Glam Slam: Carolina Gurls

When I recently hit my hometown, I got to catch up with some of my childhood friends. I grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, but have lived in California for years, so we don’t get to see each other all that often.

When I look at this photo of us, one thing that really strikes me is what we are wearing. Most of the girls dress pretty conservatively… one is a nurse, one is in marketing… in other words, they have “real” jobs.

And then there’s me. I am wearing my Loeffler Randall oversized leopard jacket. As I walk around the restaurant, I notice that me – and my jacket – definitely stand out, as most people are wearing black or other dark solids.

Which makes me wonder… how much of your “fashion” sense is in your DNA? And how much of it is influenced by your surroundings… where you live, where you work, who you hang out with, what you see on TV and online.

Living in liberal Los Angeles, nothing surprises me. I’ve seen everything from a literally half-naked lady sitting at the table next to me in a swank restaurant to the most immaculately made up women, who actually turned out to be men. LA is a world apart from the place where I grew up.

Charleston was not some hot bed of trendy fashion, it was very traditional, very preppy. It was also a vastly different time. There was no Google, no Yahoo!, no online shopping, no street fashion sites… the Internet didn’t even exist. Today, you can check out what people are wearing whether they are in Helsinki or Hamburg or the Hamptons in an instant online. Back in my day, we got our style inspiration from Seventeen magazine and MTV – when it actually played music videos. So it took forever for trends to trickle down to us.

I remember when Michael Jackson was IT and I wanted a leather jacket so badly. I had to go to Georgia to find a good one… that was just not something I was gonna find in Charleston! Now – you are just a few clicks away from ordering pretty much anything you can dream of from anywhere in the world.

Back in the day, I also developed my love of leopard print. My mom had an awesome vintage leopard coat, which we mostly used for Halloween costumes. I would dress up as a “movie star” with the jacket, lots of rhinestones and a long cigarette holder. So, I guess it was fitting that I would end up in Hollywood!

How would I dress now if I had stayed in Charleston? While most of my SC friends have stayed true to their Southern style roots, my fashion sense certainly changed when I moved out to the West Coast, where things are far more casual and an anything-goes vibe rules. But there are also things I’ve loved for as long as I can remember… like a good leopard print.

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