Tusting Talks To...
Fashion Journalist & Stylist Alice Hare
We chat to friend of the brand, Alice Hare, about her career, how she knew styling was going to be part of her life since early school days and finding joy from what's within reach.
Tell us about your career to date
I didn’t study fashion – I studied French and Spanish at university. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do career-wise when I left, and everyone kept asking me, ‘what do you love?’. I always knew the answer was fashion, but I think I was a bit hesitant to ‘admit’ it – it had never been presented to me as a career option. I applied for work experience in all different areas of the industry to narrow down precisely what I wanted to do, and I by chance at one of these internships bumped into a stylist (Gayle Rinkoff) whom I followed on Instagram. We got chatting and it turned out she was looking for a new assistant – it was all very serendipitous. I was Gayle’s full-time assistant for a year and it was the best hands-on training I could have asked for. After that, I went to be Fashion Assistant at the Daily Mail (I had interned there prior to this) – this was a similar role to what I had been doing for Gayle but with the addition of a bit of writing, which I had always loved. I then became Junior Fashion Editor there and am now totally freelance.
Where do you draw inspiration from for both your writing and styling?
Styling-wise, it’s Instagram, undoubtedly. I am obsessed with saving images I find ispirational into folders on there. Social media gets a bad rep but, used correctly, it is the most amazing tool. We’re so lucky to have such endless inspiration at our fingertips – Instagram is one huge, bottomless pit of aesthetic joy for me.
My favourite accounts are @mariadelaord, @blancamiro and @thankyou_ok. Films and TV also inspire my styling – recently I poured over every ‘80s look in Rivals on Disney+. Writing-wise, I devour magazines (Red, House & Garden, The World of Interiors, Country Life… I love them all) and have several Substacks I follow devoutly too. My friend, model Charlie Newman, writes beautifully on all things fashion over at The Bow Chronicles, and I love Jessie Loves by Jessie Loeffler Randall, too.
You’ve styled for top publications and talent, what are your top style tips for curating a look?
My four sisters often ask me this, and this is such an unglamorous response, but I think it comes down to organisation. The devil is in the detail when it comes to great style, so thinking ahead and planning every element of your look for a big event way in advance goes a long way. There’s nothing worse than running around in your knickers with your make-up half done frantically hunting for a pair of tights that don’t have a ladder in ten minutes before you’re supposed to leave for a wedding!
A failsafe formula for event dressing is to match colour-wise your bag to your hat to your shoes – it gives immediate cohesion. For the everyday, I take a full-length mirror selfie of outfits I have worn and loved and save them in an album on my phone – if I ever have one of those ‘I don’t know what to wear today’ moments when I wake up, scrolling through there always helps.
What has been one of your hardest challenges within the styling space?
Since becoming freelance, my biggest challenge has definitely been learning to assert myself when it comes to conversations about money. (Even writing that makes me shudder a bit!). Styling isn’t a hobby, it’s a job. Within the styling space, like so many creative industries, nobody talks about what they’re charging, so it’s a total minefield when you start out. I think it’s part of a wider problem of women being taught that they shouldn’t be 'demanding’, they should just be grateful for the job and be quiet, you know? Learning to self-advocate is a constant challenge, but I think I’m getting better at having those difficult conversations.
I’m also on a mission to let the world know that styling isn’t messing around playing dress up all day! I have four sisters – one is a barrister, one is a paediatrician, one is in the army, and one is at university. They will agree with me when I say that while our jobs are demanding in very different ways, we all work as hard as each other. Fashion isn’t frivolous and it’s not airy fairy – it’s so psychologically important to us as humans. It’s also often dressing four models from a laundry bag on the side of a Scottish hill in a gale while you’re being eaten to death by mosquitoes or trying to navigate the tube with three suitcases of shoes!
That’s why I love it, though – the hidden exertion that goes into the creation of such beauty. On which note, that’s been another challenge – because I love my job so much, it’s a challenge to disconnect my brain from all things fashion in order to properly relax.
Do you have a most memorable fashion moment?
I’m so fashion-obsessed that I remember moments of my life by what I was wearing! When there was a school trip to Bocketts Farm in Year 1, I obsessively planned my outfit. It was a Barbie t-shirt, Barbie jeans, Barbie trainers and – the pièce de resistance – a Barbie denim bucket hat, all of which my mother bought me in M&S. (VERY kind of her to indulge this aesthetic vision of mine!). I felt the total part. Then there was a dress from Monsoon covered in fuchsia disc sequins that made a noise as I walked, and the matching bejewelled mules from Jigsaw Junior… I could go on and on. Clothes are so transformative and psychologically powerful.
How do you switch off and unwind?
I am the first to admit I struggle with this, but
my boyfriend James has helped me see that I deserve to relax and should not define my self-worth by my productivity. One of the only times my mind completely switches off is when I’m doing something creative – I make cards with pressed flowers (so rock and roll, right?!) as the only thing I can think about while doing that is where I’m going to place the next flower. Ideally, I’m doing that at my parent’s house in Norfolk with the Kardashians on in the background and
the Dalmatian Ralph pottering about. I’m painting tambourines with the names of all the children attending my sister’s wedding in September for similar reasons of self-soothing!
What’s always in your Tusting bag?
I have a Clara in tan and it’s one of the most
treasured and well-loved items in my wardrobe. Rimmel Double Decker red nail polish (I can’t get on board with the half naked, half-painted nail you get when gel nails start to grow out so do mine myself – anyone else?!), Glossier Balm Dotcom in black cherry and Fruit Pastilles are never not inside it. And a portable charger because my phone is always on red.
Best piece of advice you’ve been given?
The small things are the big things.
What’s in store for the second half of 2025?
Overall, my aim is to continue to strike a good work/life balance and find contentedness in the everyday. I’m getting married in December next year and can’t wait to start preparations for that. (Richard Quinn’s bridal designs are being saved a LOT on my Instagram at the moment!). I spent much of my teenage years and early twenties incredibly anxious about life (I’m twenty-nine now and you could not pay me to be twenty-one again!) so finding joy in the small things is really all that matters to me. I’ve just started a Substack called Dispatches from Wonderland with that as its ethos – the pursuit of mood-boosting beauty in even the mundane everyday. Finding joy in what is in reach, in the here and now, rather than thinking it resides in that which will always be a teeny bit out of reach is my new mantra! ‘I’ll be happy once I book that styling campaign’, or, ‘If only I gain this client, then I can relax’ – I’m trying to step away from thinking like that.
