"That’s not style. That’s marketing.”
Sophie Strauss, stylist for regular people!
Please welcome Sophie Strauss to Big Undies! Sophie is a 31 year old stylist for regular people. I appreciate Sophie’s candid takes on Instagram about color analysis and greenwashing in the fashion industry—and also Sophie’s enviable style and her incredibly styling work as well!
Style Questionnaire posts like today’s are made possible by paying subscribers. Please consider supporting Big Undies by going paid. You can read past editions with Cody Cook-Parrott, Dacy Gillespie, and Tembe Denton-Hurst.
What are you wearing right now?
Brown linen pants with an elastic waist, an oversized faded black vintage pocket tee, slouchy vintage red leather Coach bag, green beaded mesh slippers
What was the last item of clothing you bought?
The brown linen pants (here up to XXL) I’m currently wearing! I bought them yesterday at Gap which is not something I’m totally proud of since I’ve been shopping almost entirely secondhand for the last year and a half. When I do shop new it has historically been from small businesses, but I’ve been looking for the perfect linen pants for summer and these, alas, checked all the boxes of what I was looking for.
Where did you get clothes as a kid? Describe a favorite childhood outfit.
I think I’ve blacked out everywhere I shopped as a kid that wasn’t LimitedToo because nothing else mattered to me. I know I shopped elsewhere (Target, the Gap, Old Navy) but nothing thrilled me like LimitedToo. I had a pair of low-rise flared cargo jeans from there that I’d wear with a cami-with-a-built-in-bra, low-rise chucks, striped arm socks a-la Avril Lavigne, and a floppy faux leather 1970s-style hat I bought at a kiosk at the mall. This is around age 10, but by the time I was in middle school I discovered thrifting and flea markets (one of the benefits of growing up near Melrose) and never looked back!
You describe yourself as a stylist for regular people. Do you have any advice for people who want to get better at styling their own closets / wardrobes?
First of all, it really helps to clearly define what style means—many people think style is a set of rules that cool people understand and that to be stylist your job is to figure out those rules and keep up. But that’s not style. That’s marketing. That’s designed to make you feel bad about yourself and constantly less-than so you keep buying buying buying in search of feeling good enough.
But style is simple: style is the expression of your preferences and personality through your clothes.
That doesn’t mean every outfit you wear has to be the most unique, individual thing ever, it just means the outfit has to honor what you want in that moment. It can be a ball gown or sweat pants, it’s not about what you wear but about feeling agency when you wear it.
When you define style this way, it makes the project of working on your style much clearer because what you have to do is learn to identify your preferences. What do you like? What do you not like?
The way to do this is to play dress up! Set aside some time where you’re not in a rush to go somewhere or do anything to try on your clothes. Try things that you haven’t worn in a while, that you love but never wear, that you wore recently and felt “meh” in. Look in the mirror, pause, and ask yourself “what’s bothering me about this? Is it the length? Is it too girly? Too uncomfortable?”
If you’re having a hard time figuring out what’s bothering you, try to notice where your eyes are drawn to in the mirror or where your hands go when you fidget with the outfit? Do you keep fussing with the bottom of your shirt? That might mean you’re not liking the length of it! Maybe that means you should try it tucked in or consider getting it hemmed.
Keep going like this for a while and allow yourself to play the “what if” game….what if I wore this over a dress? What if I cuffed the sleeves? What if I layered two necklaces on it? What if I wore it backwards? Take selfies, save it to an album, and try to notice patterns in what you do like and what you don’t like.
Tell me about an item of clothing that you wear only to do a specific activity.
I don’t have a ton of these because in many ways I think one of the most defining things about how I like to dress is a wacky mix of things from across the style/use spectrum. So I’ll wear a lot of pieces that one might typically silo for things like work, exercise, or formal occasions and wear them all together in one outfit! With that in mind, I really don’t like how leggings feel, physically. I appreciate the compression and lack of excess fabric for working out but truly the idea of wearing them….recreationally?!?! Gives me chills! I know a lot of people live in leggings but I just can’t do it! I’d much rather wear sweats.
What did you wear to the last party or event you attended?
Two weeks ago I went to my dear friend’s bachelorette party in New Orleans and we had a fancy-ish dinner/going out to see music night which I think counts as a party?? I wore a borrowed vintage Alexander McQueen silk chiffon asymmetrical deep red patterned skirt with a brown Fyoocher corset top, strappy black heels, a very beat-up vintage Gucci fanny pack I bought on eBay (that Carrie Bradshaw influenced me to buy after watching a SATC repeat a few years ago) stainless steel chainmaille spike earrings from Hotmaille, and two vintage sterling silver bracelets—one from Recess and one from The Hidden Rivet.
I love the idea of learning to dress more like yourself. How did you learn to dress like yourself and what did that process look like?
In some ways this is something I’ve done since I was a little kid without thinking about it. Playing around with clothes was my favorite pastime and I would wear crazy shit to school all the time (skirt as a top, sweatpants folded over a mini skirt, every t-shirt I owned would get cut up, tied, dyed, and safety pinned a-la Avril Lavigne). Some people at school really got it and appreciated it, but I’d inevitably also always get weird looks or someone who thought I was dressed crazy and that felt like a point of pride, like a sign I was doing something right.
I think I’ve always yearned for style that says “whatever you think you know about me, you’re wrong, and then once you think you know you’re wrong AGAIN!” I actually think I unlearned that instinct a bit when social media became popular.
Influencer style started to homogenize what people wore and brands used that to advertise to us at a super fast pace. The relentless barrage of imagery that makes you feel like you’re missing out on what’s cool and the convenience of clicking and immediately buying something to achieve the look you see in a picture is an excellent way to disconnect from your personal style. I think in my early 20s I fell prey to that a little and ended up with lots of fast fashion items I didn’t actually relate to.
Slowing down my rate of purchasing and spending more time with the clothes I already own forced me to start thinking more critically about the kinds of things I like and don’t like (both in technical terms like cut/fit/fabric and in abstract terms like vibe and aesthetic) which laid the groundwork for how I teach my clients to do the same.
I like to think of building personal style a lot like food. Everybody has to eat, everybody has to get dressed. Most of us have learned what foods we like and don’t like and feel empowered to make choices based on what we actually want versus what someone else in the restaurant is eating. We also feel informed enough to make educated guesses about what new dish might taste good to us. And while most of us may never become Michelin-starred chefs, there is profound value in learning how to cook well enough that you can nourish yourself.
I think the same applies to style—not everyone who works with me will become a style-obsessed fashionista who gets stopped on the street for their groundbreaking outfits, but they’ll certainly be better equipped to make informed, nourishing choices for themselves when it comes to what they buy and what they wear.
Tell me about an accessory or piece of clothing that you lost or ruined but still think about.
One of my best friends since kindergarten has an aunt who used to give her bags full of her old vintage clothes that didn’t fit anymore or that she didn’t want. We’d go through the bags and anything my friend didn’t keep, I’d get. In 10th grade there was this black open-weave floral crochet maxi skirt she handed down to me from one of these bags. Very witchy. I used to wear it all kinds of ways—as a skirt, dress, poncho, one-shouldered top—all worn over something since it was completely see-through. I have NO idea where it went but I know if I had it today I’d have so much fun styling it.
What’s one of your current closet must-haves? Is there something you think all your clients should wear?
In general, no. I think the idea of a “must have” is a very effective marketing tactic to get people to buy things. How many of us have fallen for that? THE ONLY XYZ YOU’LL EVER NEED AND YOUR MINIMALIST CAPSULE CLOSET WILL BE COMPLETE! And yet somehow every year, every season there’s a new version of the last thing you’ll ever need?? It creates a false sense of urgency.
I actually have a handbook on my website that talks about the concept of a “basic” and how to think about building your own unique set of basics in a world that tells you basics have to be jeans, a white tee, a black dress, flats, and a trench coat. There’s nothing wrong with that! But it’s just not for everyone.
That said, if I had to identify the most common missing item from clients’ closets it’s probably shoes! Specifically, lots of people tend to have only neutral shoes (brown, black, white) that they purchased in order for them to “go with everything” but then when they put a fun outfit together the neutral shoe almost drags it down—and if it doesn’t actively drag the outfit down then usually at best it’s not stylistically additive.
This doesn’t mean you need to get rid of your neutral shoes! But that if you’re considering a new shoe purchase in the future, I often encourage people to choose something with a little fun like a bold color (red is always the easiest because it does go with pretty much everything). It sounds crazy but in some ways a bold shoe can be more versatile than a neutral because it adds to almost every outfit.
Who do you think has good style?
I’d say Alberta Rose (content creator and stylist)
Dronme (model)
Lucinda Lohan (artist)
and Lydia Okello (writer/model/content creator) (previously on Big Undies here)
More than being inspired by people whose style feels close to mine or whose style I want to emulate, I find myself inspired by people who do things that surprise me but still feel very them. I think if there’s a thread that connects everyone I mentioned it’s that they all tend to use pieces in ways those things were not intended for. They get creative with how they layer something, they might wear something like lingerie or PJs or sweats in a way that feels dressed up, they might put an accessory on an unexpected spot on their outfit, they may DIY some alterations or dye, tie, cut, slash a garment and make it feel new. I like that all these people make me feel less like “ooh where did they buy that I wanna buy the same thing!” and more like “whoah how did they do that I wanna try the same thing!”
Anything else you want to tell us about getting dressed?
If getting dressed feels hard for you, I promise you it’s not your fault. We’ve all grown up with a fashion industry that ignores a huge portion of people because of their size, gender, age, or ethnicity all while pumping out more cheap, shitty clothing than ever before and disconnecting us from what it actually takes to make clothing in the first place which means we both undervalue it and also don’t learn about how it’s constructed. We’ve been very intentionally severed from all that and then made to feel like it’s our fault if getting dressed is stressful. Not because that’s true but because if we feel like that then we’re very easy to sell stuff to. We’re always one purchase away from the promise of feeling okay. But it really is possible to change that, we all deserve to feel agency when we get dressed. We all deserve to feel like we’re in the driver’s seat of our own closets.
Thank you so much, Sophie!
Follow Sophie on Instagram and TikTok. If you want help building a better, healthier relationship with shopping and your closet book a session with Sophie. She works with clients of all ages, sizes, and genders based anywhere in the world. Sophie also has several style classes and handbooks on her website as well as a Style Patreon for anyone looking for a likeminded style community that comes with lots of fun perks.
Follow me on Instagram & Tiktok
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That’s not style….thats marketing. This is so so true. But hard because I think what I mostly see is marketing
I love the comparison between clothes and food! That really gives me permission to spend some time thinking about fashion, even though it’s “not my thing.”