Lisa Bradkin
The fashion stylist with the knee pads
She might show up to work in a camouflage canvas coat, a hoodie decorated with an antique quilt block, or eyeball-print pants. On set, she straps on Crocs knee pads over a full tie-dyed sweatsuit or pads around in multicolored men’s sneakers. New Yorkers love black? Not this one.
Lisa Bradkin is a California-bred, New York-based fashion stylist. I asked about her upbringing and her style twenty years ago compared to today in an effort to get a deeper understanding of what motivates her fashion sense. I learned how traveling, social background, individuality, and the desire to fit in have affected the choice of clothing that, today, shapes her unique and colorful sense of self.
Please introduce yourself, where you grew up, the time period, and environment (urban, suburban, rural, conservative/liberal).
I grew up in a suburb of Sacramento, California: born in 1972, graduated high school in 1989. My parents were pretty liberal. My mom came from a fairly hippy Northern California family and graduated from UC Berkeley in the sixties. My dad was a math and engineering teacher at a community college, and a civil engineer in the Air Force Reserve.
Lisa with her mother, dad, and one of her high school friends.
What job did you hold twenty years ago?
Twenty years ago, for three short months, I was Senior Shopping Editor at Marie Claire Magazine.
One of Marie Claire’s Magazines Lisa was a part of, as a Senior Shopping Editor.
What job do you hold today?
Today I’m a freelance fashion stylist, working for retailers like L.L.Bean, Victoria’s Secret, and Lane Bryant. I work probably 70% of the time in photo studios in New York City and the other 30% on location in places like Seattle, L.A, and Miami.
What was your favorite outfit 20 years ago, and what is it now? Why?
While my style has shifted a bit—I used to wear high heels all the time, for instance, and now I never do—I chose basically the same outfit for my 30th birthday as I did for my 50th, which I guess would make it a “favorite.” For both I wore a vintage sequined top and casual bottoms—jeans and heels in New York for 30, shorts and cowboy boots in Nashville for 50.
Did you always shop at thrift shops as much as you do now?
I’ve always loved secondhand clothes. When I first moved to New York I shopped at Army-Navy Surplus stores and Domsey, a by-the-pound thrift warehouse in Williamsburg. Thrifting wasn’t as much of a “thing” as it is today—I don’t know that it was a desirable way to dress, for us it was more an affordable way to explore lots of identities and possibilities. My clothes were maybe 50% from thrift shops back then, whereas today I buy less, but 90% of what I buy is secondhand.
How did you express your individuality—or, conversely, your desire to fit in with a particular group—20 years ago? How was that reflected in how you dressed?
Being a fashion editor at a magazine was my dream job and the whole reason I moved to New York. Marie Claire wasn’t my favorite magazine, but it was well-known and respected, and where I finally got an opportunity after four years at a trade publication that offered a lot of creative freedom but didn’t hold the clout of the consumer magazines. I really wanted to be successful there, and I felt a lot of pressure to fit in—I dressed in a way I thought they would want to see, not necessarily to express myself. For my job interview there, in 2004, I wore an ivory tweed jacket from Zara clearly channeling Chanel with a white tee, black Bermuda shorts, and black heeled sandals. Another “designer-inspired” outfit I wore when I worked there was a Prada-esque ombré silk full skirt and cardigan, also from Zara. It was avery ladylike look. I got rid of it as soon as I left the magazine.
Pictures of Prada ombré skirts
Do you think your dad’s military and your mom’s mildly hippy background influenced your style?
I’ve always been aware of my mom’s (and HER mom’s) style affecting my own, never thought my dad had much to do with it. But I’m glad you asked this, because now that I think about it, his military work definitely did influence my style: my mom and I would join him abroad after his periods of service, and I’d come home with things like these incredibly unflattering Japanese bloomer shorts I wore all the time, or some beautiful suede flats I begged them to buy me in 1984 in Switzerland, maybe? Or Italy? I still have them, although they’re falling to pieces. I loved having things no one else had.
Who or what do you feel influenced your style the most?
My early style 100% came from magazines like Seventeen and Glamour. You would expect that I’d look at the outfits and want to emulate them, and that was certainly true; but I was also busy internalizing the beauty standards that have defined fashion magazines forever, so I’d do things like wear Converse high tops every single day of high school, because I believed that the bigger my feet looked, the thinner my thighs would look. Only my high tops were always two different colors, or worn with two different colored socks. So that maybe you’d think it was just my signature look, and not me trying to trick you.
My grandmother was a style icon, an individualist with a flair for combining the pieces she’d collected in her travels over the globe, akin to Iris Apfel. She was a maximalist who loved color, and texture, and volume. Because of her I’ve always seen “older” as a place where you dress for yourself, and if other people respond to it—as they often did with her—that’s just gravy.
Lisa’s grandmother and the late Iris Apfel.
How has your style changed over the years?
I don’t think what I’m attracted to has changed that much; although my body has changed for sure, with twenty years and a child, so that’s affected how I dress. Today I generally tend less toward “pretty” and “trendy” than I did in my thirties and more toward uniqueness and fun. Back then, I wanted to appeal to the industry in which I worked, or my friends, or men, while today I dress for life—for comfort, for the agility I need in my very physical job, and also for joy. And I want to model for my son that “fitting in” isn’t a thing to strive for as much as self-expression and authenticity.
Recent pictures of Lisa. With her son on the left.
References
Bradkin, L. (n.d). About. Lisa Bradkin. https://www.lisabradkin.com/about
Lisa Bradkin (Fashion Stylist) in discussion with Sugeiry Yokasta Fernandez, February 2024.
