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My TikTok For You Page has always been an interesting place. I’ve learned everything from good recipes to cook to the best ways to prank my roommates. I even picked up some new, completely useless lingo along the way… I hope you haven’t been frame-mogged recently, because that really took a toll on Clavicular.
Sometimes I feel like mindlessly scrolling TikTok is not something I should be doing. At my big, grown age, I’m graduating from college this year and heading to law school this fall. I doubt many of my future law school classmates are familiar with the concept of frame-mogging, but maybe that makes me unique. I’m just trying to stay positive here.
My point is that recently, TikTok has started to feel like a place for a younger crowd. However, it always seems to be exactly when I’m considering deleting the app and beginning my adult life, free from the grip of social media, that I come across a special video.
A few weeks ago, that video featured Yvonne Lafleur. Yvonne is a fashion designer and the owner of her namesake boutique in New Orleans, Louisiana. She opened her store in 1969, and though the store’s name and inventory have changed over the years, one thing has always stayed the same: Yvonne is there. Every day. From open to close.
I’ve never been particularly obsessed with fashion or the beauty industry. Sure, I wore shirts with mustaches on them from Justice in elementary school, long t-shirts and scrunchies in high school to fit the VSCO-girl aesthetic, and the famous Urban Outfitters corset top in college. But I wasn’t really following fashion — I was following trends. My relationship to style was about as invested as that of the average adolescent girl.
So why was I so captivated by Yvonne? The videos I saw were filmed by marketing expert Angelique Frizzell, who convinced Yvonne to start posting videos of herself and her store on social media. They were obviously created to draw viewers into Yvonne’s world and style.
In theory, the videos are nothing special. Yvonne talks about a dress or a hat she enjoys. Other times, she showcases her “dessert counter,” filled with costume jewelry, or reviews celebrity outfits from the most recent red carpet. Plenty of people on TikTok do these things. But they don’t do them like Yvonne.
What captivated me most was Yvonne’s presence. She is a petite, soft-spoken woman with exceptional style and a remarkable ability to make even the most ordinary item sound like the most luxurious thing in the world.
I’ve learned many things from Yvonne, and only a handful of them have to do with fashion. The greatest thing she showed me is that objects are not inherently magical, but they become magical through the way you treat them. Now I look at everyday items, like my hairbrush, with a strange sort of admiration, inspecting every detail and feeling grateful that it’s mine.
This mindset has quietly shifted my daily life. My formerly white, now ominously gray socks that are fraying slightly at the edges? You must not mean those. I only know my hand-selected, uniquely designed, vintage cotton socks with a slight elastic stretch for a snug fit and maximum comfort.
I’ve even applied the “I’m living in luxury” mindset to my writing. When I begin a paper with what may be the worst-structured sentence I’ve ever written, I simply tell myself that I’m starting with excellent scaffolding and plenty of room for spectacular revision.
Some people might say Yvonne is just another business owner trying to sell her products. And that’s probably true. But the difference is that Yvonne isn’t sitting quietly behind a counter hoping people wander in. She clearly believes in what she sells. It’s obvious that she genuinely cares about her products and only offers things she considers high-quality.
Her store also made me rethink what it means for a boutique to be “high-end.” I usually associate that phrase with expensive items, often expensive simply for the sake of being expensive. In those cases, the price tag doesn’t necessarily mean the product is worth it. Yvonne has changed that perception for me.
Her boutique would probably be considered high-end, but in her case the label feels different. Instead of signaling egregiously priced clothing, it suggests a place where thoughtfully made garments and well-chosen pieces are sold at prices that reflect their craftsmanship. It feels less like luxury for show and more like luxury with intention.
Watching Yvonne’s videos didn’t suddenly turn me into a fashion expert, and I still don’t know the difference between half the fabrics she mentions. But she did remind me that attention and care can transform the ordinary.
Whether it’s a well-made dress, a hairbrush, or even the rough draft of a paper, the things we value tend to rise to meet the way we treat them. In a strange way, that might be the most useful lesson my TikTok For You Page has ever given me.