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Our exclusive interview with Fashion influencer Kat Farmer
As a blogger and influencer Kat Farmer aims to help us all wear it well. She knows first-hand how it feels to lose your style groove and her new book Get Changed gives funny, forthright advice on how to feel confident and look fantastic one outfit at a time…
Kat Farmer, aka well known fashion influencer @doesmybumlook40 is a regular on BBC One’s styling show You Are What You Wear and ITV’s This Morning. She’s got bags of energy and a hugely relatable way of helping followers discover what suits them (catch her weekly Wine Time on IGTV with wine writer @knackeredmother to hear her cackle). Ice maiden fashionista who’ll look through you for carrying a Zara cross-body instead of a Celine tote she is not.
Despite wanting to work in fashion, after university Kat became a City head-hunter. And she doesn’t feel that careers advice in most schools has changed since then. “There’s too much emphasis on academic success – why aren’t children being told what they need to do if they express an interest in being a video game designer or working behind the scenes on films, as my daughter wants to do?”
After starting a family she moved to the country, ‘why? I don’t even like trees’ and with three children aged three and below Kat’s sense of self took such a hit that she went to the GP to ask for anxiety pills. “No”, was the response, “You’re suffering from loss of identity”. With hindsight Kat realised this was hardly a surprise: her former career wasn’t easily viable with such a young brood and she hadn’t yet decided on her next move. But hurrah for a friend who identified that Kat was, in fact, already a personal shopper because she spent so much time helping friends and family find the perfect outfits.
Not so common in the UK 10 plus years ago as now but said friend’s mother-in-law was Canadian where paying someone to go shopping was commonplace. “It started there. I’d go shopping to a brief and find the perfect leather jacket or wedding outfit”. This grew to ‘style studios’, parties for up to eight women where she’d delve into wardrobes and help decide which clothes were keepers. And then the Does My Bum Look 40 in This? blog, which proved to be perfect marketing for her styling services “You couldn’t monetise blogs back then”.
Kat believes that her foray into fashion came at a time of seismic shift when people were reinventing themselves. Magazines suddenly realised that just because you weren’t in your 20s didn’t mean you wanted to wear Jacques Vert – and twentysomethings bought all their clothes at ASOS anyway. A generation of women were asking what they could wear once they hit 40 and were no longer covered in baby sick and wouldn’t dream of wearing a twinset and pearls. Then along came Instagram, “What’s not to love?” and Kat’s following grew and grew. “I hit everything at the right time – let’s call it fashion kismet”.
Funnily enough, one thing that had never been on the horizon was a book. “I always said no because I thought fashion was too transient to capture”. The change of heart came during regular lockdown IGTV sessions when Kat realised that some people had literally no idea of where to start. “Like me with gardening – base level zero”. Get Changed goes back to basics and is written in a cookbook style, what Kat describes as a “Hayes Guide but without the carburettors”.
There isn’t one outfit that changed everything for Kat, but she has a Temperley dress that works for everything – with heels for black tie, trainers for lunch. “I love finding those gems that you can change the look of with accessories”. And she’s a bit obsessed with All Saints. “Insanely well cut with amazing embellishments in the fabric – I wasn’t about to wear an otherwise lovely top that has random non-functional buttons or a ‘fun’ lining. I’m not seven! I don’t need jaunty or jolly or cheering up because I’m old!”. And what about investment pieces? “I talk a lot about this in Get Changed – find what works for you. Don’t spend a fortune on a coat if you live in leather jackets. And if you find jeans or a jacket you love buy lots of them and in every colour. Though maybe not orange… I still regret not getting more of a Zara blazer a couple of years ago.” Happily, Kat says you don’t need to spend a fortune on jeans and whatever you are buying, shop around, because so much depends on your shape. “Not your size – we might weigh the same as we did at 18 but everything is distributed differently. Gravity is a bitch!”
She really admires the style of Kate Moss, Claudia Winkleman and Audrey Hepburn. She applauds Helen Mirren and loves that the older she gets the edgier she looks. Get Changed includes identifying your style icon because seeing someone pictorially makes it much easier to work out what you like.
Kat delivers lots of practical advice in her book – “if you like what you wear into the changing room more than what you’ve tried on, don’t buy it. Try clothes on at home because then you’ll see if they work with what’s already in your wardrobe. If it’s in that carrier bag for more than a week take it back.” Her biggest piece of advice is that if you love it, wear it. “Life is short and you deserve to be the best version of yourself”. She believes people underestimate the importance of looks – “I’m not going to call it fashion because people roll their eyes and think you’ve being vain/frivolous/fickle. But as a direct indicator of how you feel inside, first impressions count.” And, she remarks drily, “it takes as much effort to put on a shit outfit as a great one!”
