Hey, I Like Your Style! Inside the wardrobe of Sydney content creator, Bailey McWhinnie
IMAGE VIA @baileymcwhinnie/INSTAGRAM
WORDS BY DAISY HENRY
“My most meaningful fashion pieces would probably be the vintage tops and accessories handed down to me from my mum.”
We know personal style is a journey (I’m looking at you, Tumblr years) and our series Hey, I Like Your Style! dives into the fashion psyche of our favourite creatives. We’re talking the good, the bad and the 2007.
While the internet has made our fashion icons feel closer than ever before, even the most effortless of outfits came from a closet with some (well-dressed) skeletons. Clickable product tags, photo archives and lives chronicled in 30-second clips just don’t tell the full story.
For more fashion news, shoots, articles and features, head to our Fashion section.
These are the stories behind the wardrobes, exploring how we develop our personal style. There’s a brilliance behind the way we choose to express ourselves, and at FJ, we know every outfit has a story. For this instalment of Hey, I Like Your Style!, we enter the wardrobe of Bailey McWhinnie.
A quick glimpse into Bailey’s wardrobe will immediately tell you that she is a lover of colour, texture and mixing things up. One day, her style might channel ’90s dad core, while the next, she might draw inspiration from Japanese streetwear. Throughout Bailey’s style evolution, she’s learned to detach from societal expectations of what it means to look ‘feminine’ or ‘sexy’ and instead, measures an outfit by how it makes her feel. Below, Bailey shares more about her style journey, her knack for thrifting and why her mum and brother are her biggest style inspirations.
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Who are you and what do you like to wear?
My name is Bailey and I am a content creator based in Sydney! I like to wear whatever makes me feel good. I’ve learned that this is changing all the time and I am fully embracing that.
What has your style evolution looked like? Do you feel like you’ve gained confidence in the way you dress?
My style evolution has definitely been a bit of a rollercoaster. I actually didn’t love fashion when I was in high school (I’m 23 now). Like most teenagers, I was mostly concerned about conforming to how my cohort dressed so that I could fit in and I certainly didn’t use fashion as a way to express my identity.
As I entered the ‘real world’, I started experimenting more with how I dressed and discovered fashion as a medium through which I could express who I was. Interestingly, my most transformative fashion stage occurred during lockdown because I started content creation. I think subconsciously I was still preoccupied with what people thought about me, so there was something so freeing about solely dressing for myself and my audience in the privacy of my own home. When lockdown was over, I started thinking, ‘Wait that felt so good, why don’t I dress for myself and the girls all the time?’. I discovered the power of fashion for self-love and self-confidence and it sounds cliché, but I genuinely haven’t looked back since then.
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Personal style is a journey. Have you ever felt like you needed to fit into a particular fashion box?
I think as women, we have been conditioned to dress in a particular way that is ‘sexy’, ‘feminine’ or generally attractive to the male gaze. I think, for years, this social conditioning informed my personal style choices. For example, when I went out on the weekends with my girlfriends in the middle of winter, I would choose to wear a very tight mini dress that I didn’t find particularly fashionable, practical or very me.
The fashion girl deep down in me would have loved to opt for low-rise jeans, a cute sheer top, boots, a slick bun and full-beat makeup. Looking back, I realise that the main metric I was using to assess how ‘sexy’ or ‘attractive’ or even ‘feminine’ I looked was if the outfit would get the ‘tick of approval’ from a heterosexual man. In this sense, I suppose I felt trapped in this societal expectation.
When I discovered the power of fashion, I consciously started to rework this metric, centring it more towards me. It is definitely a work in progress, but now I try to measure how ‘attractive’ and ‘feminine’ I look by if I want to wear that outfit, and if I feel good in it; basically, if the outfit feels like me. In doing this, my confidence has increased so much.
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… I think being aware of the social pressures that inform our fashion choices can help you find your personal style, because you realise that you have the power to challenge them and question whether they align with your identity. In this process, you start to carve out your ‘personal style’, and it becomes more about you. I think that is the beauty of fashion.
Take us back to those awkward teenage years. Do you have any fashion regrets?
Honestly, my whole teenage experience was a fashion regret! Quite infamous among my friends and family is the night of my grade six graduation. I was 12, but nearly 13 and the day before I forgot to put sunscreen on at the annual swimming carnival. I wore a lime green dress and my Polish skin was as bright as a tomato.
The combination was head-turning, literally. Boys came up to me in the playground, looked at me and said ‘What… happened?’. Like, why didn’t I just wear something else? Another notable regret was my year 10 formal. I was obsessed with Gigi Hadid’s 2015 Met Gala lacy red dress moment and wanted to emulate it. I think the creative vision could be given an eight out of 10, but the dress in combination with my pageant blow-dry made it a five out of 10. Being a teenager is honestly so awkward though, I have to give myself some grace, haha!
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What are the most expensive and least expensive items in your wardrobe?
The most expensive items in my wardrobe are probably my Louis Vuitton or Marshall Columbia handbags. The least expensive items would definitely be the jewellery pieces and accessories that I thrift. I have the cutest leopard print handbag from Guess that literally cost me $5 and have the hottest pair of Sass and Bide micro shorts that also cost me $5! Honestly, thrifting is where it’s at.
What is the most meaningful fashion piece you own?
My most meaningful fashion pieces would probably be the vintage tops and accessories handed down to me from my mum, like the lace camisoles she wore in the early 2000s and the pearls she wore in the ’80s. They represent how timeless style can be and are really sentimental to me.
Who or what influences your style?
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Honestly, my mum and my brother are my biggest style influences. My brother, Connor McWhinnie, was doing content creation back before it was even a thing. In particular, his streetwear looks through the years have definitely shaped my love for street style and sneakers now. My mum is an absolute fashion icon and she actually helps me style a lot of my outfits – she has a gift for layering and proportions. Both of them love fashion and support me to dress for myself, which is something I’ll always be grateful for.
I feel like I draw a lot of my inspiration from multiple sources; some days it’s ’90s dadcore, other days it’s contemporary Japanese streetwear. In this sense, I think drawing inspiration from a variety of places makes my style quite eclectic and gives it a bit of personal flare.
What fashion piece are you saving for right now?
I really want a Chopova Lowena skirt or a pair of Maison Margiela Tabi Mary Janes. They are so expensive but I know they would be an investment.
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What are the wardrobe items you wear on repeat?
I absolutely love baseball caps, I think they can elevate an outfit so effortlessly. Anyone who knows me would know that my Amiri trucker cap is a staple in my wardrobe, it has lowkey become a part of my identity. I am also obsessed with vintage Adidas zip-through jackets. I like how you can dress them up with jorts and some knee-high boots, or down with jeans and sneakers. I thrifted like four of these in Harajuku last year!
Who are your favourite local designers?
I have so many, but I really love Beth Does Designs, Mode Mischief Studios and Knitwit the Label. Honestly, there is so much talent in Australia and some of these small businesses deserve more exposure.
For more of Bailey’s outfits, head here.
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