When you edit a race in the opponent setup, you can choose to create a custom ship style on the Appearance tab.
You can then pick ships from your existing stock of ship templates for one of the basic styles (hint: go into the Ship Designer and make a few beforehand) click Change to switch out the usual models and when you're done, save the Ship Style for use by that race. You may still have to pick the ship style from the list so that the race will use it.
Although there isn't any real effect when the player uses a custom ship style (because they still have to pick ship templates and design them) if they change races and play against their own race, the ship style defined for that race will be used.