Gabrielle Trach

For the second episode I sit down with former server, reformed fast fashion shopper, and die-hard Toronto sports fan, Katie Amodeo. In this episode Katie and I discuss life transitions and how that translates into your wardrobe, personal fashion fears, and sharing wardrobe space with your partner.

When asked about her style, Katie frankly described it as “basic” — sticking with what she knows, and buying multiples. Every now and then Katie will step out of her comfort zone and buy something different, the only issue is figuring out how and where to wear it. A current example is a beautiful maxi dress purchased on a recent trip to Spain; Katie loves this dress, but since it feels more dressed up than her go-to outfits, she feels like she needs an event to wear it to.

Katie admits that her shopping habits in the past have been wasteful; buying new items every week, and wearing them only a few times before disposing of them, or donating them. This is very common, and an easy habit to fall into, since fast fashion stores make their clothes seem wallet-friendly, and have a constant turnover of stock. As she’s gotten older, Katie’s grown out of this habit, and is trying to make smarter purchasing choices when it comes to clothing.

This change in purchasing habits has also been brought on by her move last year to a smaller space that has less storage. The move pushed Katie to consider what was worth keeping, what needed to be donated, and what needed to be tossed. A year later, Katie is still gathering items to donate in her “laundry” bin, as well as deciding what can be annexed to the homes of family members with more storage.

Another thing that Katie has had to navigate recently is sharing space with her boyfriend. For the past year Katie has had free reign of the condo, while her boyfriend was away at school. Now, with the semester over, he’s back, and so is his stuff. Like many people living in the city, Katie and Tyler have had to get creative with their storage solutions.

As if that weren’t enough, Katie has another big life change on the horizon. After 8 years of working as a server, she is shifting gears and will be working for the government. When this change happened she realized that there were some big gaps in her wardrobe, most importantly: business clothes. Never having needed to own a suit this will be a new adventure for Katie — I sense a follow-up interview in the future.

One thing that has remained a constant in Katie’s life is her love of sports; she is a die-hard Leafs and Jays fan, like a lot of fellow Torontonians (yours truly excluded — whoops). This can be seen in her extensive collection of baseball and hockey jerseys. One piece of sports paraphernalia you won’t see on Katie? A baseball cap, which seems like the most obvious way to show team pride, but she just won’t do it.

Other things we talked about this episode: online fashion inspiration, resting bitch face, and work dress codes. I have a feeling that I’ll be catching up with Katie once she’s settled into her new job, and wardrobe. In the meantime, if you want to keep up with Katie you can follow her on Instagram at @itskatieea. And, as always, if you want to get in touch with me, you can email talkclothes@gmail.com or follow on Instagram at @talkclothespodcast.