>When stylist and influencer Mac Rose tells you to take fashion inspiration from Italian grandparents, National Park Rangers and toddlers, she means it.
Rose is building a career in fashion by turning away from the catwalk and turning towards the factory floor. Her TikTok series, “Style is Everywhere,” which has gained over 1.7 million total views, features her advice on how to find fashion inspiration in unexpected places. Rose has found much more inspiration in blue-collar workers than in the typical fashion world — expensive pieces on one type of rail-thin body.
“Welcome to my series,” she says at the beginning of each video. “Really fun outfits on bodies you’re not used to identifying as fashion icons because I’m sick of people saying only a certain type of person can pull off a certain type of look.”
In her series, Rose, 23, introduces fashion inspiration from unexpected sources. On a cold Monday night in a Union Square coffee shop, Rose was decked out in red cowboy boots, a thrifted sweater vest, and an oversized trench coat, as she explained to me how the series came to be.
Growing up in North Carolina, Rose was surrounded by blue-collar workers, including her father, a carpenter. Because of this background, Rose believes it’s important to highlight the members of society who are often overlooked in fashion.
“My family was always the family that no one really paid attention to or looked at,” Rose said. “I think a lot about people that have been forgotten. The clothes we see every day are the ones that we overlook. We’re always looking for the crazy, the whimsical, someone reinventing the wheel, but we always overlook the people that are just getting through their day-to-day.”
This hope to highlight the forgotten fashion inspired Rose to start her “Style is Everywhere” series.
“It’s an attempt for people to be a little less judgmental when they’re seeing other people’s outfits and identify that there’s creativity and passion into every outfit, even if it’s not what you would wear,” she said.
Rose has worked in fashion since she was 13, when she had a job at a pageant boutique in North Carolina, helping sweep up scraps after dress fittings and cleaning. After starting a successful lifestyle and fashion blog when she moved to New York in 2018, she decided to continue her success on TikTok. Today, Rose has 580,000 followers.
In her most popular video in the series, with almost one million views and 220,000 likes, Rose asks her audience to look at the outfits of the elderly. “This is a fucking slay,” she said when describing an elderly man wearing low-top sneakers, jean shorts, and an oversized corduroy overshirt. She suggests that if Emma Chamberlin, a popular fashion and lifestyle creator, wore the outfit, it would be “dubbed effortlessly chic.”
“If you want style inspo, Google Italian grandmothers,” Rose said, pointing to a photo of a gray-haired woman wearing a green tank midi dress. “It comes down to styling, attitude, and the willingness to see beauty in things that aren’t obvious.” Rose argues that the comment, “this is not a good outfit,” is probably misguided, as people are much more willing to enjoy that same outfit on a skinnier, younger body. “You just didn’t see her,” is her judgment.
Rose’s videos are not giving you direct outfit inspiration; they are giving styling inspiration. In another video in the series, Rose urges viewers to find fashion inspiration in National Park Rangers’ uniforms. She highlights their skill in layering for cold weather, monochromatic outfits, and personalizing uniforms with well-crafted leather accessories and jewelry layering. “Even the most simple uniforms are a utilitarian fashion lover’s dream,” Rose said.
“I think there’s a gorgeousness in uniformity,” Rose said over lattes. “In the ability to take something so simple and boring and make it interesting.”
Rose finds the type of rough clothes, like vintage fisherman outfits that come from the everyday workers beautiful. Historically, a respectable amount of popular fashion draws information from the working-class population. Simply walk down the street, and you are bound to see workwear-inspired pieces — combat boots, denim, cargo pants, flannel, fisherman sweaters, the list goes on.
Similarly, a brief tour through New York City offers fashion lovers an array of choices in workwear and vintage clothes. The store 9th St. Vintage was opened in 2012, and over the past 11 years, the store has become a staple in the East Village’s robust vintage scene.
Will Sherrer, an employee at 9th St. Vintage, sees the popularity of workwear-inspired pieces firsthand in the clothes customers are interested in.
“There’s a lot of workwear that’s coming into style right now,” he said. “Current [workwear] style kind of got diluted in those tough work industries where everyone is wearing the same thing. But back in the day, it was much more a creative uniform.”
Sherrer also finds inspiration in the baggy utilitarian aspect of blue-collar fashion in his own style.
“I’m a big denim jacket wearer. Work pants are big; I’ve got some on right now. That kind of stuff, yeah. Inspired by hard labor work.”
Evidence is in the rise of Carhartt as a fashion trend, a workwear brand that has become fashionable. Carhartt started as rugged clothes for railroad workers and has grown into a brand worn by everyone from celebrities to Brooklynites.
This trend of the functional becoming fashionable gives Rose plenty to work with. So far, the reception to her vision has been overwhelmingly positive. A quick scan through her comment section shows just how much Rose has widened people’s perspectives, with commenters saying that Rose has opened their minds and even changed their lives.
“I think about these videos daily,” says @charlotte_dury. “Like deadass, you’ve changed the way I see fashion.”
As her series continues, Mac Rose is just going to keep doing her thing, much like the people she highlights in “Style Is Everywhere.” Along the way, sharing what she learns in the industry, Rose hopes that she can help people find their personal style.
“When we think personal style, we’re really overwhelmed, and we’re like, where the fuck do we start? You start just by opening your eyes. So many people don’t see the people that they’re passing every day.”