Faces + Spaces: Sarah Spellings

When Sarah Spellings was growing up, she would zip up her houndstooth skirt suit, slip her stockinged feet into platform leather shoes, and head to the playground to swing from the monkey bars in style.

“I’ve always wanted to project with my clothing that I was put together,” said Spellings. “I think that’s a really nice thing to communicate to people: I’m here and I’m looking my best for you.”

Spellings, currently the Fashion News Editor at Vogue Magazine, graduated from Northwestern in 2017 and served as STITCH’s Editor in Chief from 2016 to 2017. When reflecting on her childhood, college years, and bustling career post graduation, she told me about how she came to be the woman she is today. The woman whose first big purchase as an adult, years after wearing her houndstooth skirt suit to the playground, was a Suistudio pantsuit in the exact same pattern. 

Spellings spent her early childhood in the U.K. and Thailand, and both countries were critical in shaping how she views fashion. In Thailand, Spellings attended Loy Krathong ceremonies and admired the traditional Thai outfits. In the U.K., she was surrounded by a rich fashion history — both in high culture with the royal family and in the country’s punk subculture.

Through these unique experiences, Spellings learned early on that fashion can communicate crucial aspects of our personality to those around us.

For Spellings, this includes her sense of humor, quick wit, and the thoughtfulness she puts into every interaction. Spellings has always known who she is at her core. However, she’s also had to work through assumptions about herself and her life path, and yes, a few regrettable fashion phases, to grow into the best version of herself.

When Spellings entered Northwestern as a freshman majoring in journalism and international studies, she admitted to having a rigid approach to her endeavors and just “wanting to get from point A to B”.

“I’m a Taurus. I’m very stubborn,” Spellings joked. “I came into college thinking, ‘I’m going to be a straight-A student. I’m going to be valedictorian of Medill.’ And I was a very average student by the end of it. I guess one of the ways I’ve learned to combat my stubborn, inflexible nature is by just learning how to prioritize, by saying ‘I’m fine with not being Medill valedictorian, but I’m going to work my ass off so I can be editor-in-chief of STITCH.”

Spellings started off on STITCH’s photography team and her fixed mindset initially affected how she approached photoshoots.

“We would pore over archival images of Steven Meisel, and we would go into the photoshoot being like, ‘Okay, this is the image we want.’ And you know, they would never be met,” Spellings said. “I learned that it doesn’t have to be great like them. It can be great like us.”

In addition to challenging Spellings to roll with the punches, STITCH was instrumental in shaping her outlook on fashion in other ways.

For example, it helped her learn more about fashion history. Spellings was very preppy in high school. Gossip Girl’s Blair Waldorf was her biggest style inspiration. She could recall every outfit that Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly had ever worn, and she knew the entire masthead at Vogue. 

At  STITCH, she learned about all the designers and aesthetics that her peers were interested in and absorbed their excitement and knowledge.

“That’s really similar to working at any magazine. Everyone’s coming in with their own unique interests, and they’re very into what they’re into,” said Spellings.  “You can just sit there and soak it up like a sponge.”

Spellings is also grateful that STITCH wasn’t trend-driven in her time. Instead, it let her explore fashion’s numerous possibilities. This playful outlook on fashion has stuck with her.

“I think there’s a lot of pressure when you think about having a sense of style to fit into an aesthetic and define yourself by that. I totally get it because there’s such a comfort in being able to say ‘This is clearly what I am,’” Spellings said. “But I think the only way to approach your sense of style is just that immediate pleasure when you put something on.”

Spellings said the people she finds most stylish are those who follow their own internal guides. To date, one of Spellings’ biggest fashion inspirations is Beatrice Hagney, Assistant Buyer at Bergdorf Goodman and a close friend she met at STITCH.

“You look in Beatrice’s closet, and it’s a whole mix. She has Jean-Paul Gautier mesh tops, but she also has a dress from 1913. Whatever she puts it on, it just feels like Beatrice.”

Although Spellings doesn’t adhere to a fixed look, she does find herself gravitating towards an “all-American style”: blue jeans, vintage tees and blazers. However, she always tries to incorporate elements of whimsy into her outfits, pieces she says “spark that sense of inner child.”

For example, Spellings couldn’t help gushing excitedly about her new pair of Prada sunglasses. 

“These glasses have a little curlicue on the side, and I’m so in love with them. They’re so weird, and I think if I had to define the style, well they’re Prada, so there’s something Italian Rivera about them. Like kind of dolce vita. That’s not how I would ever define my style, but it works in my closet because it’s a little whimsical doodad and it makes me smile.”

Spellings has nailed intuitive dressing. However, like any college student she also underwent a period of trend-hopping that most of us can relate to. She adopted the typical Northwestern student style of the time: leggings, Doc Martens, a cargo jacket, a puffer coat and an oversized flannel worn open over a long tank top.

“I never want to repeat that flannel phase. There’s no whimsy in a flannel shirt,” Spellings laughed.

In college, Spellings also started to incorporate aspects of Dallas style into her wardrobe. Spellings only moved to Dallas at the age of 12. Because of this, she didn’t regard herself as being a Texan until after arriving at Northwestern. She felt somewhat stifled by Dallas fashion, with its plethora of white jeans, wedges and bohemian tops. However, when she left, she decided there was a huge aspect of Dallas style that she wanted to incorporate—cowboy boots. 

“Cowboy boots became this big runway trend and coincided with this appreciation of Black western culture, but also campy Western culture like Dolly Parton. So you would see a lot of Western style in this super loud way that’s like, ‘Look at my boots.’ That’s never what I wanted to do,” Spellings said. “Finally I figured out how I wanted to incorporate western boots and have them be something that spoke to where my family came from without it being so loud that it swallowed an outfit and sucked the air out of the room. Ironically the way I found to wear my boots that felt most authentic to me was really similar to how men in Texas just wear their boots in general. Never thought I’d be taking style cues from the guys I went to high school with, but here we are.”

Spellings is now an advocate for sustainable fashion, yet another passion that she developed in her time at Northwestern while working on an excess-themed STITCH photoshoot.

“Looking back, I would probably change the name to consumption or mass production. It wasn’t excess in terms of opulence. It was excess in terms of mass production,” Spellings said. “So we kind of styled all these looks in subtle variations of the same look—for example, blue jeans and a white top.”

During Spellings’ time at STITCH, the magazine was shifting towards a more socially conscious approach overall.

“When I started on STITCH, we had an issue that was called the ‘Issues’ issue, like the issues in fashion, and I think the biggest change I saw over my four years is that we no longer needed an issue to talk about issues in fashion,” Spellings said. “We addressed them in every issue.”

Spellings joked that this shift was all about moving the magazine away from a white sorority girl outlook. 

“We wanted to make it more about how fashion affects people’s identity rather than what fashion to wear,” she said.

Spellings learned at a young age that fashion can speak for us, and this lesson has made a lasting impact on her life. After graduation, she took up a position at her journalism residency site, The Cut. Now she works at Vogue. Spellings values that both publications align with her belief that there’s power in developing a personal style outside of fixed aesthetics. It’s about connecting with our inner child. Spellings’ inner child already knew that she wanted her style to present her best self to the world. Paradoxically, Spellings also takes a cue from her childhood self to not take her style too seriously. Who said that a houndstooth pantsuit can’t go with curlicue sunglasses and a pair of cowboy boots?