The expression “a picture is worth a thousand words” has taken on new meaning in the Age of Instagram. The app is a big part of the information revolution that is transforming the world.
When Caroline Diani, Santa Barbara’s uber retailer of women’s fashions, came across Haley Carrere’s Instagram feed, she felt they shared a similar eye and that “Haley would be a great addition” to her social media team.
Diani told me she reached out to Carrere and proposed a meeting. She had no idea it would be a 16-year-old Bishop Diego High School junior who would answer the call.
“She had such a mature and sophisticated eye,” Diani recalled.
Diani, owner of two Diani Boutiques and soon a third home-themed store in Arlington Plaza in downtown Santa Barbara, offered Carrere an internship. The teenager initially did basic office work, but the opportunity turned into a part-time job that now includes a shooting blog and social media posts promoting new products.
I met Carrere at a Montecito store opening last year while she was shopping with her mom. Only later did I learn she was not just shopping but doing her homework and “soaking up the scene.” We chatted about her interest in fashion and she suggested that I follow her on Instagram. I was impressed, and later I reached out to her to find out more.
On a recent Saturday at Starbucks in Montecito, Carrere arrived for our meeting dressed in a fashionable Isabelle Marant dress. She was not wearing any makeup and her blunt-cut blond hair was still damp from her morning shower.
Over a vanilla latte I learned that Carrere was just a young child when she moved to Santa Barbara from Los Angeles with her parents, Adrienne and Leon Carrere. She attended local schools — All Saints By-the-Sea Parish School, Montecito Union, Marymount of Santa Barbara and now Bishop Diego.
Carrere credits her mom’s keen sense of adventure and exploration as having nurtured her aesthetic appreciation of the world, which she says she has “been fortunate to be able to have traveled all over.”
She said she also has been influenced by her parents’ French heritage. The Mediterranean home that her parents designed and built near Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club has been featured in Elle Décor.
Growing up near the water, Carrere says her biggest hobbies are anything ocean-related, from swimming to stand-up paddling. A favorite trip was to a very remote island in Indonesia called Rote. There, she and other members of the Santa Barbara-based nonprofit organization, Hands 4 Others, were helping to bring clean water to the country. Carrere’s friend, pro surfer Lakey Peterson, was also a volunteer on the trip.
Like most other 16-year-olds, Carrere spends her weekends with friends — including her mom and her friends.
“We share a very close relationship and take numerous day trips to the Santa Ynez Valley, El Capitán, and four to five times a month, to Los Angeles,” she explained, noting that the field trips are for fun as well as for lifestyle enrichment for her work.
Regular stops are at her current favorite restaurant in downtown L.A., Bottega Louie (loves their macaroons), she checks out the latest offerings at Brentwood Country Mart, and she lunches at Gracias Madre and the boulangerie Le Pain Quotidien. She’ll often top off a fun day with a sprinkles vanilla cupcake. (She is still a 16 year old with a sweet tooth, after all.)
“Santa Barbara is my sanctuary but Los Angeles is my playground!” Carrere exclaimed.
Her favorite stores to shop for herself are Zara, Topshop, Diani Boutique, Intermix and hunting down those great finds at H&M and Target. She says her favorite designer is Ralph Lauren “because everything in his collections are always timeless.”
“I appreciate the artistry of Valentino, Oscar de la Renta, Isabel Marant, Chloé and Céline,” she said.
Other haunts are Bergdorf Goodman in New York City and Harrods in London.
On Instagram, Carrere works to represent a fun lifestyle and everyday fun things, but her biggest focus is fashion. After getting her feet wet, she began following some aesthetically pleasing accounts of street-styles bloggers, like Santa Barbara’s Samantha Hutchinson and Danielle Bernstein in New York City.
“They were not just people posting pictures of their friends or posting photos of a Starbucks cup,” she said.
Carrere believes her audience — which stands at nearly 11,500 followers and is growing daily — and her blog, thestylesnag.blogspot, took off because she “started posting photos that other people would grasp and appreciate, not just photos that only people who knew me would understand or like.”
She says fashion relates to everyone.
“Everyone puts clothes on in the morning,” Carrere said. “Whether you do it with intention and thought or just throw something on, I hope I am inspiring other people’s outfits.”
Carrere’s biggest goal for her recurring Instagram #OOTD (Outfit of the Day) is to inspire other people her age to try a new look or even just to try. She’s received fan mail from throughout the United States and from as far away as Prague.
“I’m growing with each of my posts, and can look back at some of my older posts and see the growth,” she explained.
In addition to her work with Diani, Carrere has worked at All Saints Parish School, volunteered with the Breast Cancer Resource Center, and recently was asked to participate in an anti-bullying campaign for Teen Vogue.
With only a year and half of high school left, the subject came up as to what Carrere wants to do after graduation. She knows exactly what she wants to do: Move to London, one of her favorite cities, and go to school there.
She says she’d like to work at British Vogue or Elle.
“I feel with my ability to make collages, styling, editing, writing and putting projects together, a high-profile fashion magazine would be good fit for me,” she said.
Diani was effusive in her praise.
“Haley really adds a fresh perspective, and I can relate to her entrepreneurial spirit,” she said. “She knows what she wants and who she is, and that will take her far in this industry.
“I’m grateful that she is sharing this journey with us by modeling our clothes on her Instagram feed. She’s one of Santa Barbara’s stars on the rise to watch, for sure.”
— Judy Foreman is a Noozhawk columnist and longtime local writer and lifestyles observer. She can be contacted at judyforeman@noozhawk.com. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.