Terms and conditions for a personal stylist or image consultant

A personal styling business sells judgement, and judgement is hard to guarantee. Your terms have to deal with prepaid packages, consultations in the client's home, personal shopping done with someone else's money, commission from retailers, and the client who decides three weeks later that the wardrobe was not her at all. I draft customer terms around how your business actually works for a fixed fee of £995, delivered in five working days.

Who this is for

Personal stylists, image consultants, colour and body shape analysts, wardrobe editors and personal shoppers in England and Wales, whether you trade as a sole trader or a limited company. Most of your clients are private individuals, which brings protections you cannot draft away. Many stylists also sell executive styling, dress code work or image training to businesses, where the position is quite different.

What matters in a personal stylist's terms

What the client is buying, and what happens to unused sessions

Styling is sold in an unusually varied set of ways: a single colour or body shape consultation, a wardrobe edit charged by the hour, a full shopping day, or a package of sessions paid for up front. The terms need to state what each one includes, how long a package stays live, and what happens when a client books nothing for months and then asks for her money back. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 a term that lets you keep a consumer's prepayment on cancellation, with no matching obligation on you, sits on the list of terms likely to be unfair, so expiry and forfeiture need drafting with care.

Personal shopping: agent or seller

When you shop for a client, the terms must make clear whose money bought the clothes and who the seller is. If she hands you her card or you buy on her account, you are acting as her agent and the retailer answers for the goods. If you buy in your own name and invoice her, you have sold her the goods, and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 makes you responsible for satisfactory quality, fitness and description, with a short-term right to reject. The terms should also address return deadlines, alteration costs and items she keeps past the retailer's window.

Home visits, video consultations and emailed style guides

Most styling work is agreed at the client's home, in a store, or by email and video call, which makes it an off-premises or distance contract under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. The client has fourteen days to cancel. If you carry out the consultation inside that period without her express request you may not be paid for it, and where the cancellation information was never given the period can run on by up to twelve months. Lookbooks, colour palettes and capsule wardrobe documents sent by email are digital content, which may be supplied in that period only with her express consent and her acknowledgement that the right to cancel is lost.

Commission, affiliate income and how your price is presented

Many stylists earn from retailer commission, affiliate links and brand partnerships as well as fees. Whether you tell clients about that, and in what terms, is a commercial decision with reputational consequences, and your terms are where you settle it rather than leaving it to a difficult conversation later. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 replaced the old unfair trading rules and allows the Competition and Markets Authority to enforce consumer law directly. Fake reviews and drip pricing are banned, so a headline price shown to consumers must include all mandatory charges, and your terms should say the same thing as your website.

Taste, expectations, images and discretion

Refund demands in this trade usually arrive after the clothes have been worn. You cannot promise an outcome, and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires the service to be performed with reasonable care and skill rather than to a standard of taste. What the terms can do is define the deliverable precisely enough that 'I have gone off it' is not a breach. The same section should deal with confidentiality, which matters when clients are well known or are having a difficult year, with whether you may use before and after photographs or name the client, and with late cancellation of a booked day.

Corporate styling and business clients

Executive styling, dress code and grooming standards projects, presenter styling and brand shoots are business contracts, and the consumer protections do not apply to them. Here you want payment terms backed by interest and compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, a liability cap drafted to survive the reasonableness test under the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, and clarity about who owns the style guide or brand wardrobe document you produce. Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 material you create as a contractor remains yours unless you assign it in writing.

What it costs

Customer or supplier terms and conditions, £995. One set of terms, customer-facing or supplier-facing, drafted around your business. Five working days.

Review of your existing terms, £495. You already have terms and want to know how much of a problem they are. Returned marked up with my amendments and an explanation of the changes. Three working days.

Buying online forms the engagement on payment. The scope is what the terms and conditions drafting page describes, you accept the Terms of Service at checkout, and I email you within four working hours to get started. If you would rather ask something first, email me.

What you get

• A full set of terms drafted around your business, not a template with your name inserted
• A covering note in plain English explaining every commercial choice I made and why, so you can defend the terms in a negotiation without ringing me
• Liability, payment, termination and IP provisions set at a level that will survive a procurement review
• Consumer-facing wording drafted to be enforceable where you sell to consumers
• Guidance on how to incorporate the terms properly, which is where most businesses actually fail
• One round of amendments after you have read them

What is not included

• Negotiating your terms with individual customers
• Sector-specific regulatory compliance beyond the contract terms themselves
• Website privacy notice and cookie compliance, which I quote separately
• Terms governed by the law of another country

Questions I am often asked

Can I charge a client who cancels a session at short notice?

Charging for late cancellation is normal and defensible when the charge is proportionate to the time you have lost and is stated clearly before booking. A figure set at a level that looks like a punishment rather than a genuine reflection of your loss is the sort of default charge a private client can challenge as unfair.

Should I take a deposit for a full shopping day?

Taking a deposit makes sense when you are blocking out a whole day and paying for travel or appointments in advance. Keep it proportionate, set out in the terms what happens to it on cancellation, and bear in mind that a client who cancels inside the fourteen-day window will usually be entitled to it back unless she expressly asked you to begin sooner.

I use freelance assistants on larger jobs. Does that affect my terms?

Your terms should allow you to use suitably experienced associates while keeping the client's contract with you alone. Whether those associates are genuinely self-employed is a separate question, and their confidentiality and non-solicitation obligations belong in your agreement with them rather than in your customer terms.

Related guidance and services

• Terms and conditions drafting, £995, the service this page describes
• Consultancy and contractor agreements, £595
• Ask Caesar, £495 a month
• Terms and conditions for a personal trainer

This page is general guidance for businesses in England and Wales, not advice on your own circumstances. Last reviewed: September 2026. Email geoffrey@caesar.co.uk.