in order to ensure profitability. Moore phrases it as, “the perfect combination of fashion and business”. The role requires a strong understanding of analytics, margins, and budgeting, while still allowing room to add a personal point of view into the assortment.
Breaking Into Styling
Transitioning from one position to another within the fashion industry can be challenging. Moore explains the hardest part about moving from buying to styling was building a client base from the ground up. She recalls seeing a stylist come into the store where she was working and being inspired by their work, which ultimately sparked her interest in styling for herself. Over time, she also realized that buying involved a significant amount of administrative work, which she found less fulfilling and became a key reason she wanted to make the shift.
The most difficult part of the transition, she notes, has been establishing clientele. To help her build her presence in the styling world, she works at Kirna Zabête to gain experience in clienteling. She has also joined EMME, a styling app founded by Erica Maltz, which connects clients with stylists. Overall, she emphasizes the importance of finding your own path to building connections when entering a new role in the industry.
“There’s an emotional intelligence quality to being a stylist, it’s getting to know the person and how they view life, because that is how they will perceive clothing.”
Building a Career in Styling
Some people who want to get into styling aren’t sure where to start, especially since the field includes different sectors such as celebrity styling, personal styling, and editorial styling. Moore offers her perspective on whether aspiring stylists should remain niche or take a broader approach. She explains that if someone is solely focused on one area of styling, it can be beneficial to stay concentrated in that direction for the time being. However, she also emphasizes that if an opportunity comes up to explore another part of the industry, it should be taken in order to gain exposure to all aspects of the field.
When asked about the financial starting point for someone entering or aspiring to pursue styling, Moore pointed out that it often begins as a part-time job or weekend hustle before you start building a really good book of business. She recommends starting at a place that carries multiple brands, explaining, “I would really recommend starting at a place that carries multiple brands…to give you more options and your client more options. It also helps you get more acclimated with different brands.” She also suggests assisting an established stylist to observe how they work and gain hands-on experience.
How Social Media Shapes Fashion Careers
Moore began posting on social media about five to six years ago as a way to document her personal style and share her unique perspective. Over time, she focused on how to translate her knowledge into a public platform, blending both learned experience and intuition shaped by a lifelong love of fashion. As she explains, “How can I take all this knowledge that I feel like I have? Some of it learned, some of it is intuition, some of it is something I feel like I have been learning my whole life. I’ve always loved fashion, and be able to kind of put that out in the world, and what better place to do that than social media.”
Her online presence ultimately helped strengthen her personal brand and allowed her to connect with and build relationships across the fashion industry.
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