In her junior year of college, Abby Young was watching The Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo. She was captivated by Zoe’s work, from personal styling for celebrities to commercial and music video styling. Young was studying communications and literature, but the show made her recognize something familiar: she had already been doing this for years with friends and family, helping them decide what to wear, which pieces worked together, and what felt right for the occasion. “My passion,” she realized, “is an actual career.”
Young still had one semester of college left, so she decided to finish her degree and begin teaching. She gave herself a timeline: six years in the classroom, then permission to pivot if styling still called to her.
She went on to teach eighth-grade English, but fashion was never far from the surface. She brought the same eye for detail to her wardrobe that she brought to teaching. As she walked between rows of desks, her students would tell her, “Ms. Young, it looks like you’re walking down the runway.”
In her sixth year of teaching, Young decided it would be her last. She planned to resign, move to California, and launch her styling business. Only afterward did she realize she had reached the timeline she had set for herself years earlier.
Six years in, Abby Young Styling serves clients throughout Los Angeles, Orange County, Silicon Valley, and the broader Bay Area, as well as clients nationwide. Young and her team have worked with more than 250 clients, including executives, founders, and leaders at companies such as Google, Meta, Porsche, Charles Schwab, CBS, and Ropes & Gray.
Abby Young Styling's signature New Client Collection process begins with a complimentary phone consultation, followed by a style questionnaire that explores each client’s preferences, daily routine, and goals. From there, Young conducts a silhouette and color analysis, edits the existing wardrobe, shops across multiple brands, and finishes with an in-home fitting where each new piece is tried, tailored, and worked into the client’s real life.
Much of the discovery happens here, in the client’s own home. Young arrives with a rolling rack of pieces selected around the client’s lifestyle, career, preferences, and budget. The experience introduces clients to brands and silhouettes they may never have considered on their own.
“Abby, I never would have grabbed that in the store,” clients often tell her. In many cases, that unexpected piece becomes one of their favorites.
For Young, that is where the magic happens: after building a strategic foundation, she helps clients discover new possibilities and create outfits that still feel unmistakably their own.
Young grounds her practice in clothing psychology, including a concept known as enclothed cognition. In a 2012 study, participants wearing the same white coat performed differently depending on whether they were told it belonged to a doctor or a painter. The garment had not changed; the meaning attached to it had.
“Clothes hold symbolism,” Young says, “and the wearer can actually take on that symbolism.” Her approach to strategic styling applies that idea, using clothing to help clients express who they are, how they want to be perceived, and how they hope to feel. The goal is for the confidence communicated outwardly to be felt within as well.
The psychology is not lost on Young’s clients. One of her clients, a psychologist, told Young that she is deeply aware of what it means to feel truly seen—and that this is what Young creates for her clients. She said the experience felt less like working with a stylist alone and more like being with a therapist. Young understood how clothing, pattern, and color can shape not only how a person is perceived, but how they feel in their own body. What stood out most was her ability to bring those details together in a holistic way that reflected both her client’s personal and professional identity.
Young approaches styling with the same patience and attentiveness that once shaped her work in the classroom. She reads the person before she reads their wardrobe, listening closely even when a client’s answers are uncertain. She identifies the useful details and helps clients express what they may not yet know how to articulate about their personal style.
That ability to synthesize a client’s preferences, hesitations, lifestyle, personal brand, professional goals, and sense of self is one of Young’s strengths. She brings those pieces together in clothing that feels distinctly their own.
Young’s work also extends beyond one-on-one styling. Companies, nonprofits, and startups bring Abby Young Styling in for corporate presentations, professional development, and team-building experiences such as color analysis, silhouette analysis, and individual style profiles.
The firm also works privately with executives, founders, and directors preparing for presentations, panels, keynotes, and other high-visibility moments. In each case, the goal is to help clients align their image with the role they hold—or the one they are working toward—while strengthening their confidence, credibility, and presence.
Young is preparing to extend that approach even further. Abby Young Styling plans to launch a virtual styling membership in the coming months, giving more people a way to experience the firm’s thoughtful, strategic guidance from wherever they are.
The details are still being refined, including how to make the experience feel personal without becoming one-size-fits-all. That distinction matters to Young. The goal is not to hand members a list of trends, but to help more people discover clothing that reflects who they are and how they want to feel.
Across every setting, her approach remains personal. Whether it is a rolling rack in a client’s home or a presentation before a team, Young shapes her guidance around the people she is serving.
"Clothes hold symbolism, and the wearer can actually take on that symbolism."
~ Abby Young