Katie Sturino on Having Fun; A Lesson from 'Bluey'
And in the shopping space: a new version of Hannah's leopard print go-to and Leah's Chanel-jacket lookalike trick.
Issue no. 8 is heading to subscribers—have you gotten your copy yet?
Every good conversation starts with a single question. Whether it's wondering how, why, or what, it's the place we jump off from—and into the moments where all the good stuff happens.
As part of a larger story in issue no. 8 of the print magazine, Hannah talked to influencer, author, and founder of Mega Babe, about finding the fun as adults and how posting her outfits on Instagram unlocked an entire movement.
Hannah: I have been thinking about how lots of us came out of the pandemic thinking about all these special events that we were missing, and it felt like all these holidays became very high pressure. There's a lot of pressure we put on ourselves to live the magic around those moments.
Leah and I talk a lot—we both are former fashion editors—about the idea of not saving the good stuff. Why are you holding onto that thing in your closet? And it's that same energy that I'm looking for—not just in fashion—but in all aspects of our life, and wondering how you bring that to the daily slog, to the things that can feel mundane, the things that can feel like a to-do list and instead approach it with that mindset of, “I get to do this.”
What are the things you keep top of mind as you approach your day?
Katie: I'm going to bring you really far back. When I first got in the workforce, I got in the office and [thought that] something feels wrong about sitting in an office. I want to be able to go get a cappuccino in the middle of the afternoon and not have to ask anyone. I didn't like that feeling of being in the office, which a lot of people [have].
I think that it's the small moments during the day that bring you joy that you can build on to make every day feel magical, at least a little bit. I like that word “magic,” because I think that we get so bogged down in life that we forget that we're actually in charge of how we feel.
Yes. I think people think you have to run your own company to be able to do it. We lose that autonomy. And also habits take over. I think survival instincts take over. You're just trying to get through.
So what are the things you look forward to the most in your day—and before you felt like you could really be the author of your own kind of story, what were the things that you pushed for at the beginning of your career to make space for yourself?
I pushed to control my own schedule, and people thought that I didn't want to work hard. I wanted to control my own schedule, because I wanted to be able to take vacation or work from vacation, to be somewhere else or go to a lunch.
Going back into office culture, people are so attached to their desks. I'm like, “Get out, go outside.” In my present-day life, I start my mornings pretty much the same every day. And I do things that I enjoy in the morning, and I've always done these things. A lot of it is revolves around coffee, but it's the ritual of taking that moment for yourself.
I get my coffee, I walk my dogs in the morning. I love that. My husband and I have a house meeting, and we play Wordle together now. There are just these little things that I do, and the whole thing takes about a half hour, but it's not a workout. It's stuff that just makes me feel grounded, special.
Do you have any kind of gratitude practice?
I'm grateful constantly. And sure, everyone gets in the mode of feeling like, “Oh, she has this. I don't have this.” But I really feel grateful on a pretty regular basis. People frequently think that I'm kind of full of b.s., but I'm not. We just had a big team meeting with our whole Mega Babe company, which has grown to 10 employees. That means 10 adults look to us for their income, and we make that happen, and we provide a safe place to work that they enjoy. I am constantly taking stock of the people in my life.
What do your best days look like? What do they have in common?
Fun. And it looks different. I'm not someone who experiences fun out at a club. In fact, I often hate going out to dinner because I'm like, “Ugh, how long do we have to sit here?” I like having fun in small moments.
If you had to look back at last year at some of the best days you had, are there things they have in common? The people you're with, what you're doing?
I [was in] Tokyo. It's easy to have fun there; but it's picking out the thing and making it happen. And for me, that was getting my nails done. I got Mega Babe nails done in Tokyo, and that was so cool to see my brand on my nails,
What do I do that is fun in my day to day though? Well, in Palm Beach, it's easy to have fun. I can go down to the beach and that feels like obvious fun.
You know what I think we're missing so much in life is playing like kid activities. In the back of our house [in Maine], we're on the water, and we have this big giant raft and we just jump on and off of this raft. I play a lot—that includes a convertible in Palm Beach. Yes, I have a convertible, and that is fun. Things can be fun.
Did you always have that outlook? Did you grow up that way?
Yeah. And I think as you get to be an adult, you get to choose the fun you have.
That's true. And I think adults forget that.
It's easy to not have fun as an adult. It's like bills and someone telling you what to do, but if you could find the right someone telling you what to do, [someone] that understands what you really care about.
I love how much you lead with this, because it's so obvious on your social, it's obvious in your brands, it's imbued in everything you do, but it's also really impressive with what you’re building. You're in Goop, you're on Amazon, you're doing the thing. How do you then also hold stress? What does that look like?
Oh, sure. I definitely get stressed out. I struggle with taking myself seriously. I meditate every morning. I cry a lot. There's a good cry. My emotions—the happiness and the sadness and all of it, it's all right here. Yes. So I don't hold it deep. I get it out. If I have a problem with someone, I tell them. I don't like to hold things in.
You have a huge audience and platform, and like you said, you're playful. You go for it with the style stuff, too. What do you think that's done for your personal style?
Well, I'm lucky that I am an influencer now, because I think I would've gone broke shopping. There's a lot of benefits that you get from working with brands, and you get a lot of clothes and a lot of opportunity to play with clothes.
Showing people how to experiment with color and joyful dressing is something that keeps me inspired, because I get to keep putting together outfits and then I get immediate feedback from a community of people who support me. It's great to put on an outfit and then have people just hype you up. I also don't get a lot of negative comments on my feed, which is really nice. I have a very kind community.
Well, that's a testament to you and the people opting in to be there too, right? That's a side effect of who you are.
There's also no men, which is great. I have a 93 percent female audience, which is really quite hard to do, and I love it.
How has it affected you? Do you think it has influenced your personal style? Does it make you bolder, more excited to take risks?
No, I think this has been my style, and I just get to wear more clothes than I probably would in my normal life.
Are there days when you don't feel like doing it?
Yeah, there are definitely days where I would say [that]. Having an Instagram audience definitely keeps me accountable for putting cute outfits together. Sometimes when I'm up in Maine—I'm a woods person, and if you ran into me at the hardware store, would you think that I was a fashion person on the internet?
I like it because it does keep me accountable for getting dressed. I put on an outfit every day, and when you work from home, you don't have to put an outfit on every day.
As someone who does not, I respect that immensely.
When you look back at your evolution, do you look at Instagram as a tool for getting dressed? Has it informed how you shop and think about your wardrobe?
Yeah. Sometimes I am stuck and then I will go and look and see [a] Supersize the Look that I reference for my own getting dressed. And maybe I'll modify something I don't like about the outfit, but I'll keep the base. I wear a lot of Supersize the Looks because a stylist picked them out. Someone put that together [for me].
That makes sense.
You've always had a pretty big following. So when you were starting to do outfits, there was already an audience there, right?
When I started [my blog] 12ish, I was just doing it and I did not have any followers. And I talked to my friend Amelia and [asked her] what should I do with this idea. And she [told me] to start an Instagram account. It's like a micro blog. And that was it. And then I think Glamour wrote an article about me, and then that sent some people and then it just kind of snowballed. But when I did my first collection with Eloquii, I only had 68,000 people, which is technically not huge.
Right. It's not that many for a collaboration. That's true.
It did grow. It definitely picked up fast, which I think said that there was a need for it.
Is there a difference in how you felt confidence-wise? When you have smaller followings, imposter syndrome can creep in. Often, I have felt that I'm putting this up, but who actually cares?
I felt like that for probably a year. Even with [60k followers], [I thought], this is so embarrassing.
I think there are people who are trying to start, who are very entrepreneurial and wondering: How do I start this thing? And you have that horrible cringey feeling when you first start doing it.
I wish we all got to see each other trying more, because no one pays attention until you're upwards of 200k followers. And then you're like, “But what did that look like when Katie was just starting out?”
It looked embarrassing for me. I was trying to find my footing for what I was talking about. And in the beginning, I was just talking about finding [clothes that fit]. I was a size 12/14, and so I was talking about that kind of thing.
I didn't aim to be a body acceptance platform, until I realized all the thin women who were following me kept [saying], “Wow, you're giving me confidence to wear a tank top and show my arms.” And I'm like, “You're a size four.” I didn't understand that the women who felt like they were never reaching the size that they wanted [were] thinner women, too. The size is almost irrelevant. It's just like this collective feeling of hatred. And I was like, “What bullshit is this?” That's where my light bulb happened and where my passion was ignited. Trying to fight the collective hatred that we all feel about our individual bodies.
And then you created a movement with #MakeMySize…
That's been a whole journey for six years, and so many people have expanded their sizes.
I mean, talk about magic moments. I love that you've referenced coffee and doing Wordle with your husband, and meanwhile you've created a movement of retailers who are making real change. I mean, truly, that's giving a lot of magic to other women too.
Those things are harder for me to grasp. I don't know. I feel like there's a part of me that just kind of blocks that stuff out and keeps moving forward, because we have so much to do. But I think about that sometimes. I think about what if you line all that stuff up? You need to celebrate those moments.
We keep moving the goalpost on ourselves.
I did it to myself this morning. We have a major retail launch coming up this year, and I went and visited the products and the first thing I saw were criticisms and mistakes, and I was like, “Nope. Let's take a step back and realize, whoa, we're here. That's big.”
I’m realizing I buy the same kinds of pieces over and over again for a reason.
Full disclosure: I basically already have this dress, or something a lot like it. Ganni did a poplin shirtdress like this before, and I wear it as a cover-up on vacation and as a lazy-but-pulled-together weekend look when the weather’s warm enough. I can’t say enough good things about the material, which is entirely washable, or the print, which is perfect for hiding the inevitable stains that happen with kids. Now, this silhouette is on the top of my list to pair with spring flats and sandals.
My latest Dorsey addiction is this pair of pretty earrings. Ideal for dressing up the basics or pairing with a cocktail dress or evening look when you’ve got something fancy happening. They’re subtle, sparkly, well-made, and go with everything.
The first time my girls and I read this book, I was teary-eyed by the end. It’s a beautifully told—and illustrated—story of what it means to be a friend. We’ve read it lots for the past few months, and the last line still gets me.
This Kule tote was part of the gift bag for attendees at our retreat last fall, and it’s the bag I’ve been using on repeat ever since. It’s roomy and chic, perfect for our weekend haul from the farmer’s market, and ideal for using as the family carry-on bag when we travel with space for all the snacks and games we need.
While I love strappy sandals, I was recently reminded of how easy and cool flip flops actually are. These are hands-down the comfiest, and look good with jeans and a sweater or an easy day dress, a la the Scandi street style girls who style them with everyday pieces for a nonchalant vibe you don’t have to be at the beach or pool to achieve. xHannah
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