If you’ve spent hours endlessly combing through cottagecore and clean girl aesthetic videos on your TikTok FYP in hopes of finding the perfect style inspo, stylist and content creator Mac Rose has news for you: “When you look at it realistically, with how many versions of yourself you go through throughout the day, you’re never going to fit into an aesthetic.” But don’t let this discourage you. In an exclusive interview with Her Campus, Mac explains, “You’re not one person who does one thing every single day and has one wardrobe that will match.” The goal? “Bringing realism back to fashion.”
At the beginning of her career as a stylist Mac Rose worked with celebrity clients at a high-end boutique on the Upper East Side. But in the face of COVID, they decided to make a change: “[I knew that] I would love to open my own styling boutique and maybe work with people that are a little more close to the ground, and real, and relaxed. And so I started just posting online to move clients towards the idea of a personal styling business that I owned and operated myself.” With over 750 thousand followers on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, she has since gone viral for her experimental styling tips and PSAs about not constricting fashion to one body or look. For Mac, social media has become a place where they can bond with followers over fashion, give advice, and “just shoot the sh*t.”
One of the biggest tips Mac emphasizes in her videos is taking baby steps towards big changes in your wardrobe. “There’s a few things that I call safety blanket pieces. And they’re just pieces that you know can always count on,” For Mac, these items are blazers and maxi skirts. And in building outfits from there, Mac recommends you combine “one piece that’s new and scary, and then two pieces that are comfortable and cozy.” She says it’s a way “to start implementing those pieces in your wardrobe that you never wear, because your whole outfit is mostly something you’re comfortable with.”
At the same time, Rose also encourages their viewers to break down certain ideas about what clothing they can wear. Sometimes, certain styles can evolve into something entirely off-limits for people due to their insecurities. Rose says, “The best thing about clothes is that you can take them off and pretend that you never wore them in the first place. Nothing’s permanent.” Instead of seeing your wardrobe as something to change, Rose recommends being playful — it’s about “building a positive association with your wardrobe and taking time out of your day to mess around… not see [style] as such a scary thing that has so much power over you.”
And that feeling like you can’t wear something? “The best thing you can do for yourself is use those biases as fuel for your personal style,” Mac says. “Think about how many times you have to change throughout the day or you have to wear one outfit throughout the day, but you need different things from that outfit. Of course you’re never going to fit into an aesthetic. You have 20 things on your to-do list.” Mac explains, “Maybe the aesthetic that you want to achieve is minimalist, but because of your lifestyle, you need to choose minimalist cuts in super relaxed fabrics. And so that makes the aesthetic a little bit different. It brings your personality back.”
So don’t worry if your closet isn’t the coastal grandmother wardrobe of your dreams. For Mac, styling is all about “merging reality and aspiration.” Your wardrobe is “never going to fit into a box and it’s never going to be one thing… having pieces from when your style was something else is part of your personal style,” she says. So don’t throw out your old favorite pieces from last year, and certainly don’t stress yourself out over fitting into one trend that’s all over your For You Page. “That’s the thing about personal style — it’s never switching from one aesthetic to the next. It’s just culminating the way that clothes feel good on your body over a certain amount of time, and the way that you shift and adapt to what your lifestyle calls for.”