I Built a Successful Fashion Career, But Lost My Creativity

I’ve decided that Wednesdays are going to be my designated days to get out of the house and work from a coffee shop. Nothing particularly groundbreaking, but when you spend as much time working from home as I do, a change of scenery can do wonders. Plus, it gives me an excuse to get dressed, discover a cute coffee shop, order something good, and break up the monotony of my usual routine.

And because I apparently can’t do anything without turning it into some sort of content series (lol), welcome to Over Coffee.

The concept is simple. Every Wednesday, I’m taking my laptop to a coffee shop and making time to write about whatever has been occupying my thoughts lately. Fashion, business, creativity, life, and probably a few things that have absolutely nothing to do with any of the above. Think of it as catching up over coffee, except I’m doing most of the talking.

For my first Wednesday outing, I headed to 23W Coffee in Webster Groves, which has this polished, metropolitan feel that I really enjoyed. It’s the kind of space that makes you want to open your laptop and get some work done, which was exactly what I needed. I kept my outfit casual with a little big-city influence: an oversized varsity jacket with an A chenille patch (because I’m always going to represent AK), cinched-in trousers, my Dalmatian Nikes, and my Curves bag. Comfortable enough to spend a few hours working, but still very much a look.

I started with an iced espresso with vanilla and almond milk before deciding to be a little adventurous and try an espresso tonic with orange juice. Now, that was an interesting experience. I still haven’t decided whether I actually liked it or not, but I can appreciate trying something different. At the very least, it gave me something to think about between emails and writing.

And speaking of things I’ve been thinking about, I’ve been reflecting quite a bit on my relationship with creativity lately. More specifically, how I managed to build a career in an industry rooted in creative expression while gradually losing touch with my own.

January will mark 14 years since I started my first fashion blog, Mind of a Fashionista. FOURTEEN YEARS. It’s wild to think about because I can still remember how excited I was to put outfits together, take pictures, attend fashion shows, and write about whatever was happening in my little corner of the fashion world. I was creating purely because I enjoyed it. There wasn’t a content calendar to maintain, a business objective attached to every post, or some elaborate plan for how it would contribute to my professional future. I had something I wanted to share, so I shared it. And I was having FUN.

Naturally, my ambitions evolved as I got older. I wanted to establish a career in fashion that extended beyond blogging. I wanted to participate in the industry’s larger conversations, create opportunities for other creatives, collaborate with brands, build businesses, and eventually become someone capable of making a meaningful impact. Over the years, I’ve worked toward those ambitions through editorial, public relations, fashion production, and entrepreneurship. I’ve built a career that the younger version of me would’ve been incredibly excited about and proud of, even if there’s still so much more I want to accomplish.

What I didn’t anticipate was how much my relationship with creativity would change in the process. As my professional responsibilities expanded, so did my tendency to evaluate everything through the lens of productivity. Every idea needed a purpose, every piece of content needed to contribute to something, and every opportunity needed to justify the time and resources required to pursue it. What once felt instinctive gradually became another thing I needed to plan, evaluate, and execute.

And listen, I’m not suggesting that any of those considerations are unnecessary. When you’re running businesses and have big girl bills, responsibilities, and obligations, you HAVE to think about revenue, operations, visibility, and long-term sustainability. I don’t have the luxury of pursuing every exciting idea without considering its financial or practical implications. I’ve learned some expensive lessons over the years, and I’m not particularly interested in repeating them simply because something sounds promising.

Still, I think my determination to become a more disciplined entrepreneur came at the expense of the creative freedom I once enjoyed. I’ve been in a rut that I can’t seem to shake. Ideas that would’ve come naturally to me years ago now require an exhausting amount of thought. I find myself overanalyzing concepts before I’ve even given them an opportunity to develop, and there are days when the prospect of creating anything feels like another responsibility rather than something I genuinely want to do. It’s frustrating, especially when creativity has always been such an integral part of my identity.

If you would’ve asked me a couple of years ago whether I’d ever return to fashion blogging, my answer probably would’ve been an immediate no. Been there, done that, moved on. I’d convinced myself that personal style content belonged to an earlier chapter of my career, one that I’d outgrown as my attention shifted toward media, communications, and entrepreneurship. I wanted to be recognized for my expertise as an editor, publicist, and business owner, and for the work I was doing to contribute to the fashion industry beyond putting together a good outfit.

Those ambitions haven’t changed, but I can recognize now that I created an unnecessary separation between the fashion professional and the fashion blogger.

There were also practical reasons behind my decision to step away from style content. I had no interest in continuously purchasing clothes just to have something new to photograph. The pressure to produce fresh looks can become an expensive habit, and I certainly wasn’t interested in accumulating an excessive wardrobe for the sake of keeping up with a posting schedule. I wanted to be more intentional about my spending habits and the things I brought into my home, and I still stand by those decisions.

What I didn’t need to do was abandon personal style content altogether. Rather than reconsidering how I could approach it more sustainably, I gradually stopped making it a priority. Recently, I’ve started sharing more of my outfits again, and the response has reminded me that people still enjoy seeing that side of me. They’re engaging with the content, asking questions, and showing an interest in my personal style alongside the professional work I share. Apparently, people can appreciate my expertise in fashion AND want to see what I’m wearing. Shocking concept, I know.

I’ve also been reminded of how much I enjoy the process. Thinking about how I want to style something, taking pictures, and seeing how my personal aesthetic has evolved over the years has been genuinely fun. I don’t need an entirely new wardrobe to participate in that experience. I already have clothes, ideas, and a perspective worth sharing. What I’ve been missing is the willingness to create without placing so many expectations on the outcome.

Interestingly enough, I think this creative disconnect has also influenced the way I’ve approached my personal branding.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ve probably heard me talk about updating my website more times than either of us would care to count. I’ve been putting it off for what feels like FOREVER, despite knowing that my current digital presence no longer reflects the full scope of my work or the direction I want to take my brand.

My content has been inconsistent, my website feels disconnected from who I’ve become professionally, and I’ve struggled to bring my different ventures and interests together under a cohesive identity. It’s particularly frustrating because branding and communications are literally part of what I do for a living. I can identify positioning challenges, develop messaging, and help other people communicate their value, yet translating that same expertise into my own brand has been an entirely different experience.

I’ve spent so much time concentrating on the mechanics of my brand that I’ve neglected the creative vision behind it. I’ve considered the services I want to offer, the audiences I want to reach, how to communicate my expertise, and how to organize the various parts of my career into something people can easily understand. Those are necessary considerations, especially when your website is expected to support multiple revenue streams and professional opportunities.

But somewhere in all that planning, I stopped asking myself what I actually wanted to create.

What excites me enough to write about it without an assignment or deadline? What experiences do I want to document? What would I enjoy sharing even if there wasn’t an immediate opportunity to monetize it? I’ve spent years developing a professional identity, but I haven’t given nearly as much attention to how I want to express myself within it.

I’m an editor, a publicist, a producer, and an entrepreneur, but those titles don’t represent the entirety of who I am. I love fashion, getting dressed, discovering new restaurants and coffee shops, traveling, writing, and having conversations about whatever happens to be on my mind. My interests and experiences inform how I see the world, and that perspective has always influenced my work, whether I’ve acknowledged it in my branding or not.

As I work through this website overhaul, I want to be more intentional about representing those different dimensions of myself. The website still needs to communicate my expertise, showcase my work, and create opportunities for people to hire or collaborate with me. But it should also give me room to write, share my personal style, document experiences, and explore ideas that aren’t necessarily attached to a service or offer. I want to build a digital home that accommodates both my professional ambitions and my creative interests, rather than treating one as an afterthought.

Trying to become a fashion powerhouse doesn’t mean I have to abandon the creative mindset that got me here. I’ve spent so much time developing the skills and discipline necessary to build a sustainable career that I started overlooking the creative instincts responsible for so many of my opportunities in the first place.

My ability to develop concepts, recognize possibilities, connect people and ideas, and bring something from imagination into reality has been fundamental to my career. Creativity isn’t an accessory to the work I do. It’s part of what makes that work possible, and I haven’t been nurturing it with the same intention I’ve devoted to professional development.

That doesn’t mean I believe creativity alone is enough to build the career I want. I’ve learned firsthand that even the most exciting ideas require structure, resources, sound decision-making, and consistent execution. I’ve pursued concepts that were compelling in theory but difficult to sustain in practice, and I’ve watched promising opportunities lose momentum because the operational foundation wasn’t strong enough to support them.

Those experiences have made me more thoughtful about how I approach my work, and I don’t want to lose that perspective. What I do want is to stop treating creative exploration and professional discipline as competing priorities. I need to be creative AND goal-oriented, creative AND commercially aware, creative AND operationally sound. I want the freedom to develop ideas without immediately calculating their earning potential, while still having the judgment to determine which ones are worth pursuing.

The goal was never to stop being creative. The goal was to build something meaningful with that creativity. Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that distinction.

Which is probably why the idea of returning to fashion blogging has been on my mind so much lately.

I miss writing regularly, taking outfit pictures, documenting my experiences, and sharing my perspective without feeling obligated to turn every post into an educational resource or professional opportunity. I miss the spontaneity of creating something because I find it interesting, and I think reconnecting with those habits could make a meaningful difference in how I approach the rest of my work.

Of course, I’m not under the impression that I can abandon my responsibilities and spend my days creating content whenever inspiration strikes. I still have businesses to operate, goals to pursue, deadlines to meet, and financial obligations that aren’t going anywhere. If anything, this realization has reinforced how important it is for me to create routines that allow creativity to exist alongside those responsibilities. Otherwise, I’ll continue treating it as something I can return to once everything else is finished, and we all know how that goes.

That’s part of the reason I’m starting Over Coffee. Setting aside time on Wednesdays to get out of the house, visit a coffee shop, and write gives me something to look forward to that isn’t entirely dictated by the demands of work. It also gives me an opportunity to document more of my life, experiment with content, and reconnect with the things I enjoyed about blogging in the first place.

With January marking 14 years since I launched Mind of a Fashionista, it’s interesting to find myself reconsidering something I was once so certain I’d moved beyond. I don’t want to recreate the exact experience I had when I started blogging, nor do I want to abandon the professional identity I’ve spent years developing. I’ve grown considerably since then, and I want my content to reflect that evolution.

I still have every intention of becoming the fashion powerhouse I’ve envisioned for myself. There are businesses I want to grow, opportunities I want to create, and accomplishments I haven’t come close to checking off my list. But I’m beginning to understand that pursuing those ambitions shouldn’t require me to neglect the parts of myself that made them possible.

So yes, I think I want to be a fashion blogger again. Not because I’m trying to return to an earlier version of myself, but because I miss the creative freedom that came with it. And if getting dressed, discovering a coffee shop, taking pictures, and sitting down to write helps me find my way out of this rut, I think it’s worth making room for.

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time thinking about who I want to become. Maybe it’s time I paid a little more attention to the person who got me this far.

And apparently, she’s still a fashion blogger.