Outfit Dissecting With Emma Holland
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.
I met up with Emma Holland at her apartment in Brooklyn. We chatted about finding the right pair of denim, the emotional connection jewelry can have, and her new company, Studs.
Name...
What do you do all day?
I work on all the branding and marketing for Studs!
I’ve been following Studs for a bit. I can’t wait! Could you tell me about the concept?
The concept is essentially a new take on ear piercing and earrings. So, the easy way to describe it is “2019 Claire’s if Claire’s was cool.” Our first store just opened at 12 Prince Street, and (hopefully) we'll have many all over soon. The idea is that there isn’t one good go-to place to get your ears pierced, and the places you buy jewelry are completely separate from the places you get your ears pierced—which is bizarre. If you're in a big city, your choice is to go to really high-end places where everything is beautiful, the experience is great, but you'll walk out having spent $700. Or to tattoo parlors where the experience is not optimized for piercing--and it’s not a place most parents would want to take their nine year old! If you’re in the suburbs by a mall, you are going to Claire’s or Piercing Pagoda, where they pierce with guns, which is unhealthy and inconsistent, the selection is really bad, and there's no real brand there. Our co-founders [Anna Harman and Lisa Bubbers] wanted to fill this gap. We want to create a fantastic in-store experience for everyone, and then take all the information we have from people coming into the stores and make an equally great e-commerce experience, and be able to cater to your healing time and all these kinds of high-touch aftercare marketing journeys.
This is so exciting! What is the assortment of jewelry going to look like?
There's something for everyone. Very trend driven but still really price accessible. We are doing a lot of cool collabs with independent designers, and having different people sell their stuff in the store or do custom Studs pieces. My friend Susan Alexandra, who is an incredible jewelry & accessories designer, is creating some custom pieces with us. It’s fun to work with people we love and who add some unique pieces to the assortment!
Where did you grow up?
I grew up here [New York City]!
What neighborhood?
Inwood. It’s the northern tip of Manhattan past Washington Heights. I grew up on 215th street, went to school on the Upper West Side.
Did you leave the city for college?
I did. I went to the University of Miami! I was not thrilled about it and ran back to the city as fast as I could! It was a very, very different experience. I’m glad that I left! I’m still like, “I should leave again!” I think it’s interesting and important to leave places. My friends and I talk about this a lot, when you grow up here it is actually psychologically not that different than never leaving a small town in Ohio, you just get to feel better about it because it’s New York. I’m constantly like, “I’m running out of time to leave!” It’s the best here.
Do you think your style is more New York City or did it change when you went to Miami?
It definitely changed, but very temporarily. I’m very influenced by my environments. I think what has lasted is the stuff that I grew up with; I still go to some of the same vintage and thrift stores that I went to when I was fifteen. That was all we did, and it was all we wore! I didn’t know what designers were or anything. The thing that was cool in high school was to be decked out in exclusively things that you bought at Beacon’s Closet. I think some of that has prevailed that high-low thing for me. I never like to look too put together. But now I’ve been exposed to a more “adult” fashion sensibility, much to the chagrin of my bank account and all of these things. I still have cut up t-shirts I got when I was fifteen or old jackets that I found. I’ve always worn a ton of my dad’s old sweaters that I took in high school. That has been a staying point in my wardrobe.
Since jewelry plays an important role in your life, do you remember the first important piece you got?
I remember when I had my bat mitzvah, I got very into the bat mitzvah Tiffany thing. I’d never had anything so nice it was like $100 silver heart thing, “this is the height of luxury!” It was all I wanted. It was the first thing I remember carrying about - the whole Tiffany ID thing. I got my ears pierced when I was four, so my parents would always buy me sweet little hoops and stuff. My grandma is from Alexandria, Virginia. There was this antique jewelry store called the Nugget where she would buy all my presents: little antique gold hoops and things like that. I was always obsessed with her! She had this insane jewelry box - one that was plastic, and you flip it open, and there are two levels with multiple compartments. She just had all of this wacky jewelry. Sort of sculptural metals and paper mache earrings. Stuff that when I was seven, I would say, “You have to promise me you’ll leave me all of this stuff!” So that was definitely a big part of our relationship.
I love that jewelry was what connected you!
For maybe my thirteenth birthday, she and my grandfather gave me this ring that had been her mothers - not engagement ring but one of her most precious things. My mom had a lot of her grandmother’s stuff in jewelry boxes that she would let me take out periodically. I think that has always been my favorite stuff, the stuff that is very precious or has become less in style or beautiful throughout decades and decades. I’m a fairly low maintenance aesthetic person. I don’t like to do my hair or put on makeup every day, or swap things out and stuff. I gravitate, especially towards earrings, I can just put on and keep on. I don’t do a lot of different earrings everyday or statement earrings. I wear the same rings everyday, and maybe after three years, I’ll swap one out!
That’s exactly how I am too! I wear the same pieces everyday. Do you have a story about a piece of jewelry you wear everyday?
So this ring [gold signet] was my grandmother’s. It has a K for Katherine. I think my mom originally gave it to me because it would never fit anyone. I think my grandmother wore this on a normal ring finger, but I have the smallest fingers, and it only fits on my pinky. I’ve had this since I was young.
One of my mom’s best friends is a jewelry designer, and when my dad’s mom died, she left a bunch of jewelry. For most of it, they took out the stones, and they took out this garnet from one thing and had my mom’s friend make this ring for me for my 18th birthday. This is my favorite piece of jewelry; I never take it off. Since I was 18, I’ve loved it as much. I think the rest of my jewelry style has changed over the years, but this has been a stagnant one.
It’s funny because I only recently started investing in jewelry. It seems silly because it’s the thing that will outlast anything else. But I would always be like “$600 for this thing made of solid gold and diamonds - no way!” And then for shoes, I’m like “yes, of course!” So I’m trying to be much more investment originated in the things I buy. Jewelry has become a more natural one. It’s one of the things I admire most about other women.
I think that happens the most with jewelry. As you get older you realize, “I’m not really going to lose that.”
Totally. Even this, I have so many rings I don’t wear anymore. I’m out of fingers! What do you do? There is limited real estate.
What movie or TV show had the biggest influence on your style?
I think for me, there is not one all-encompassing thing. I’m very circumstantially influenced. For a couple of weeks after seeing a movie, I’ll be obsessed with that vibe, and then I’ll move on. I get obsessed with specific pieces as opposed to a whole general vibe. I hate to be this girl, but in the Breakfast at TIffany’s scene where Audrey is walking around eating, she has on this grey turtleneck and skinny black trousers. For ten years, I’ve been trying to find the perfect iteration of that outfit - yet to do it. For a long time, I was on the hunt for perfect jean shorts after watching Dazed and Confused. Katherine Hepburn’s blazers in Woman of the Year are a forever goal. The movie Fly Away Home was my movie! It is perfect 90’s - good big jeans and LL Bean shirts. She’s also 11, so has no style but all the style. I come back to that a lot!
Are there any places that have influenced your style?
I don’t know if any places have, but I tried to go vintage shopping anywhere I go. So, I was just in Maine for a wedding, and I got this amazing big suede coat. In San Francisco, there is great vintage shopping. Paris obviously. I feel like it’s less of taking in a specific style of that city from watching; instead, you’re going to go to this place where all the stuff was brought here by people that live here.
Do you have any pieces that have a story behind them?
This Gucci bag was my grandmother's. She saved up for this bag, and the thing that is so cool is that when she left it to me, in the pocket of it is the ad she cut out with the bag. It doesn’t have a date or anything on it. I found it one day in the pocket. I’m never going to take it out!
That is so sweet! In terms of clothes and such, is there something you buy “too much” of?
Jeans. I’ll show you my jeans—I think this will make a lot of people angry. This is my jeans closet.
Oh trust me, I have this problem too.
I have now probably one or two pairs of vintage jeans that are perfect.
You have to work towards it!
They are perfect for how your body is at that exact time. I think I’m constantly looking for the perfect pair of jeans!
Aren’t we all!
Jeans are one of those things that when you, or anyone, finds a pair that fits them perfectly, they look so good. Anytime you see another person wearing their perfect pair of jeans, you’re like, “I need to go find jeans that fit me exactly like that!” At least that’s how I am.
I get it, I’m the same way. I feel like I’m always trying to find that perfect pair!
I also never get rid of anything. There are jeans in there I haven’t worn in months or years. But maybe like one day! One of my coworkers said to me one day, “I have all these vintage jeans would you want them?” and I was like, “Yes! But why?!” and she said, “I have a rule for myself every time I buy a new pair - I have to get rid of a pair.” I was like, “That is one, insane to me and two, inspiring!” I feel like I need to institute that into my life, but I’m not ready.
What are 5 songs you always play?
Then He Kissed Me by The Crystals
Nights by Frank Ocean
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road by Lucinda Williams
Back in My Arms Again by Diana Ross and the Supremes
Pass in Time by Beth Orton
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