Growing up, I don’t remember ever thinking much about style. I remember back-to-school shopping with my parents at Walmart and Kohl’s, but beyond begging my parents to let me wear a crop top with my neighbors for their Josie and the Pussycat Dolls Halloween costume at age 8 (they said no), I don’t remember thinking much about what I put on my body. Which is normal, I suppose, for a young lass facing the trials of adolescence.
If you must know, this is truly where it started. My parents divorced when I was eight, and my dad got full custody, so maybe that’s to blame for the atrocities at hand? But then again, I never let my mom influence a single dressing decision as long as I can remember, so I really think “it’s me, hi. I’m the problem, it’s me”.
Middle school was similar, but I did start caring about what I wore sometime around 7th grade. I still didn’t really know how to dress myself, but it was the first time someone outside of myself dictated what was “cool” to wear. The popular kids, or more realistically the rich kids, set the standard for what was cool and not cool from ages 11-13. It was the era of too-tight, double layered Abercrombie and Holister T’s, Clarks wallabees, and North Face jackets (as you can see below, I was indeed bent to the North Face influence).
I don’t think I really bucked against the snobby standards until high school which makes total sense as you basically want to have not a single person look at you from ages 11-13. Rocking the boat was not welcome in my eyes! However, I was able to eventually find my own confidence. I do remember getting the above pictured purple corduroys from a Delia’s catalogue my freshman year, and them plus my homemade dinosaur necklaces became my whole personality for a while…
I’d say the first time I remember really getting interested in fashion was in high school when my friend Emily Anne (my southern double-named bestie) got me a Teen Vogue subscription as a Christmas present. Though I’d already been purchasing the magazine at my local Kroger via tag-along trips with my parents (when my allowance would allow), this gift gave me the opportunity to soak up all the fashion and fun articles from my beloved teen icons! I still remember the cover of the first one I ever received featuring Dakota Fanning in December of 2009.
The high school hallways presented me with the capability to experiment some of these Teen Vogue inspired ~lewks~ as a handful of girls in my high school often dressed “cute” for the 8 hour school day. I still remember one girl in particular in the grade below me who inspired me to wear red lipstick to school. It felt SO bold at the time! And I stand by it being a very courageous choice for a 16-year-old in the early two-thousand-teens.
When the baggy sweater trend first emerged during my high school reign, I bravely donned one of my mom’s old sweaters from the 90’s in pursuit of the trend. When she’d first given it to me I thought it was, like, so ugly, but upon the pages of Teen Vogue did my eyes see it in a new light! The first day I wore it to school I got tons of compliments, and it’s still one of my most complimented and treasured pieces today!
In college I kind of had some dark years. I was still interested in fashion, but I’d outgrown my Teen Vogue subscriptions and was still too baby to appreciate *adult* Vogue. I still enjoyed “dressing cute”, and I was severely opposed to dressing BASIC i.e. being a carbon copy of every college girl at my university.
Post-graduation in 2016, I went through a breakup which led me to a personal finding-myself journey in the year following, and one of the things I sunk my teeth into was fashion. At the time, I was on the social media formerly known as Twitter, and though I’d followed the Man Repeller blog for years, I finally started clicking on their article links.
Fashion and getting dressed served as a balm for me in what was one of my hardest years to date. But not only did I rediscover my love for fashion, I also discovered the joys of thrifting! It seems funny to admit, but my first taste for what thrift shopping could be came from the girls at Sifted Clothing (now @oliviaoliviagc on Instagram). I had just started a new job with RUF (a college ministry), and another intern in my class took the Sifted girls’ first photos for their budding Instagram! Olivia actually worked for the same ministry, and once at a staff training I complimented her outfit to which she replied, “thanks, it’s from Goodwill!”
I remember seeing all of their first posts and feeling mind blown that their adorable looques had come from a thrift store. In 2017, I don’t think it was uncommon to encounter someone who was a little misinformed on thrift-shopping or shopping secondhand in general, and I definitely fell into that category! But through the inspiration of the Sifted girls, I discovered a new love for vintage and secondhand that would stand the test of time!
The love I have for vintage and fashion I credit to my OG fashion holy trinity (Teen Vogue, Man Repeller, and Sifted), but it’s since grown into a thing of its own. I only wish I had started taking mirror selfies back in high school to have more documented pics of my fashion journey! I’m thankful to the ones I have from 2017 onward.
In 2017, I moved to Gainesville, FL to start my aforementioned new job with RUF at the University of Florida (go gators, chomp chomp!), and being a Floridian for two years led to another massive mind-shift in personal style. Not only did I have to live (and shop) super lean for two years (which is where thrifting gained major precedence in my shopping habits), I also moved outside of Mississippi’s borders for the first time in my life. During my stint as a non-southerner (yes, Florida is in the south, but it is far from southern culture), I realized how the years I was reared as a Southern Belle™ shaped the way I viewed certain aspects of fashion as well as the idea of modesty in clothing.
Hilarious as it sounds, moving to Florida was the first time my southern modesty views were challenged and I realized it’s not ~shameful~ to wear leggings without my butt-section being graciously veiled by a long T-shirt. Perhaps it was a desensitization to the midriff and short-shorts I was being exposed to on campus every day, but to be honest, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I needed the shock of the Florida!!! influence to change my own heart and also my fashion! More on that in an upcoming All That She Wrote.
Also during my years as a Floridian, I ended up going through what I would consider significant weight loss (though not exactly a healthy one), and through my body shrinking, I was able to find confidence that I’d never had before. As my weight has fluctuated back up in the past 5 years, I’ve been able to keep that same confidence within my body as it pertains to fashion. I no longer feel the need to cover up my hip-dips or refrain from wearing high-waisted jeans just because I’m no longer a size 6. So thank you, Florida! You changed me for the better.
After leaving the swampy shores of America’s most colorful, lawless state (Office reference), I spent a year in Austin, Texas living with my parents and working as an administrative assistant. Trying to keep my fashion metamorphosis going in a business casual setting was a challenge to say the least, but it led to some good personal growth as well as some fun mirror selfies.
In 2020, I married the loml and moved to Statesboro, Georgia which is where I find myself today! Our first year of marriage, I got a little lost in the sauce fashion-wise as I fell victim to almost every trend to pass through my Instagram feed. It took a few years to get out of the clutches of Lisa Says Gah and ask myself what pieces really make me feel like me.
I still own a lot of these pieces, but the execution in 2020-21 was so trendy/Pinterest-y to me. I feel like I was just molding to the current trends rather than really being authentically me. I don’t even necessarily think these outfits are bad, I just feel like it was a time in my life where trends ran the show rather than my own inner compass. Does that make sense? Novelty sweaters, big collars, and bright colors aren’t necessarily bad or “not me”, it’s more so the combination of them all together mixed with the fact that I know I was pulling all my inspo from Pinterest and Insta at the time.
This is a fun photo, but I’d never ever ever wear this outfit today. Like, the NASCAR T?? Just no, lol.
It’s been a few years of personal reflection and trend-dodging (though of course I’m still influenced by them like all other humans on the World Wide Web), but I still feel like at 29 I haven’t quite pinned down my personal style… that might need to be its own Substack subject. As a self-proclaimed (or maybe self-aspiring?) fashion girlie, it feels weird and vulnerable to admit that I’m in a constant state of who-am-I when I get dressed in the morning. I look back at old mirror selfies and feel critical of fits I’ve put together in years past, and I look at other fashionable women in media and think, “man, they’ve got it all figured out.”
The truth is, I think we’re all growing and changing all the time, and that’s okay! I think it’s fine for me to feel panicked once in a while during a 5 minute rush-to-get-out-the-door dressing fiasco, but that doesn’t mean I am creativity-deficient. There is room to grow!
Something I aspire to in the year of our Lord 2024 is to continue to explore my personal fashion… I want to hone in on the things that make me feel like me and dodge trends that don’t represent my fashion ~truth~. Here are some things I know for sure: I love secondhand and vintage, I love unique pieces made in natural fabrics (cotton, linen, leather, etc.), and no matter who makes me feel inspired in the moment, I’m always me, not someone else. Fashion is like my art form, and I can never make someone else’s art because I’m me, not them. And that’s good! This world is made up of so many beautiful souls with individual styles and art to share with others, and for us to all be the same would stray from the way we are made as individual humans. There is so much to celebrate in this life!
That’s All That She Wrote today, folks! Have a beautiful weekend!
-Anna Kristen
Another great substack! Love all the pics and the evolution of AK’s fashion!
This felt like a walk down memory lane. I loved all the pics!