Kelly Chaido

Kelly Chaido

Q: So you're a stylist. What's your best style advice that you give to people?

A: My best style advice to give to people is really to dress for themselves, not to follow a trend, because the minute that you follow a trend you lose everything that's special about you.

Q: What's the best part of your job?

A: My favorite thing that I love about my job is because I am freelance I get to meet so many different people, and people that I would never come across any other way, and they each bring a certain level of creativity that I get to learn from, which I find really interesting. Not just getting stuck in my own ways of thinking but really learning and creating with different people.

Q: How did you learn how to tie the scarves? Did you research, did you just learn on your own?

A: I think ever since I was little I've always loved playing with what fabric can do. My background is in textile design, so I was always wondering how you could move fabric to drape it and make it have a new life.

Q: If you weren't a stylist or a textile designer, what would you be?

A: If I did not work in the fashion industry I think I would work in nature because there's something that I'd really like to do about replenishing the Earth instead of just taking from it.

Q: Do you see a connection between what you are doing now and how you can be in nature and give back to the Earth?

A: Yeah, I think there's a lot of practices that can be done while still being in the fashion industry. I think conscious design is a number one thing for me as well as sustainably manufacturing things. I teach textile designers now, and when we sit down and I look at their prints I always say to them, "Would you wear that? Would you buy that? Are you consciously designing for people or are you just making things?” Just having purpose in things, I think, goes a long way in the industry.

Q: Do you have a favorite place that you feel embodies your style?

A: I actually really like going to undiscovered places and learning about style, so I really love to travel and go to places where people aren't going. I went, about three years back, to Tbilisi, Georgia and went to the city for a bit and then to the countryside. It was really interesting being in the city, learning about this very newer fashion scene and then going to the countryside and being surrounded by all of these editors and stylists from Russian Vogue and everything else in a place you would never expect.

Q: What or who inspires you?

A: I think people from different cultures. I love going to places where I have no idea what the language is or the body language and just having to figure it out. I think that mix of learning really inspires me. Just something that I've never accustomed to. And then meeting and seeing people in real time so you're really learning from them.

Q: Do you like being put in situations where they're very new to you where you almost feel out of place because it's a learning experience?

A: Yes. I love to feel awkward. I just think that there's something that you learn about yourself in those situations that's invaluable."

Q: What is advice that you would give your 21-year-old self?

A: The one thing I would go back and tell my 21-year-old self would be to take more risks in life. I think I still have a lot more risks to take in my life, but I think having a checkpoint of going back and saying, "Okay, you should have done this, but you can still do it." So I'm going to go back to that self and then carry it forward to now."

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