Outfit Dissecting with Tracy Georgiou
In this series for Harper’s Bazaar, I will be “outfit dissecting” women who work behind the scenes in the fashion industry. The women you will meet in these profiles work for some of your favorite brands, and whether they’re designing the pieces you love or answering your DM questions, they are also quietly cultivating trends.
Name …
Tracy Georgiou.
What do you do all day?
I am a merchandiser and marketer for Loeffler Randall. I work with our team in order to develop collections, buy them, and market them.
How would you describe what you do to a toddler?
I don’t know if I could! What I love about what I do is that every day is different and I’m working on a hundred things at once. To a toddler, I probably would just tell them I run around an office all day, very happy and inspired, with a bunch of really cool women.
Are you the type of person who likes to have a bunch of different things going on?
I am! I’m super creative, and I’m super analytical. My parents are both economists, so I grew up in a very kind of focus-metered home in Nebraska. And then I have this other part of my personality that is just super creative, loves to do musical theater, and dance. So for me, an awesome day is a day that merges both of those. Which I think is why I love merchandising. Why I love what I’m doing is because you get to do a lot of both. You look at the business and analyze what’s going on, and you get to dream about creating the next thing.
Did growing up in Nebraska have an effect on your style?
I think so, in just that I was so removed from the fashion sphere. J.Crew was my idea of high fashion growing up. The catalog would come in the mail and I’d dog-ear the pages. I grew up in the Delia’s era, so I didn’t grow up online. I didn’t grow up looking at fashion magazines. That really wasn’t until college when I came to NYC that my horizons were broadened to that point.
I always had this very innate view of what I wanted my personal style to be. I remember every school year starting out, and the year where all I wanted were flannel shirts and turtlenecks. The summer where I only wanted to wear printed shorts with matching T-shirts. Or the Dr. Martens phase with a certain color of socks and certain color twinset. I was always incredibly specific and had this real inner vision dictated by who knows what!
I think I still am very much the same way. I really get on a track and it works, and then I press repeat and I continue. I think I’ve always been super curious, so inspiration personally for me is never limited to x, y, and z fashion, it’s always been a refraction of everything around me.
Have you gone back to any of those first-day-of-school looks recently?
It’s funny, because my mom sent me a photo of myself wearing velvet loafers, white socks, kind of baggy gym shorts, and a cool white T-shirt. I was like, “Ooh, good look, I would wear that right now!” So I think, yeah, it’s always been a high-low mix for me.
Tell me the story behind something you’re wearing right now.
My necklaces, they are something I wear every day. The stone is an ametrine from a gem healer in India that was prescribed for me. I hope it’s doing great things! It was a really special trip with one of my best friends. And then, Urte Tylaite, who owns the brand Still House, did the setting for it, which is lovely. The rest are a bunch of charms from treasured friends, all sorts of things I’ve picked up along the way.
One of my best friends at work got me a protective metal for my dog. I have a zodiac charm. I have a T [charm] that I picked up on the street in Mexico when I was there earlier this year. A Jessica Winzelberg charm. And a seashell I just got at a flea market in Paris.
How would you describe your style?
Tomgirl is probably the best way to describe it. But I think it’s a little more irreverent than that. I like to think I could be a character in a Woody Allen or Wes Anderson film, or dress like Woody Allen or Wes Anderson themselves. I think my love of theater and storytelling informs my style.
There are moments when I want to be super feminine or moments when I want to be super masculine. And a whole lot of days in the middle where I just end up wearing a T-shirt and jeans. I’m always looking for things that feel good on my body and make me feel a certain way. I know myself well enough to know I dress for comfort. And if it’s not comfortable, it’s not going to last in my closet. I’m a perennial closest purger, and only the really good, really comfortable, really versatile things stay. Or the vintage pieces that are very special, the jeans that fit perfectly; the good stuff sticks around.
Are there any favorite brands you have found that have helped you express your personal style?
In terms of personal style, I build my wardrobe around Loeffler Randall because … accessories! A ton of vintage—I love American vintage. I love going to Le Vif in Paris, The Vintage Showroom in London, and Front General in New York City. Anywhere I go, I vintage shop! If I’m not wearing vintage, I love small designers, people that I’m friends with, or companies that I feel really good about supporting. Some current favorites are Demylee, Alex Mill, Clare Vivier, Batsheva, Caron Callahan, B Sides, Kule, SZ Blockprints, and Innika Choo. The Cotton & Modal Tee (from Alex Mill) is the best, the sleeves are the perfect length.
Since you do a lot of musical theater and acting, do you think you acted through different styles through the years?
Oh, yeah, for sure. I had plenty of crazy, possibly terrible, style moments growing up. Watching a ton of Sex and the City and dreaming about New York definitely led to some fashion moments and some attempts. I went through a real skater phase, which I still partially live in, because I do love a checkered slip-on Van. I think I’ve carried pieces of these experiments with me. I still do a lot of community theater in my free time, and getting dressed for a role is one of my favorite parts of the storytelling. So I think I personally take that on as well. I try for a role to wear something I would never wear in real life. It makes it more fun, it makes it easier to step outside my life.
Were you a “dress-up kid” growing up?
I was but not in an extreme way. Pretty practical. We made our own Halloween costumes; I wish I had some of those calico prairie dresses now! Laura Ingalls Wilder was very cool in Nebraska!
What has the biggest influence on your style?
I think one of the things that really informs my style is travel. I love to travel, and I love to shop when I travel. Whether it is the local vintage store or the local flea market, or some sort of artisan, designer, garment that is culturally relevant to that place. I’ll pick up a men’s guayabera shirt in Mérida or an embroidered blouse when I went to the Yucatán. And now that is worn with ’70s Levi’s and ballet flats, it feels very different than with a bathing suit on vacation.
What is the best impulse purchase you ever made?
Maybe this belt I’m about to buy from the Hesperios store! A lot of my purchases are impulse purchases, I think you have to accept that as a vintage shopper. I will occasionally go in meditating on something I want to find, very rarely do I find it. This jacket, actually, I was in France and knew I was going to a vintage store called Le Vif. And in my head, I really wanted to complete that “stick-of-butter look.” I really wanted a tan denim jacket, and the universe threw me a bone. It was fate, we were meant to be together! But 99.99 percent of the time, it’s just a gut purchase.
What movie had the biggest influence on your style?
I think I go through phases. Right now I’m looking at old photos of Ali MacGraw and Jean Seberg. I asked a friend to describe my style and they said, “Perfect jeans, lively top, flat shoes, and a good handbag.” I think that really sums it up. I went to see “The Cher Show,” and for weeks after that, I was like, “I need rhinestone earrings and a diamanté belt!” So I think whatever I’m seeing and what’s in my immediate consciousness ends up seeping in, rather than one tent-post movie for me.
If you could be dropped in any time period strictly for the clothes, which would you pick?
Definitely the ’60s right now. Really good jeans. I’m really interested in the khakis, the putties. Today I was looking at images from Pitti online, and I saw a man in a forest green suit with a buttercream yellow piped pajama shirt and a maroon baseball hat. The color combination blew my mind. I absolutely think being in the ’60s/’70s would be a dream. I think I would dress like a similar version of myself, but all the clothes would be new and in stores! They wouldn’t be vintage, it would be so fun!
Do you think you’d go back (to that time period) and buy vintage?
I don’t think so. It’s funny you ask that, and I immediately think of Midnight in Paris, and, you know, I would go back and I would tell you I wouldn’t buy vintage. But everyone would be wistful and buying vintage from the ’20s and ’30s and saying they wanted to live there. I think it would be great to go back to that era with the music and the style. There is something so very restrained and particular that I really like about those eras.
What are 5 songs you always play?
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