Brittany Diego is an LA-based celebrity fashion stylist. However, it wasn’t until she established herself in the fashion industry, that she saw an opportunity to guide millennials in need of career development, which inspired her to start her business Fashion Mentor.
Please tell us a little bit about your company – what is Fashion Mentor all about?
Fashion Mentor teaches aspiring stylists and designers all the things they don’t teach you in fashion school through our digital career resources, workshops, and online classes.
I am on a mission to create a ripple in the fashion industry by empowering Black and Latinx millennials on how to navigate the not-so-friendly waters of the fashion industry. When I first started my styling career, I quickly learned how competitive fashion was and no one was willing to provide guidance on how to succeed in the industry, especially to a young Black woman. Now that I have established myself in the industry, I have made it my mission to pay it forward and share my insider knowledge with the next generation of creatives of color who aspire to break into fashion.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
I’ve loved fashion since I was 10 years old and vividly remember even at a young age setting the intention of being successful in this industry. I enrolled in a fashion high school and majored in fashion design in college. We were required to complete internship hours and once I started applying around I found there to be a lack of fashion career advice out there.
I started Fashion Mentor originally as a blog to document my journey as a fashion intern and navigating the industry. I had so many questions but no answers because fashion is extremely different from other industries. For example, before a job interview I’d research questions & answers, what to wear, things of that nature but all of the Google results catered to your typical corporate job interview. Typical job advice sites would say wear black or navy or a blazer-with fashion you have more creative freedom but how much was too much?
As far as questions I never got asked what my strengths and weaknesses are, I’d get asked “Who are your favorite designers” or “What were your favorite fashion shows last season” and I’d be dumbfounded because I was spending so much time practicing traditional interview questions. Many of my peers as well as myself graduated with no job lined up due to poor preparation by our University and I was that person everyone came to ask for advice on their resumes and cover letters and 9 times out of 10 they got the job so that lit a fire inside me and I wanted to help more people land their dream jobs.
During fashion school I did internships at some big name fashion companies and I thought I would be able to walk into any company and get a job after graduation for that reason and not only was that not the case but I ended up having to take an internship after I received my Bachelor’s. That was not the post-grad life I imagined for myself but I was determined to turn that into a job. I walked in every day with the mindset of an employee and went above and beyond the role of an intern and they did hire me however I was shortly let go.
I believe everything happens for a reason so I took all of those failures as a sign from the universe that I just wasn’t meant to work for anyone so I decided it was now or never to pursue my dreams of being a celebrity fashion stylist. With no connections whatsoever, no job, just a girl with big goals. As my career started growing, I posted a lot of my journey on Instagram which garnered attention from other up and coming stylist who would ask me for advice on breaking into fashion and instead of writing a personalized message each time (as those requests increased), I started sending them to Fashion Mentor which was a wordpress blog at the time.
I knew I wanted Fashion Mentor to be a positive, supportive space for stylists like me to learn, share tips and advice with each other, refer opportunities, and build genuine connections. Within 2 years that blog soon turned into a thriving digital platform filled with events and now we have a podcast, Youtube channel, a dedicated online community and now online courses to spread my knowledge to a wider audience. With Fashion Mentor I’ve been able to help countless creatives of color break into and navigate the fashion industry and land their work on red carpets, fashion shows, and countless magazine covers and we’re just getting started!
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
Consistency- I always say it’s easy to start anything. It’s easy to start a blog or a business but once that initial excitement dies down and the hard work kicks in and you’re no longer on that kick of motivation that’s where most people fall off. You have to have a strong vision and end-goal and stay the course in order to reach those goals.
Persistence- You won’t always be motivated; life happens sometimes and there might come a time when you want to throw in the towel because success isn’t coming as fast as you want it to and your goals seem so distant but that’s where persistence and tenacity come in to get you through those tough moments, and you’ll be glad you did.
Adaptability- I can’t stress enough how important it is to be able to adapt to any situation you’re put in, I mean if there’s anything 2020 taught us it’s that. You have to be able to pivot. Never get so stuck in your ways that you can’t find other ways to conduct your business if one way doesn’t work or you’re no longer able to.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
One thing that separates me from my competitors is the fact that I am currently still working as a stylist compared to most educators who come back to teach after a few years. The world, especially these days moves very fast and I pride myself on being able to provide the most recent, relevant, insider information to my audience.
How do you go about marketing your business, and what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
I primarily use social media to market Fashion Mentor because that’s where my target audience lives. The key to any business success is knowing who you’re marketing to and everything else will fall into place.
My audience primarily consists of African-American millennials who aspire to break into the fashion industry and because I too fit into that demographic, it has been very easy for me to build a connection with my audience because I know that avatar inside out. I’m on top of the trends and I speak their language and for that reason they gravitate towards me so Instagram has been a major growth element.
Aside from social, Facebook and Instagram ads allows us to reach our audience directly, I took a course from the FB ads guru Abu Fofanah and that completely changed the game. At our last few in-person events, we’d get a ton of people flying in from different states and a good percentage mentioned they found out about us from an ad on their feed, so it must be working!
What are three books or courses would you recommend to entrepreneurs?
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
- The Brand Called You by Peter Montoya and Tim Vandehey
- The Power Of Broke by Daymond John
If you had the chance to start your career over again what would you do differently?
I would have hired a team much sooner. For the first 2 years of Fashion Mentor I did everything myself; I planned our events, wrote the copy for all the classes and products, set up the website, reached out to sponsors, wrote emails, created the lead magnets to get people on the email list, did the graphics and more-all while still being a freelance stylist. I’m very type “A” so I’m the type to think only I can get the job done right and no one can do it like me but that mentality can lead to burn out really quickly. I learned to focus on my strengths and hire my weaknesses.
What is your favorite quote?
My favorite quote of all time is “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. People ask me how I got the courage to take that leap of faith into entrepreneurship amongst other things but the truth is I have a lot of anxiety (about everything) but I push myself by thinking of how proud I would be that I did the things that scared me the most. The more you do things that scare you the more confidence you start to develop to accomplish even bigger and better things.
How can we get in touch with you?
You can get in touch by sending an email to hello@fashionmentor.co and if you’re looking to break into the industry and want to learn more about Fashion Mentor’s classes and resources visit our:
- Brittany Diego – Website: Fashion Mentor
- Instagram: @fashionmentor.co (My personal Instagram is @brittanydiego
- Youtube: FashionMentorTV/featured
Related: Lakia Diggs of The Kia Xperience
