Imani Ross needed to shift gears.

The part-time fashion stylist had been building her own business since graduating from Germantown Friends School in 2015. As a stylist, she worked to help find her clients’ personal style. Her fashion business was off to a good start, but sadly, like many, Covid 19 forced Ross to think about the sustainability of her business during the pandemic.

So, she decided to publish a book: “Can I Wear That? The Basic to Boss Guide to The Perfect Wardrobe.”

“I recently started a styling consulting business,” said Ross. “And in the midst of the pandemic, it wasn’t as feasible to continue to work with clients in-person. It was an idea I was always thinking about and had. I wanted to publish something that could help more women than just one on one. So it’s a self-guided book on how to create a wardrobe and everything that you need to own your personal style. It was more so an idea I always had and I had a lot of time to finally get it done.”

Even though this was Ross’s first book, she wasn’t intimidated and explained that she didn’t find the creative process too difficult or stressful. Her book is also self-published.

“My book is fairly small, it's not a large book,” Ross explained. “It wasn’t as stressful. I think the most stressful part was creating the content for it. The book has a lot of pictures, it has a lot of techniques. I actually worked with designers, not only to create the graphics for the book but also to format the book.”

Ross considered several options for publishing and eventually settled on Amazon KDP -- Kindle Direct Publishing.

Many people have great ideas in their heads, but few have the courage to pursue them. But Ross saw the opportunity had presented itself and she jumped on it.

“Being on social media and helping different women, I kept getting the same questions and to me, it seems like I had the answers to them,” Ross said. “Instead of waiting for every individual person to come to me and give them the answers, I thought that it was the perfect time to just share as much of my own knowledge with as many women as possible.”

Ross said the positive reception has her eager to write more books in the future.

“I’m actually in the process of creating an online course for women to take that is more specific on body shape and how to style your body shape,” Ross said. “That is unteachable, it’s the five-module self-guided online course, and then who knows! I wanna do something with guys and possibly a stylebook for them, so just a lot of different things that I’m open to.”

For more information on Ross or to buy her book, visit imanistyles.com