In the sustainable fashion movement, we talk a lot about the importance of wearing the clothes we already have in our closets — but how do we actually do that?
In this episode, get tips from Jess Atkins, the co-founder of Stylebook — a closet organization and outfit planning app — on how to plan outfits and actually wear the clothes you have!
Plus, get Jess’ insights on:
- How organizing our closets (digitally or IRL) can help us wear our clothes more
- What is so universally appealing beyond the slow fashion bubble about wardrobe organization and how this can help us achieve a more sustainable fashion future
- How to realistically calculate your cost per wear of a piece
- The importance of taking a shopping break on a conscious fashion journey
- The benefits of investing in quality clothes — and how to identify a quality garment in the first place!
- And more!
Tune in to this episode of the Conscious Style Podcast below, via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Google Podcasts, or anywhere you listen to podcasts!
The transcript of this episode of the Conscious Style Podcast is below.
JESS ATKINS: I’ll get started just telling you about a little background on Stylebook. So my husband and I made it at the time, when we started it, he was my boyfriend, we knew each other since high school, and had just graduated college.
And he just really wanted to make an iPhone app because the iPhone was new, and they had opened it up to any developers, which was extremely unusual, it still is, in a way. And I had just had this idea from when I was interning in fashion closets.
So in college, I worked in the Vogue fashion closet, and I worked in the Modern Bride magazine fashion closet. And basically, my job was to track the borrowed sample clothes. And we used pen and paper for that and Polaroids. And I just really wanted a digital way to do that, and to solve that problem.
And then I sort of combined that idea with personal wardrobe management because obviously, there aren’t a lot of magazines that need that sort of thing.
And I had seen like some editors who were keeping track of their own wardrobes using these, little written alphabet formulas, that are also using Polaroids just like throwing it off and on the floor and taking a picture.
And, we just kind of use that as inspiration. And then Bill and I worked together to build the tools. I mean, back then it didn’t do nearly as much as it does now. Stylebook has been around since 2009. So it’s evolved a lot since then, but that’s how it started.
ELIZABETH JOY: Very cool. I love knowing that story of how Stylebook came to be. So then where did the Whole Closet Method fall into that journey, that story?
JESS: So I actually wrote that book last year! That was something that came to me because it covers my whole philosophy on how to use Stylebook and how to manage your wardrobe. [My husband] Bill always hears me talking about these kinds of things.
And I always have all these little tricks and methods of like, how do I get more wears out of something? How do I save money when I’m shopping and that kind of thing. And he’s like, you know what, you should write this down. Because I’ve just been hearing you blab about it for like years, you should tell other people. So I was like, okay and I decided to make it a book.
And, like I said, Stylebook has been around for so long… we were the original closet management app, there was nothing like that at all when we first started. And actually, there weren’t even that many apps when we first started.
So I just sort of forgot that not everybody follows my thought process on it. And writing the book was a way to put everything condensed in one place in an easy-to-follow step-by-step method to try to help somebody shift their perspective of how they see their wardrobe from just sort of a struggle to being something that’s more cohesive, that works together. It’s like a mix and match.
That’s what’s called the whole closet method, because it’s like seeing your wardrobe as one piece that works together.
ELIZABETH: Yeah, I love that. And a key part of the sustainable fashion conversation is wearing what we have more. But sometimes this is easier said than done, partially because many of our closets are unorganized, maybe full of things that we don’t wear anymore, and so on.
So I’m really excited about your method and this app that makes it so much easier, and actually makes it fun to organize our closets. Can you tell us how curating and organizing our wardrobes can help us wear our clothes more?
JESS: So, the number one thing is you can’t work with clothes that you don’t know you have. So keeping an inventory keeps a digital list that you can see at any time, anywhere.
No matter how messy your closet is, no matter how much laundry is still in the laundry bin, you can’t lose clothes in the back of your closet that wind up languishing there for years because you see everything in one place right in front of you.
So that’s the most important thing is just being aware of what you own already.
And then the other thing is just the ability to save outfit ideas when you feel creative.
I always recommend that people save as many outfits as they can when they first buy something.
And of course, you do it other times too. But that’s when you feel the most excited about something… when you have all these big plans for what you’re going to wear.
I think that saving those ideas, right then when you feel like that, it’s going to make it way more likely that you actually wear that piece of clothing a lot because you don’t have to come up with that stuff on the fly later.
So later, if you’re late or if you just have other things on your mind (I mean, not everybody wants to think about clothes all the time), it will give you easy access to those ideas so that you actually use the clothes.
ELIZABETH: I love all those ideas like making outfit combinations as soon as you get a piece, or as soon as you rediscover a piece in your closet, or when you’re just feeling creative.
Because when we rely on ourselves each morning to think of outfit ideas or try to come up with something the night before… sometimes it’s just stressful. You don’t even want to deal with it.
But to have those output ideas already ready to go in your app. I think that is incredibly useful.
Which brings me to my next question which is this universal appeal of this usefulness, the Stylebook app has been featured in a wide variety of publications like the New York Times, Wired, Good Housekeeping, Marie Claire, The Today’s Show, and even GQ.
I mean, many of these publications don’t necessarily talk about sustainable fashion that often or maybe even at all yet, but they’re sort of introducing the concept of at least wearing our clothes more slowing down our consumption through featuring your app.
So what do you think is so appealing universally outside of this sustainable fashion bubble, about organizing our closets and making the most out of our clothes?
JESS: Well, I think [organizing our closets] appeals to people because being a conscious shopper, it benefits you as an individual, and it benefits the environment.
So I feel like people who get to Stylebook through sustainability, they are thinking about sustainability right off the bat.
But I feel like other people who reached Stylebook are thinking about the benefits that they’ll receive themselves. And it just happens to be that stuff makes you consume less.
So for example, when you plan outfits in advance, like we were just talking about, you save time in the morning, so you’re not stressed getting dressed, you don’t mess up your closet, pulling out a million clothes, everything kind of stays neater, and you get dressed faster and better, because you have planned a good outfit ahead of time.
And then also, it gives you the ability to re-wear outfits. So a lot of people, when they have a great outfit that they get a lot of compliments on, sometimes they’d wait to re-wear it because they don’t want to repeat it too often. And by that time, they forget about it.
So when you save it inside Stylebook, you have the ability to have more access to these outfits that just kind of make you happy, which is great.
Finally, the last thing I would say is that you save money, because when you have a closet inventory is much easier to shop with your existing wardrobe in mind, because it’s on your phone.
If you’re sitting on the couch, and your online shopping, you have your phone with you, you can quickly look you can even try items with your existing wardrobe inside Stylebook.
And even if you’re out at the store, you can browse through your closet and see, do I already own this thing, you can easily avoid a duplicate purchase.
And you can also just make sure that the stuff looks good with what you have, like a trick that I like to do is to look at my style stats and see what have I been wearing the most for the past three to six months.
And then if the new thing that I want to buy doesn’t fit in with that stuff, I don’t buy it, because that’s obviously what I’m into right now.
And if these new pieces coming straight out of left-field then I know it’s not good. How can I make outfits with it? If it doesn’t match with the stuff that I have?
ELIZABETH: Totally. And that’s one of the questions that I try to ask myself before purchasing a piece. Can I wear this with other items in my closet? Do I have something really similar?
Because sometimes we’re drawn to similar things again and again because we just really like a certain style. And we forget maybe that there’s actually something quite similar in the back of our closet.
JESS: Definitely. Before I started tracking with Stylebook full time, I literally have six black tote bags… what am I going to do it with it — they’re like the same? I just kept buying them over and over again.
ELIZABETH: Yeah, and I feel like situations like that are not uncommon. So could you tell us a little bit more about the stats in Stylebook that help people avoid things like that?
JESS: Sure. This is like one of my favorite parts of the app.
So there’s over 20 stats available. So you can see things like the 50 things that you added the most recently. So if you’re trying to reduce the amount that you’re shopping, you want to hold yourself accountable. That’s a really good stat for that.
You can see what you wore the most and what you wore the least sorted by time. The default is all time, so as long as you’ve been using Stylebook. But you can also limit by the last couple of weeks, you can limit by the last couple of months, you can do the last six months. And that is going to really help you.
One, if you look at least maybe there are some things that you want to try to wear more, like give it a second chance. And two, if you’re wearing things a lot, like I said, it can help you with shopping and stuff like that.
Also, a really popular one is the cost per wear.
So the cost per wear is going to help you determine the value of an item. If you have a really expensive piece of clothing, but maybe worn it a lot because it’s high quality and looks really good. You can see each time that you wore that thing.
It’s like divided into the price basically, and then maybe actually didn’t cost as much as you think. For my own closet, one of the most expensive things I’ve ever bought is a winter coat and the cost per wear is under $1 now because I bought it like five years ago.
That coat at the time felt extremely expensive, It was like $600. Like I said, I’ve never bought anything that expensive.
But if I had bought a $200 coat every year I would have actually spent more. I wind up with something more high quality, beautiful, fits better, I get compliments on it all the time, even now, and it still looks good. I’m gonna wear that coat again next year. So like that is a really, really helpful stat.
And it also is revealing for cheap clothes because sometimes things that are really inexpensive, they don’t last that long.
A $10 dress, maybe you literally only got to wear it once, before you wash it and it went bad. That is a real eye-opener for that.
ELIZABETH: Yeah, absolutely. I think cost per wear is something that we talked a lot about in the slow fashion and sustainable fashion community because often higher quality — and ethically made, sustainably made pieces especially — are more expensive.
But we have to think about that cost per wear and see the true cost of that item.
And so yeah, the cost per wear, I think is really useful. And also with that, though, it’s really helpful that you can figure that out in your app.
Because while the concept of cost per wear is nice, realistically, are we going to keep a running tally about how many times we wore something? How can you keep track of that?
We have so many garments, and we have a lot of other things to think about. So that’s really useful that you can just get that in the app.
So, I’m constantly thinking about ways that we can engage people in the sustainable fashion movement who are outside of this current bubble or echo chamber, which is kind of something that your cost per wear, for instance, does and in your app in general.
How can encouraging people or making it easier for people to organize their closets and in the process, understand their style and wear their clothes more be an entry point into sustainable fashion for a wider audience?
JESS: Well, the first thing is tout the benefits.
So like I was mentioning before when we were talking about other publications that have talked about Stylebook, is that organizing your closet and planning office is like fun.
Sometimes people enjoy fashion, but they don’t know how to interact with it beyond shopping.
And it gives a really clear way for people to engage with fashion without spending money. So it’s a really awesome opportunity to basically enjoy yourself, experience style, and see what you can do with your own closet.
Because it’s amazing, sometimes the number of outfits that can be made with what you already have.
For me personally, I think sustainable fashion is all about establishing a new perspective and a new mindset on fashion.
So I like to tell people to shift their mindset away from acquisition and shopping into creativity, you want to focus more on styling, remixing, and making capsule wardrobes, mini capsule wardrobes within your larger wardrobe.
And Stylebook’s tools help support those choices and make it fun and easy to do that.
The last thing too is in particular, for the online fashion sustainability community, it often has a really specific aesthetic, there’s a lot of neutral colors, there are very particular silhouettes, and it’s often very casual. (Or maybe it’s not always casual, I suppose there’s also a more eclectic thrifting aesthetic where there’s a lot of colors and patterns mixed together.)
But that doesn’t appeal to everyone’s style.
And I feel like focusing more on the lifestyle changes of sustainability entices more people to join, because I think sometimes they feel the sustainability aesthetic. They think, oh, that doesn’t fit my style, or they feel like they have to buy all new clothes or something to fit in.
And I think that instead of focusing on the look — because sustainability doesn’t have a “look”, even though online, it seems like it does but it really doesn’t — it’s more about the choices that the person is making.
And like I said, Stylebook has a lot of tools to support those choices. And I feel like that’s a really good way to encourage people to make that mindset shift.
ELIZABETH: I totally agree with you that sustainable fashion needs to be more about this mindset shift rather than consuming certain things.
One of the most common things that I get when I talk about sustainable fashion, particularly in my real life, offline life, people say, “oh, but sustainable fashion is too expensive”.
And I always have to say, well, sustainable fashion isn’t just about buying from brands doing things more sustainably.
Of course, that can be a part of it. And when you are making an intentional purchase, it’s great to support these brands if you find something that you really love, but it’s about so much more than that.
So I love that your app is making it easier for people to make the most out of what they have, because I do think that it’s the first change for people on their sustainable fashion journey, but it can be difficult.
On that note, do you have any advice for listeners who want to optimize and organize their closet a little bit better so that they can maximize their clothing uses?
JESS: Well, like you were just saying like wearing the clothes that you have more is the most important thing that you can do.
I mean, first of all, you bought them because you like them. So like you can just go in and just use the clothes that you have!
And then on top of that, definitely use a [closet management] tool like Stylebook to help on the journey.
Because keeping track of inventory, like you said, trying to remember how often you wore things. Like a lot of people are totally convinced that they can just do that in their mind.
But trust me, they can’t — it’s too hard to accurately remember that stuff!
And I know that because a lot of people write to me every single day. And they’re totally shocked and surprised by the stats that they get in their closet, like, “Oh, I swore that I wore this blazer like every other day” and it turns out, they haven’t worn it for half a year, that kind of stuff, you really, really need to actually collect closet data on it.
The easiest way to do that is very slowly over time when you’re not even thinking about it. As you record the outfits inside Stylebook, Stylebook is automatically tallying these statistics up for you.
Things like the total value of your closet. So like the dollar amount you spent on clothes, I mean, it’s always way, way, way more than people think that it is.
Even the number of clothes is way more than I think!
For me personally, I always feel like I have a really small closet, especially when I look at Instagram or TikTok and I see closet tours and they have more t-shirts than I even have clothes, it always makes you feel like oh, I kind of thought I had this like little teeny tiny closet.
But when I really look at the numbers, I’m like, holy crap, I have like 30 pairs of pants. That’s a lot, especially when you consider seasons, and you really just not wearing things as much as you think I live in New Jersey. So we have four seasons, very distinct seasons.
So the time period that I can wear a light jacket is often really short. So even if I wear it frequently in the fall and spring, at the end of the day, it’s sometimes it’s just really not that much. I think that taking the time to collect that information is really beneficial.
As you do it over time, you’ll get information like what stuff are you actually wearing the most.
That can help you actually make the decision to buy more expensive versions of it.
It’s kind of difficult for people to shift from buying a $10 shirt to buying like $100 shirt, but if they saw in their stats, hey, I actually wore that tank top from H&M.
Like somehow they squeeze 30 wears out of it, which would be amazing. If somehow that top magically lasted for 30 years, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to maybe go ahead and buy a slightly better version of it.
Because one, a more expensive version will be made out of nicer material. So it’ll look better. So if you have a polyester tank top versus a silk tank top, the silk one is going to look nicer.
And also the more expensive price point that you can achieve, the better the fit will be. So this is something that people don’t really think about that much in terms of fast fashion.
But because the clothes are so cheap, the retailer does not have the resources to do complicated pattern construction, they don’t have the resources to use fit models to make sure that the piece actually really looks good on a person in real life.
Those kinds of clothes just aren’t going to fit as good as a retailer who has the resources and time to make sure that the fit is accurate and flattering.
So buying a more expensive piece is going to benefit you because it’ll last longer, and it’ll look better and then also it’ll benefit the environment because you won’t be replacing it all the time.
It’s a gamble of whether or not something that is from an inexpensive retailer or not. I have like sweat pants that I bought from Old Navy, when I was a cheerleader in high school, some things will last a long time, but you really just can’t tell like you don’t know what will last and what won’t in terms of fast fashion.
So I wouldn’t fall back on that and say like, “Oh, well, it might be okay”. Instead, I still try to buy better quality, you can learn what makes something good quality.
One of my favorite books is called Looking Good Every Day. It’s by Nancy Nix Rice. She actually talks about clothing construction and how to identify clothes that are made well.
It has very distinct things, like how is the seam finish? Is there a French seam? And stuff like that, those kinds of things will help you identify clothes that last longer.
ELIZABETH: Yeah, that’s a great tip and a great resource. I’ll definitely link that in the show notes.
Because we often say, look for high-quality garments, make sure what you’re buying is of quality, and then people will be like, but what is quality? How do I even know?
With the rise of fast fashion — and many other brands and retailers who aren’t even technically fast fashion but are just speeding up their process and trying to produce more and more and get the prices lower and lower — we have lost that attachment a bit about what it means to even buy quality clothes.
So that’s a really good, a really good tip.
JESS: You know what I actually learned about it by taking sewing class, I didn’t even intend for that to be what I learned in sewing class. But when you’re learning to sew, the instructor will teach you a lot of different finishes.
And they’ll even tell you why this is going to make the garment fall apart if you don’t do a certain thing a certain way.
If the buttonholes aren’t sawn incorrectly your shirt is going to be crooked when you put it on. And sometimes I actually see things like that when I’m out in the store. I’m like, wow, this is actually constructed very badly.
If you have a shirt where this sleeve twists. You ever had that? When you have a jacket and you’re like, why is the sleeve always in my armpit? It’s because the sleeve was attached incorrectly when they made it.
There’s nothing that you’re doing, it’s because it was poorly sewn.
Or like certain fabrics always shrink after you wash them even in cold water!
If the company doesn’t pre-wash their fabrics (if it’s very inexpensive, you can guess they probably didn’t spend the money to pre-wash it) so then you might wonder, why I wash it on cold? Why are these things always shrinking?
And once again, it’s not your fault. It’s the way that it was made.
ELIZABETH: Yeah that’s so interesting.
So first, wearing out what you have is definitely this, I think the first step to shift into this sustainable fashion, slow fashion mindset because sometimes people will, they’ll be used to the fast fashion consumption cycle. And then they’ll just shift to more eco-conscious options, whatever that might be.
But that then you sort of missed this opportunity to learn and this opportunity to shift and slow down and see what a holistic, sustainable fashion mindset is all about.
JESS: There’s something really interesting about that, like we’re saying slow down.
Sometimes I recommend people just take a little bit of a shopping break and get to know the clothes in their closet.
So when they’re starting their closet inventory I like to recommend don’t shop for anything for a while because there’s probably good stuff that’s hidden in their closet that they totally forgot about.
Sometimes taking the time to figure out which pieces do they actually enjoy wearing from what they already own.
I don’t know if you feel this way but sometimes in the past when I used to shop too much, I felt like I was always chasing a better outfit.
I think that doing that, you’ll never be satisfied, because you don’t actually take the time to figure out what worked and what didn’t, you’re sort of always chasing the next thing.
ELIZABETH: What advice do you have for people who are looking to make outfits out of their existing clothes in their wardrobe? Maybe they’re convinced that they want to buy less to make the most of what they have, but they’re just feeling uninspired!
Do you have any tried and true tips that you would give somebody?
JESS: Oh my gosh, definitely. This is my favorite thing to do. So there are two things that I really, really like.
The first thing is that I look at Pinterest and I look at Instagram. And I actually recreate outfits with Stylebook as I’m browsing. So like I’ll look at those things on the computer and I’ll have Stylebook on my phone.
And I’ll like try to reverse look something up. So let’s say I have a brown blazer that I’m interested in styling a new way.
So I’ll just type in brown blazer as a hashtag. And then I’ll look at all the different outfits. And then I’ll look through my Stylebook to see: Can I make something that feels like that outfit? Maybe won’t be exactly the same, but like has like a similar vibe to it.
For example, on Instagram the other day, I found a really cute outfit. It was a tan, black and white outfit. It was actually pants with a T-shirt and a little tan bag with a stripe on it. And I actually have a skirt that looks just like that bag that the woman was wearing. So I made a similar outfit using that skirt that I had.
And it’s like the same kind of colors, the same kind of casual-ness and I felt really happy that I was able to recreate that without feeling like I needed to buy those exact pieces. And that’s a really fun thing to do!
The second thing would be to make a little miniature capsule for yourself. So make a theme. There’s a lot of these that happen on Instagram on a regular basis.
If you can’t think of something you can look at the @TheMedianModa and she has a closet outfit challenge index.
So every week, there’s basically new outfit challenges that you can look at. And there will be themes like party clothes, Parisian chic or maybe it’ll just be spring or something like that, it could sometimes just be really generic.
But then challenge yourself to take a group of items. I like to do 10 items, and then make the same number of outfits as you have items. So like a 10 x 10. So that’s like a really popular concept on Instagram. So you take 10 items and you make 10 outfits with them.
And I find that that really inspires me to get creative. And I like to do this in Stylebook because it’s really easy to just remix it on the phone without having to actually locate those items in my wardrobe.
Like while I’m thinking about it, I like to sit on my sun porch and I browse Pinterest and I just sit there and make as many outfits as I can.
And I think that thinking of it as a creative challenge to occupy your time when you’re bored instead of a struggle to squeeze more outfits out of your closet is definitely the way to go.
So take advantage of your creativity, take advantage of your boredom and make those outfits at times when you feel relaxed and you feel excited about fashion.
ELIZABETH: That was a lot of great advice.
I’ve totally experienced much of what you talked about with like the 10×10 challenge. I’ve done that a couple of times and I’ve explored new ways of mixing and matching items that I’ve had in my closet, some of them for six, seven years.
And I found new ways of wearing them, thanks to this challenge, because sometimes these limitations or these boundaries actually can inspire more creativity than if we just had endless options. So I love that tip.
Next, I wanted to move into the final question which I asked all guests, and that is what does a better future for fashion look like to you?
JESS: Well, it’s my hope that poor-quality clothes will fall out of fashion. And the trend cycle will slow down a little bit.
I want to see good, good quality, mid-priced clothes, and also in a wide range of sizes because sometimes I feel clothes are available, but they’re only available in very small sizes. And there’s no petite, there’s no tall there’s no plus size.
I want good quality mid-price to be easier to find when you go out to the store because right now, especially if you go shopping brick and mortar, if I go to the mall, or if I go to the local shops in my town, I hardly ever see a wide selection of stylish options that are, between 80 and 200-something dollars, I feel like it’s either really cheap or really expensive.
And I think the reason for that is that fast fashion is sort of making mid-price retailers try to compete with them. So they’re trying to lower their prices and the quality is going down a little bit.
I hope that if people slow down what they buy, they take more thought and consideration into each purchase.
And instead of looking for a sale that they know, they’re only going to wear for a month, because the next month they’re going to want new styles. Instead, shopping for clothes that they foresee having in their wardrobe for a couple of years.
I really, really hope that there will be more high quality options available for more people. And like I said, including wide size ranges.
Because right now, I’m petite, so I’m very short, and there are not that many options for petite. And it’s even worse if you’re plus size. So I really want to see retailers take that seriously because most women in the United States are either petite or plus size. So I don’t know why they ignore those size ranges.
But it would be great to just have more options. Because right now it’s really difficult to find good, good fabric, good construction. In a stylish, contemporary style. I find that really difficult to find and I don’t think I’m alone.
And I hope that people learn to appreciate higher quality clothes too. I feel like the bar has been lowered a lot by fast fashion of what is quality.
ELIZABETH: Absolutely, and as I was kind of saying before, this disconnection to what quality even is.
So I think first we have to learn to understand what a quality garment is. And I hope that we can rebuild that connection to our clothes because that’s a crucial part of this movement, I think.
JESS: Yeah and also, it gives an opportunity to celebrate seamstresses, and artisans and people who do amazing things with clothes, the talent that sometimes it takes to embroider something or, learning about fashion history is also a really good way to appreciate clothes and to also learn to identify what’s good in bed.
I saw an exhibit in Bath England about lace, and how lace was made in the past by hand, and it blew my mind, I had no idea that it was hand done with little spools and thread.
Learning about things like that can definitely shift your perspective on clothes.
ELIZABETH: Yes, so true, so true. Well, thank you just so much for all of your insights and perspectives. Are there any final words that you would like to leave our listeners with?
JESS: Let’s see, I think I like to just encourage people to wear their clothes more and to keep track of it.
So I always try to wear my clothes 30 times. And I am sometimes sad that I don’t actually get there because the item falls apart or something before then. And I would just encourage people to try their best to do that and and to also look for inspiration outside of the internet.
Like I know, I was just saying I love Pinterest and Instagram, and that’s true, I do. But I feel like the algorithms of these social networks really show you the same stuff over and over again.
And it kind of warps your perspective of what is fashionable, what other people are doing, especially if you see like a lot of thrift hauls, or fashion hauls, it can put pressure on you to feel like you need to shop all the time.
So I want to encourage people to also include in their fashion inspiration, museum exhibit on fashion, fashion documentaries, and television shows and print magazines, because those things are going to open up a new world to you that is not tailored to you and your what you’ve clicked on before!
I think that also helps people just shift away from feeling the need to shop all the time. And I just I can’t emphasize that enough as a technology person and just like seeing how these things work from the inside. Like definitely do some analog stuff too!
About Jess:
Jessica Atkins is the co-creator of Stylebook Closet App, a virtual closet app for the iPhone and iPad, and author of The Whole Closet Method. She graduated from Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Photography and Imaging and a minor in Art History.
As a student, she interned at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the fashion closets of Vogue and Modern Bride. After graduating, she worked for several years in the Lucky Magazine art department before starting her software company with her husband, Bill Atkins.
She now works full-time on their primary product, Stylebook, where she does product development and writes content to help people become conscious clothing consumers while maximizing the clothes they already own using Stylebook’s tools. The app has been featured by many prominent media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Today Show, Vogue, InStyle, and many others.
