Getting Dressed 101: The Influence of Allison Bornstein

Allison Bornstein would like for you to take a deep breath. Light a candle, make sure your phone is on silent, then focus on your inhale and exhale 10-counts. Open your eyes and stare into your closet, which you’re now ready to clean. Yes, the stylist insists, think about this process as a form of self-care. How you approach your wardrobe is linked to how you feel about yourself, and thus cleaning it out, editing it down, and refining it is its very own wellness activity.

This practice is outlined in Bornstein’s first book, out September 26, Wear It Well: Reclaim Your Closet and Rediscover the Joy of Getting Dressed. It’s found in the chapter titled “Visioning You: A Meditation,” which acts as a preamble before you embark on her AB Closet-Editing System. It’s these quippily titled tactics that have made Bornstein so popular on TikTok and Instagram (where she has a combined 376,000 followers)—and now, she’s turned her tao into a book. You may have heard of Wrong Shoe Theory, which advocates for pairing a chunky sneaker with a floaty dress, or the Three-Word Method for defining your style. (Bornstein’s own three words are 1970s, classic, and elegant; her Instagram is filled with images of light-wash jeans, trench coats, and Jane Birkin). Online, over FaceTime with her hundreds of personal clients, and now in print, Bornstein teaches an introductory—but comprehensive—class on how to get dressed.

Before Bornstein was crowned “TikTok’s favorite stylist” with 1,500 individual sessions under her belt, she worked with celebrities such as Katie Holmes. During the pandemic, Bornstein was looking for a way to raise money and offered styling sessions over video call. She charged a flat fee, and 30 percent of the proceeds went to benefit the Food Bank for New York City. She liked working with regular, nonfamous people—those who couldn’t have a PR agency messenger them a crucial accessory at the drop of a hat—and their closets. Now she charges $275 for an hour. It’s an extra $100 if you want her to send you links to stuff that will complete your closet. (Bornstein says she hears from clients that the cost of a session is cheaper than the clothes they would have bought without one.)

“Are there rules with a sweater around the shoulder? Or do you just scrunch it and do it however,” Bornstein’s repeat client Josie Graham asks over Zoom on a recent Friday morning. Graham, a creative director and mother in Cincinnati, has met with Bornstein 12 times over the past three years. Bornstein, dressed in a Bottega Veneta silk shirt printed to look like a denim jacket and a silver Tiffany & Co. bone cuff, answers immediately: “If you think too much about it, it ends up looking a little contrived.”

Graham—who, Bornstein points out, has good taste to begin with—approaches her hour-long calls with the energy of an aspiring valedictorian. She references typed notes from her previous sessions, takes a picture of her outfit every day to see which ones she likes, and keeps a reference binder of outfits that she and Bornstein have okayed. “In the morning when I do my makeup, I go through the books,” Graham says. “If we haven’t made a look and it’s not photographed, I will never wear the items.”

Once the sweater is in place, appropriately nonchalant, Graham snaps a photo. She and Bornstein have been trying to find a way to wear a black formfitting sheath from The Row in a way that channels a Ralph Lauren ad but still feels comfortable and work appropriate. Graham had worn it before with sneakers, but likes it a lot better with knee-high black boots, a blazer, and a sweater over the shoulders. “I get teary,” Graham says. “This is me! This looks like somebody on a Pinterest board.”

It may sound a little obvious to pair a black mid-length dress with a blazer and knee-high boots if you’re going for an all-American, Ralph Lauren–esque look. Bornstein knows that. But she’s there to give her clients the reassurance that they look good—trust her, she’s a professional. The end result may not read as a risk, but it feels that way to the person wearing it.

Even some seasoned industry professionals have benefited from Bornstein’s instruction. Courtney Grant, the vice president of buying for Elyse Walker, booked a session with Bornstein after her promotion. “I’ve been in retail for 15 years and I’m like: What could anyone say to me at this point that I don’t already know?” Grant says. “But there was something about her approach that was so refreshing. I immediately was hooked. She was teaching me things; I was learning.”

Bornstein’s popularity comes at a time when traditional styling advice is in flux. Magazines don’t tend to publish pages of do’s and don’ts, What Not to Wear feels as dated as sneaker heels, and the prevailing “rule” is that there are no rules. These are all net-positive changes, especially when it comes to size inclusivity and body positivity. However, it has created a vacuum for people who can answer the question, “But how do I get dressed?”

“An article might say, ‘You need these five pairs of boots for fall,’ and then someone will buy the five pairs and say, like, ‘Okay, what do I do with them?’” Bornstein says. “People are very good at shopping. Shopping is really easy. But once they have the piece, they feel really lost, and as a result they feel inadequate or confused. ‘Am I an idiot; do they not look good on me? What’s wrong with me?’”

Bornstein has risen to the challenge of helping people find their personal style, but she’s not alone. Tibi designer Amy Smilovic published a book called The Creative Pragmatist that uses formulas to help people get dressed in a “chill, modern, classic” way (she also has more than 142,000 followers on Instagram, where she shares further advice).

So too have retro philosophies like David Kibbe’s body-typing method and seasonal color analysis become increasingly popular on social media. Both are more rigid, placing you into one category based on immutable characteristics: bones and undertones. If you’re a Kibbe flamboyant natural, you should wear clothes that accentuate your broad shoulders and long frame, i.e., flowing, deconstructed fabrics. If you’re a summer, per color analysis, you should gravitate toward specific shades of pinkish red, slate gray, and blue. But Bornstein insists that her theories—described in the book as “something to lean on” rather than firm boundaries—are not anywhere near as prescriptive: “I’m not telling you what your three words are. That’s for you to figure out. But if I can give you a formula to help you get there, I would love to.” 

But can taste—that indefinable, you-know-it-when-you-see-it quality—really be boiled down to three words? Is this not just another way that TikTok, Pinterest, and Instagram have flattened fashion into something safe, repetitive, and algorithmically friendly? Common wisdom says that finding your personal style is a journey, and, from that perspective, a workbook like Wear It Well is a shortcut. 

“It can feel a little snobby sometimes to say, ‘It’s a journey and you have to figure it out yourself,’” Bornstein says. “But some people don’t have the time; some people don’t have the confidence. And if we can just make it easier for people to express themselves, or figure out a way to express themselves genuinely, why not.” 

To this end, she also says that style and taste can be taught—with the right formulas, yes, but also through experimentation. Spending time with her can feel like the paid, prescheduled version of a makeover montage in an early-2000s movie. “Fashion can feel like such a burden, or something we have to do, but if we set aside time to play and try things on, maybe it’ll be wacky and ugly, or maybe it’ll be fun,” Bornstein says.

And if you know how to put together an outfit, Bornstein thinks, you’ll buy fewer things. Asked if she’s ever surprised by the comments she gets online, she responds, “I don’t want to sound like a biotch, but I find the consumerism [I see online] dizzying. It’s troubling to me how much people want to buy.” Grant credits Bornstein with helping her disconnect from the feeling that she just had to have the new bag of the season. Instead, she uses Bornstein’s guidelines to deepen her knowledge of her own style. “Before I met Allison, I would have thought that all these things she had me thinking about were silly or indulgent, or like I should already know all these things. The way she approaches these tools is so fun to interact with as a fan.”

The whole reason Graham and Bornstein were experimenting with The Row dress was to avoid buying a miniskirt. Now Graham doesn’t think she needs to buy a new one. “A lot of times we think that the next thing we buy will change our wardrobe and change our life, and we’ll put so much pressure on that thing and wait for it to arrive,” Bornstein says. “We put so much pressure on clothing. We don’t need more stuff, we need more ideas.” The last part is one of Bornstein’s mantras, her axiom.

Back in Graham’s bedroom, she has one more idea she wants Bornstein’s advice on. She pulls up a photo of a woman in black leggings, an oversized sweatshirt, chunky socks, and dad shoes: the kind of athleisure look that can feel schlubby and Sandler-core when you actually put it on your body. “Mine don’t feel like this,” Graham says.

Bornstein starts to break it down: “Maybe instead of a big sweatshirt, it’s an oversized knit and a camel coat, or a long coat. Maybe bring in those more luxe textures like a cashmere sweater as opposed to a sweatshirt. I feel like you have a baseball hat that’s really cute. Or a cross-body bag in a brown, something to bring more of that, not preppy, but classic vibe.”

Graham seems satisfied. “Okay, I’m going to play,” she says. School is out.