Katie Porter spent twenty-five years in media production, rubbing shoulders with royals and working the lavish promotional circuit, and she loved it. The big events stopped overnight when the pandemic hit, and in the sudden quiet she finally paid attention to a desire that had been niggling for years. “I probably wouldn’t have jumped ship had it not been for Covid,” she says. “My life completely changed, and I realized this was my chance to explore styling.” She now runs a personal style consultancy from her home in Essex, and sends her clients out happier, more assured, and decidedly more colorful.
Returning to the mothership
Katie is decisive. “I’d pretty much made up my mind about leaving media before I told anyone else.” When she did, no one was surprised, given her lifelong love of clothes. One friend’s reaction stuck. “That’s bloody brilliant. Must feel like returning to the mothership. Absolutely the right path for you.” She is fond of the old world all the same, the hard work and the hard play, landing her first job in Soho Square, the film junkets, sourcing outfits for the Hello and OK commercials, filming members of the royal family. “A privilege few people experience, and one I’ll never forget.”
The reinvention meant a return she had sworn off. Walking out of her final sociology exam at Kingston, she had announced she was never going back into education. “Yet at forty-seven, there I was.” The London College of Style turned out to be a joy from start to finish, assessment day equal parts daunting and exhilarating, and she came out qualified, surprised by how much she loved it. “I’m so pleased I took the leap and pushed myself out of my comfort zone.”
Comparison is the thief of joy
Styling was new, and strangely she never felt like she was starting from scratch, after years of quietly advising friends and family. She knows the trap that catches most people who switch careers later in life. “There will always be someone further ahead in the industry. I just concentrate on myself, and make sure I’m happy with what I’m doing. As I tell my clients, comparison is the thief of joy.” The old career left her the most important skill. “Communication and engagement were key in production, and they’re key now. You generally have a finite amount of time to gain a client’s trust.” Her outgoing, bubbly personality helps, but so does the discipline to hold back and listen for what a client is actually asking.
Katie went back to school at 47. Comparison is the thief of joy.
The part of the work she calls magic is color analysis. “It’s not my word against theirs. I facilitate an experience that unfolds in front of them.” Using specialist drapes, plus skin and hair tone and personality, she finds a client’s “wow” colors. “It’s amazing how the right colors next to your face can diminish lines and even out skin tone, while the wrong ones make you look tired.” Once a skeptic herself, she was converted after training with Jules Standish, and now dresses to her own Spring palette. Underneath the technique is a plain belief: if you feel good, you look good, and people perceive you completely differently. “Once you find your style, there’s nothing stopping you. It sounds dramatic, but it can be life-changing.”
Clothes that hold memories
Katie is a devoted vintage shopper, with no rhyme or reason to where she finds things, a Luella dress from Holt in Norfolk, leather and suede jackets from Camden market, a vintage Dior bag she tracked down in Sydney and had shipped over. At five foot two, she keeps a talented tailor on speed dial; a recent Whistles jumpsuit needed five inches off the legs to become the culottes it was meant to be. But her favorite piece is not fashionable at all. It is a long wool coat from Miss Selfridge that her very stylish mother wore to Katie’s christening forty-seven years ago. “I love looking at the pictures of her in it. I love wearing clothes that hold memories and have a meaning behind them.”
Styled by Katie is at styledbykatie.co.uk and @katieporterlifestyle.
