Late on Wednesday, February 23, I stumbled upon a Career center notification that Clinton Kelly, BC grad of 1991 and What Not to Wear fashion guru, would be coming to speak the very next day. Now to say I was ecstatic would be an understatement. My mother, sister, and I are obsessed with WNTW. In fact, whenever we go shopping my mom asks me, “What would Stacy and Clinton say?” in the dressing room. Over winter break, in a fit of hopefulness, I mailed him a letter asking to meet him for coffee and ask him about life after Boston College. So you can imagine my delight at hearing I was actually going to see him in person!
I arrived, like many others, half an hour before the doors even opened. The hallway next to Devlin 008 was full of girls twittering about how they’d heard about it and why it was so poorly advertised. It was so female-heavy that my friend turned to me and said, “I’m one of 3 guys. I counted.” There was an attempt at a line system, but once the doors opened everyone pretended they were at the front. I’m not sure I have ever felt more like a part of a herd. Most of us were worried about getting in, but Devlin is larger than you expect, and only a few last minute arrivals were turned away.
I sat next to my fellow Her Campus BC contributors in the second row and just as we were pulling our cameras out, he appeared. He stood outside the doors for a bit, talking to and taking pictures with the people being turned away, so Kathryn and I decided to jump the seats in front of us and get our turn! There was a bit of miscommunication as to who would stand where, so he said, “Just make a Clinton sandwich.” And we did!
Finally he entered (with a slightly embarrassed smile) to a rousing cheer. The host told us to take 15 seconds for pictures and then the interview would begin. “I’ll just keep smiling,” he said to the great approval of the audience.
Since the event was sponsored by the Career Center, it focused mainly on how he got to where he is at the moment. He went through a long list of majors he considered – including Economics and Geo-Science – before finally settling on Communication. He humbly asserted that two of the professors present had changed his life, and he decided in his last semester of college that he wanted to be a writer. He went to Northwestern journalism school and then moved to NYC as a freelance writer. His stories about how he got his two biggest jobs were inspirational and unbelievable at the same time.
His first real magazine job involved sending an email to the Editor-in-Chief of Marie Claire saying that he knew she had no idea who he was, but if she gave him five minutes of her time, he’d give her 100 article ideas for the magazine. She asked to see him the very next day, so he and his best friend got drunk and came up with 100 article ideas. The Editor only liked about ten, but she hired him on the spot. And he became, as he put it, the men’s perspective on everything.
It was while he was doing this at another magazine that he received a casting email about “What Not to Wear.” The casting director asked if he’d be interested and he responded “yes” and hit send. Then he asked for a resume, and Clinton attached it and hit send. Then he asked for a head shot, so he sent it in (Mr. Kelly explained he was online dating at the time, and thus happened to have a headshot) and was emailed for an interview. He claims he almost blew off the interview because they showed him a tape of the show in the waiting room and he hated it. But he was called in to meet Stacy and the rest, as they say, is history.
Interspersed in his interview, Clinton gave some of his insights on life after college:
- “Follow happiness and the money will follow.”
- “You have to go after what you want. You can’t sit and wait for the bus, or it’ll never come. You have to run after that bus! Flag it down. Do whatever it takes!”
- “Appearance is a tool. We judge people based on how they are dressed, it goes back to our ancestors.”
- “We’re on this planet for such a short time; we need to have fun with it. Don’t take anything too seriously!”
- “Do the things you always wanted to do! For instance, I wrote a musical that is going to be put on in DC in 2012.”
- “My #1 pet peeve is inappropriate electronics, like a cell phone on the dinner table. Be with the people you’re with!”
Sadly, Clinton refused to accompany the 21-year olds in the audience to Mary Ann’s or Cityside; partly because he got sick in Mary Ann’s and swore he’d never return, and partly because he had dinner plans. During the Q & A section, however, he answered as many questions as he possibly could, and he was still mobbed at the exit by girls with questions and cameras. Eventually he had to leave, so with a smile and a wave he wished us all luck and exited just as charmingly as he had entered.