how it all got started
my brother is on the far left lookin’ all pensive and such
I was recently asked by Liberty’s newspaper, The Liberty Champion, to do a feature article on my business. To say I was so excited that I could burst is an understatement. It was a humbling, super fun experience and I’m thankful to them for asking me! The first sentence of the article sparked an idea for me to write about how my business got started and where the idea came from.
As you can see in the photo above, turtlenecks have always been my signature. Ha! That and the point that matters is that the only girls in the family were me and my mama. All of my mama’s friends had boys, so naturally I would hang with my brothers and the boys. As I’m typing this I’m thinking to myself, “so wouldn’t that mean that you became a tomboy?” The opposite occurred. I loved getting dressed each day and shopping with her. My type one self loved heading to Gymboree with my mama. Do y’all remember those stores? They had themed outfits and I was all about it. Like I had a knit sweater with a matching skirt that had sunflowers on it (I’ve been doing co-ords since the early 2000’s but probably everyone else has to). Naturally, I had to get the matching beret that had a ginormous sunflower on the top of it as well. There were probably navy Mary Jane’s to match.
All of this to say, I loved shopping and still do. I went through a phase when I was 15 and 16 where I thrifted everything. I thought it was a score to buy 8-10 items for under $60, but I later learned quality over quantity. I would wear the $8 grey Topshop t-shirt dress once and never gravitate towards it again. I was buying based on initial attraction. I honed my skills as a shopper, which I will write about soon, and started shopping smarter. Please don’t get me wrong though; I still enjoy a thrift store moment every once and a while (my 2020 Halloween costume is going to be fabulous).
Once I started purchasing for quality, not quantity, I began to truly cherish what I had in my closet. It first started with me typing a piece of clothing into Pinterest to find a way to wear it with a different kind of outfit. I would do this if I was bored with the way I was always wearing that one piece of clothing. At the same time I was working for a lifestyle blogger here in Atlanta which is when I started following blogs and their Instagram accounts. I found women whose style was next level cool and began researching their beginnings and style hacks. I was inspired.
I ended up at Liberty and became busier. Since high school I loved planning my outfits the week before, but my brain was in way more places now that I was in college. I opened up a Word Doc and started writing out outfits and I would color code them by weather type. This way I could scroll with my weather app open and pick my outfits for the week. Then it became a hobby that quickly knocked watching movies off my list of favorite ways to unwind and be creative. I will be on Pinterest and see an outfit I love but she’s wearing Gucci, A.P.C., and Golden Goose sneakers. Or even simpler, she’s wearing a black duster with a v-neck white tee, patent leather black boots, and light wash boot leg denim. I look at the bones of the outfit and make it work with the clothes I already do have (I have a crew neck white tee, leather black boots, dark wash boyfriend denim, and a khaki duster). I realized I had a much bigger closet than I thought I did.
my girl Abby rocking out in her AG The Look
Then like the article says, God gave me a vision to make a business out of this passion of mine. College kids are all balling on a budget and simultaneously bored with their closets. There is something about getting dressed for the day that gives me a certain confidence. I find it therapeutic, others find it hectic or boring. So I began AG The Look to help people see they have more outfits than they think, find a kind of confidence they didn’t know they were missing, and I love my job.