Greenville-based stylist helps clients 'find their niche'

To Delaware resident JoJami Tyler, image is everything. As a stylist, she works to create the right look for her clients through image consulting, media wardrobing and public speaking.

She specializes in women over 40, with her blog, fabulousafter40.com, and is also the style columnist and "Glam Gal" for Delaware Today magazine.

Much of her success has come from knowing what she wanted to do, and going for it.

"I think the best part is that I chose something I have a lifelong passion in," Tyler says. "I think when you combine your talent and your passion it's a good career choice."

As an image consultant and stylist, she helps women improve their wardrobe while gaining the confidence they need to take on the next challenge in their lives.

"My favorite part of my job is educating women," she says. "I love to see the light bulb go off in their head when they relate to a new concept or idea that they learn."

Tyler has also worked with celebrity clients like Scarlett Pomers from "Reba" and has dressed Michael Damian from the "Young at the Restless."

Tyler has followed the trend of niching and adapted it to fit her business.

"When I started, my mindset was to be as much as you could be for everybody. I worked with men, women, teenagers," Tyler says. "Today is all about niching."

Three years ago, she made a big change and decided to work with women exclusively. Shortly after she decided to only work with women over 40.

"If you niche, you're more unique and you're elite," she says.

Tyler says she has always been into style and her fashion major at Southern Methodist University helped her get into the field right after college. She was a showroom model for Esprit, but when the company needed salespeople, she jumped at the opportunity.

"One day they said ‘Macy's is here, go sell the line!' " she says. "I was petrified but I loved it."

After years of being in sales and doing some acting in Los Angeles, she took 10 years off to have children. She started up her image consulting company, "Mode Image" seven years ago. Tyler then became a certified image consultant and has been doing it ever since.

She's created several different strategies and methods for the various aspects of image consulting she works in. Media wardrobing is one of the most important.
 

She believes video production is the future of image consulting and has already produced videos for fabulousafter40.com and her personal site, jojami.com.

In her videos, she helps people with a variety of projects, from closet reorganization to personal branding for college seniors entering the real world.

Despite the countless topics Tyler covers with her clients and readers, there is one specific subject that she believes is the most important and most helpful for others to learn about.

"The number one thing that transforms my ladies' lives is when I find out what colors look good on them. It's an ‘ah-ha' moment," she says.

When Tyler found out what colors looked good on her, she never strayed again. She   suggests her clients do the same.

Her color evaluations are based on hair color, skin color and eye color, among other factors. She uses four different color palettes of warm and cool colors, and based on undertones in the skin, she is able to choose the best colors for each client. She can also choose the best jewelry colors — gold or silver — based on these same principles.

"Once you concentrate on certain colors you will forever have a major wardrobe," Tyler says.

Tyler has passed these color tips along to her daughter Tessa, who is a sophomore at the university.

"She is the perfect testimony," she says. "It saves hundreds of dollars of shopping and buying the wrong thing or color."

She believes another major problem with women's wardrobes is that they prefer instant gratification as opposed to waiting for something fabulous.

"Women go shopping thinking, ‘I'm going to buy something fabulous,' and you say ‘I can't afford it,' so you buy another black t-shirt or jeans," Tyler says.

Instead of having that one great piece, Tyler says many women end up with 30 pairs of jeans and 30 T-shirts in the same color. Tyler believes that if you took the lump sum of those purchases and were able to spend it on a few favorite pieces, you could save money in the long run.

"Women do not have the confidence that they're buying the right item," she says. "Everything that has a tag in your closet was on sale because there's something about a 50 percent sale that brings 50 percent of its power."

She suggests that women only buy sale items if they would have paid full price for them.

Although Tyler's business has changed and adapted over the years, she is proof that success comes in doing what you love.

Her advice for college students: "Find an area and become the best you can in that tiny area."