Industry member, Jennifer Aston has been working in the fashion industry for over twenty years.

An expert in personal branding and corporate image, she is both Director at Aston+Hayes image consultancy and a Co-Founder of the Association of Stylist and Image Professionals.

Specialist in image consultancy, Jennifer Aston

Tell us about your image consultancy business Aston+Hayes?

Aston+Hayes has been in London's Holland Park for much longer than I'm prepared to admit! Until 1990 Aston+Hayes was a fashion advertising agency headed up by my husband and art director Glyn Hayes. Best known for his advertising work in the '80s supermodel era, he worked with Cindy, Linda, Christy, et al and a very young Kate.

From fashion advertising we evolved to corporate branding which became personal branding, however from around 1990 we have been a fully-fledged image consultancy practice. Nowadays I specialise in corporate personal brand coaching for senior executives whilst running our established training courses for personal stylists. We are on a mission to bridge the gap between image consulting and personal styling – that's one of the reasons why ASIP was born.

What is ASIP?

In 2010 I launched the Association of Stylists and Image Professionals introducing fifty of our training graduates and friends in the personal image industry. It's a member body similar to The Industry.

Personal styling is such a new industry with no formal career path, so it's been fantastic so far for members to get together and belong to an organisation that represents us. At the moment I co-chair ASIP with my colleague Pippa Rees. It's a way of putting something back for the next generation of personal stylists – and having lots of fun doing it! Details of ASIP events are on the website and The Industry members – especially personal stylists - would always be welcome to attend.

Where would you like to see both Aston+Hayes and ASIP in five years?

In five years time the Aston+Hayes training programmes will be available internationally through our new licensing programme which is currently in Sweden, Russia and the Channel Islands. I look forward to mentoring and supporting those license holders in lots of different ways.

My vision for ASIP is that as the personal styling industry grows and formalises, it too will grow in both numbers and voice. Hopefully it will provide an even more valuable network and act as a source of inspiration to all personal stylists.

Get in touch with Jennifer via The Industry Directory

By The Industry's Features Editor, Harriet Bowe