Diversify Your Influence
How exposure to a wide range of fashion influencers builds your personal style. Plus a 20% off Anthropologie sale to treat yourself this Mother's Day Weekend.
The problem with trends is that they can homogenize us all very quickly. Right now everywhere I look are taffeta pants, silk Bermuda shorts, mesh ballet flats, tassels, and bandanas (bonus points if it’s a crochet head bandana). And while I love a trend moment, it can tend to feel a bit performative when you’re wearing the same thing as everyone else on your feed.
Conversely, creative people need to have space for creative thought. In my experience with designers, and also notable among famous designers is that they all tend to wear a uniform. The creativity has to be harnessed for creating fashion, so most of them opt for a low key uniform of lived in denim + a navy crewneck sweater. Anna Wintour herself wears the same outfit formula most days: printed midi dress + long overcoat + heels + sunglasses.
So which is it? Do we care about trends? Do we rely on a personal uniform each day? How do we approach personal style?
My answer is simple:
Define for yourself and your life a few simple outfit formulas you can always rely on to feel your best in. If you need help getting started, my outfit guide does all of the grunt work for you. Then ensure you are diversifying your influence. Just like diversifying your investments leads to financial growth, exposing yourself to many style influencers who have varying personal styles, leads to style growth.
When you do both of those things consistently, you’ll find little items or styling tricks along that way that elevate, change and evolve your personal style in a way that feels fun and fresh yet still you. Some examples of this might be: a new color pairing in silhouettes that already work for you, a new to you jewelry brand, print mixing inspiration, exposure to new brands you might have not heard of yet, etc.
I feel passionately about helping take the guess work out of what to do or where to start for you when it comes to styling. So I wanted to share the four people I look to regularly for inspiration, shopping finds and aesthetic updates. All four run incredibly inspiring Substack newsletters and Instagram accounts and I thoroughly recommend following them on both platforms as their content does vary between the two.
Presenting my four favorite influencers:
I love the maximalism of color and print and the influencer that represents maximalism best to me is Julia Berolzheimer.
Julia has consistently inspired my love of printed dresses, inspired countless iterations of color blocking, and is overall just phenomenal at styling. The daily outfits section of her blog is my favorite and something I reference frequently when I’m feeling stuck. I also subscribe to her Substack Trade Offs and enjoy the “pack with me” videos the most as you see how her styling process works in real time. Her assortment of clothes is now almost exclusively high end so I don’t buy her direct pieces, but I do still get a lot out of her brand exposure. I shop Alémais, Simon Miller, and Margaux mostly because I see the brands worn so well on Julia.
I have always fantasized about living in the English countryside and tend to gravitate to classic English style (especially chore jackets). The goal is always to have an edge of English Cool Girl. The influencer that represents this best for me is Olivia Wayman.
I can’t remember how I came across Olivia but her recurring series of “what the cool girls are wearing” is some of my favorite content both on her Instagram and her Substack. Olivia’s mood boards are also some of my absolute favorites to admire and save (this post has so many good ones!).
Olivia was the one who introduced me first to Juju Vera, reminded me simple can be better, and gave me better exposure to minimalist brands like Róhe, A. Emery, and Toteme.
As someone who also identifies as a fashion editor (of sorts), the Fashion Editor Extraordinaire Hillary Kerr is my personal favorite of the four. Hillary and I have similar body shapes and similar sentiments towards fashion (that it makes sense to invest when the pieces can last and work for many settings).
Hillary’s Substack is one of the most popular on the platform and I truly look forward to it every single weekend. As one of the original cofounders of Who What Wear and now a major player in the fashion media space, I have forever admired her work. Getting insights into her personal wardrobe on Substack has been such a delight. I also follow her book recommendations religiously too.
Hillary’s wardrobe is most similar to my own and I have bought many of her exact recommendations over the years. Most notably, she introduced me to two of my absolute favorite brands: Guest in Residence and Jamie Haller. I had been hearing about Jamie Haller specifically here and there, but Hillary really solidified the brand on my radar as a line for fashion girlies that crave comfort (Jamie also fits all her pieces on a size 8 in her fittings which I could write an entire blog post on alone!! There’s a reason her clothes fit me so well!).
My first Jamie Haller investment shoes were the leopard pony hair penny loafers which Hillary had discussed consistently for over a year before I finally bought them. I literally wear those loafers at least 2x a week, for a year now and counting, so I’m here to tell you that Hillary knows what she’s talking about.
Newest to my list is Clara Infante. Clara exploded last year on Instagram, going from 13K followers to over 300K in just one year. Once you spend any time on her Instagram account or her Substack you’ll see why. She embodies the cool art mom vibe in a way that feels like you can too (you absolutely can). She has been inspiring me to really lean into my inner eclectic and that is having a huge impact on my current shopping list (my new mid tone glasses are life changing).
Clara is a creative entrepreneur and mom to three boys, so I identify with her in all the ways. Her cinematic content and style knowledge transfer videos have been deeply inspirational and she’s exposing me to so many artisanal brands that I had never heard of until her!
To help us hone in on the items that really convey each woman’s personal style, I put together these mood boards for each of them.
You can shop all the items here.
Polished Maximalist Must Haves Items Inspired by Julia:
English Cool Girl Must Haves Items Inspired by Olivia:
Fashion Editor Extraordinaire Must Haves Items Inspired by Hillary:
Eclectic Art Mom Must Haves Items Inspired by Clara:
Even though all these influencers all have their own individual vibe there is one place that you can shop that captures almost all the brands they love and that’s Anthropologie.
A mainstay retailer that’s long lived up to it’s reputation as an eclectic yet practical place to find cool clothes and home goods, Anthropologie in the last few years has quietly expanded its brand offering to compete with some of the best online retailers and department stores in the market.
I love to shop Anthro because I can find all my favorite brands there: Alémais, Anine Bing, Birkenstock, Agolde, Birkenstock, Simon Miller, Varley and Reformation are all sold there.
So I was thrilled when the Anthropologie team kindly reached out a few weeks ago to offer a unique promotion just for you! Starting today, you can receive 20% off any online order $100 and above with code “KATEL20”
The code is good from today Thursday 5/7 through Sunday 5/10. This is the perfect way to ensure you get what you want for Mother’s Day. Please note: This promotion code cannot be combined with other promotions. This code is for online only. Some exclusions will apply.
I was so excited about this promotion for you that I rounded up my sale favorites to make shopping all that easier. Many of these pieces reflect the style range from our influencer mood boards as well.
You can shop all my sale favorites here!
Happy Shopping and THANK YOU for supporting my content and growing business!!
Wishing you all a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend (and if this particular holiday is a difficult one, I’m sending so much love).
Talk soon xx
Kate
The idea that style growth comes from diversifying influence but still rooting it in your own outfit formulas makes perfect sense. I think I could definitely benefit from widening what I'm looking at.