Liz Connolly: On her online community, freelance styling, and starting an independent career as a working class creative in the fashion industry...

Being independent and working class... two qualities the fashion industry is far too quick to roll its eyes at. It’s why you so often see people celebrating anyone who manages to break through from this kind of background (and why I talk about it so much myself). At times, it feels as though the industry was built without us in mind, leaving us to create our own path to success from scratch.

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Earlier this year, I had the privilege of interviewing Liz Connolly, a self-made Scouse fashion stylist you might recognise from TikTok. We spoke over the phone back in January, while I was creating content for the very first issue...

@elizabethagnesconnollyy on TikTok.

WHAT HELPED GET YOU INTO STYLING?

"To be honest with you, I've always just loved clothes since I was a little girl, so I was originally never going to do styling, and my whole plan was to do music. I did musical theatre and music, and then I got into uni to do music in London, and then I don't know what it was but something just told me not to go, and I took 2 years out and decided to work a crap full time job while figuring out what it was I actually wanted to do. Then it just clicked, I asked myself

"Why don't I just do styling? Because I've basically been styling my mates my whole life anyway?". I then decided to begin my degree at 21 (during peak Covid). I'd say I fell into it because I was unsure about going into uni but I ended up falling in love with it. I love working with people."

HOW WOULD YOU

DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONAL STYLE?

"I think it's very unique to me, I wake up in the morning and I don't have any kind of aesthetic. I hate having an aesthetic, just because I pick whatever I want to be on the day. It feels more like armour in a way. I wouldn't say I have a specific personal style, but I really enjoy playing around with colour, textures, and shapes."

WHAT'S LIFE

LIKE AS A FREELANCE

STYLIST BASED IN

LIVERPOOL?

"It's really hard! There's not a lot going on in Liverpool specifically, you have to be in the know with say a lot of creative agencies, and even then they're always really loyal to certain stylists who are already known so it's really difficult to get your foot in the door especially here because that competition is so high. I would say overall though, it's a very friendly place to work. Once youre in youre in, when you've built those local connections and you know people then you can keep building from there, just getting your foot in the door initially is a little bit of a challenge."

WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE LIKE AS A UNIVERSITY STUDENT FROM LIVERPOOL?

"It was eye opening I think because I've just lived in Liverpool my whole life, and going to uni there's just so many types of people isn't there. You meet people from all different backgrounds, whereas in Liverpool everyone is (pretty much) working class. Obviously people will have more money than others but everyone's the same pretty much in Liverpool, and I think it really opened my eyes to how the class system in the UK can really affect everything!

From how much time you have to dedicate to your degree, people who have more money get more time, they can create better work... It was a challenge for me at uni I would say just for that aspect, but I think it makes you think outside the box because you're more limited than others, you have less resources to."

YOU'RE VERY OUTSPOKEN ON YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA, WHO DO YOU SEE AS YOUR PRIMARY TARGET AUDIENCE FOR YOUR CONTENT?

"When I started it I just wanted it to be fashion girlies, and people who wanted to learn more on how to develop their own personal style or how to put their wardrobe together, but I think now that I've done it for over a year I have such an array of different people watching my videos. I have the ones who want to see which outfit I'm wearing, and then I have working class people now who also want advice on how to get into the creative industry or messaging me asking me how to get into freelancing, because I feel like a lot of working class people are uneducated on that side of things. I definitely came out of school and thought oh, i'm going to go to college or uni and then get a full time job and then i'm going to follow that kind of road because that's what we're taught and we're not aware that there's many other options, I'd say it's mostly women from

18-30 years old, working class fashion girlies who watch me, and that's who I want to watch me to be honest."

Interview by Aleisha Petafi