Girl Talk with Kristopher Dukes
By Denise Tong
Reading Kristopher Dukes’ blog is a bit like reading a love letter: While gabbing about her latest shopping finds and her enduring thirst for soy lattes, she calls her fans “dolls” and “lovelies,” and sometimes signs her posts with “French kisses.” But as much as she adores her readers, it’s abundantly clear that her true love is fashion.
It’s not just the strength of her sartorial devotion that drives a steady stream of visitors to her site each month; it’s the engagingly chatty way that she dishes on both haute couture and street fashion; her writing is as sophisticated and knowledgeable as it is fresh and fun.
A writer and editor since childhood, Dukes has had many years to hone her signature voice. While still in her teens, she co-founded non-profit publication Tyro, was a freelance contributor to local L.A. publications, and was published in national magazine Teen Ink.
Dukes has since become one of the most prolific and popular writers in the fashion industry—and she’s only in her early 20s. Although she resides in L.A., her site draws readers from all over the country and beyond. She has been published by Women’s Wear Daily (WWD), Fashion Wire Daily, SHOPEtc.com, and Citysearch.com; she is also a regular blogger for TopButton.com and ThisNext.com.
Last year WWD named her one of its Top 10 Fashion Bloggers; she has been profiled twice in the publication and was also recently spotlighted in the French edition of Vogue.
The sought-after fashionista took time out to chat with Glam Hub about her forthcoming book and her obsession with high heels.
***
Q: When did you first become interested in fashion?
A: I’ve always been fascinated by using fashion and image to engage and manipulate people—I remember when I was 5 years old, though it was a very hot day, I wore a puffy-painted sweatsuit to kindergarten to get the attention of my wavering BFF. It worked—we played together all day.
I didn’t start publishing writing about five-inch heels and vintage mink and It bags until I was about 19, though.
Q: What is your favorite part of what you do?
A: I love playing with words and the gymnastics of language. And getting to type to you dolls and guys from home about beautiful bags and too-tall heels isn’t so bad, either.
Q: What are your future plans?
A: Like apparently every other It blogger, I’m working on a novel. But this is more an evolution of me as a writer than a career-stepping stone; this is more Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and the Damned—only good—and less How to Be a Fashion Blogger.
Q: Who is your favorite haute couture designer?
A: I adore, adore, adore Coco Chanel. She was a boss lady—she changed the way women dress, she commanded an empire while most women were men’s property, she understood the luxury of quiet quality and individualism. She’s inspiring, as her uncompromising personal style freed women from styling their lives as housewives. And I love that she capitalized on this.
Q: Who are your style icons?
A: I’ve a thing for ’20s It girls—Clara Bow, Mia Farrow as Daisy in The Great Gatsby. I love what bobbed hair and loose, short dresses stood for—women in love with being in love with their lives, finding pleasure in S-E-X outside of making babies, and living independently.
Q: How would you describe your personal style?
A: Too-tall heels, flapper frocks, smoky eyes, glammy dead animals, and a soy latte, clutched.
Q: Which accessory or piece of clothing can you not live without?
A: That’s like asking Jay-Z to pick between cash, money, and hos, lovely. I’d have to say heels, though. I won’t like it, but you can put me in pants, you can take away my budding collection of fur, you can even wipe off my smoky eye—so long as you pass me some sunglasses—but I will not wear flats. I despise shoes that don’t have you watching your walk, poising your posture, straightening your stance.
Q: What do you consider your biggest fashion mistake?
A: There was a brief period in high school when I wore flats. I got over that by around 17, and discovered the joys of high, high heels, even though I’m sure that—and my refusal to carry a backpack—led some peers at my suburban L.A. high school to believe I was a foreign exchange student.
Q: What would your dream closet look like and what would be in it?
A: My dream closet, doll? I’d dig a walk-in the size of most Manhattan shoeboxes—which is actually modest, non?—filled with beaded flapper frocks, chinchilla anything, wiped clean of shoes less than 4.5″ tall and anything that didn’t flatter my hot little body and make me smile.
I’ve already got a few of those qualities knocked off.
Photo courtesy of Kristopher Dukes, LLC.
