Jesica Wagstaff is championing WFH fashion on TikTok
Finally, fashion TikTok for people who don’t leave the house.
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, from Kate Lindsay and Nick Catucci.🧩
Thanks to this convo, I’m absolutely off to spend all my money on a Lauren Manoogian sweater. —Kate
When I think of fashion on TikTok, I picture Y2K camisoles, low-rise jeans, and Shein pieces that will be thrown out by next season. I didn’t think my personal style—whatever allows me to be comfortable working from home but still feel like I got up and dressed that morning—even counted as a style at all. But then I came across Jesica Wagstaff, a 40-year-old creator from Virginia whose work-from-home-wear is captivating a previously starved section of TikTok.
“I've been working from home since 2016, so the pandemic shifted nothing for me,” she tells me over video chat. “A lot of the outfits that I'm wearing are to just sit in this room at my desk and take a couple of Zoom calls and still feel like I'm kind of pulled together.”
When I first began following Wagstaff, she had just a couple thousand followers. Every time I checked back in, her account had grown exponentially. She's now, after a few weeks, at over 20,000. This is thanks to a combination of her outfits, made up of classic vintage pieces from the likes of Levi’s and grail sweaters from Lauren Manoogian, and her easy-going personality. Plus, her signature trick of ending every video when she’s still in the middle of a sentence.
“I never wanna give a complete thought on the internet for fear of saying the wrong thing,” she says. “And it became sort of a joke with myself, cutting myself off, and then other people thought it was funny.”
Her followers are a uniquely engaged group, demanding Wagstaff break down her jeans collection, share her hack for draping a sweater over her shoulders, and show how to style outfits with various jackets and purses. Wagstaff says she’s charmed by the familial bossiness of her community, and has no problem dishing it back.
With a day job as a grant manager at a climate NGO, Wagstaff has been thoughtful about what she wants out of the app. First: showcase authentic '90s fashion. Second: help people feel confident in their clothes, no matter the decade.
In this interview for paid subscribers, Wagstaff and I chat about work-from-home fashion, true '90s staples, and becoming an unexpected style icon.