Kaitlin Clapinski

Kaitlin Clapinski is a fashion and commerce writer at InStyle who treats style as something proven through specific products, personal wear tests, and the cadence of trends rather than broad runway commentary. Her work sits where fashion, beauty, and shopping meet: she tracks the rise of a trend or celebrity look and quickly translates it into shoes, clothing, and makeup a consumer can actually buy. Across outlets, she writes in a highly concrete, try-on-focused way, grounding aesthetic claims in how pieces feel, fit, and perform in everyday wardrobes.

Fashion and Beauty Favorites

At InStyle, Clapinski contributes regularly to editor “favorites” roundups and shopping features that spotlight fashion basics, beauty staples, and seasonal upgrades. In these pieces she writes in the first person, describing how items integrate into her own routine: a rollneck sweater that is “low effort, high reward,” worn in a creamy vanilla shade she expects to use heavily through fall; capri sweatpants that make her feel like a ’90s mom powerwalking through the park; and Asics walking shoes that work with both athletic wear and baggy jeans with cute tops.

Her beauty picks follow the same pattern, with detailed notes about shades and textures - like scribbling on a favorite lip color and pairing it with clear gloss daily, or a body-care product whose exfoliating effect she calls out as visibly satisfying in the shower.

Longer shopping stories, such as her Quince Vacation Edit try-on, show her testing linen trousers, tailored summer dresses, woven flats, and vibrant button-ups, then reporting back on fit, fabric, and standout colors like tomato red. Even when she writes within multi-editor packages, her contributions foreground comfort, versatility, and tactile detail, positioning her as a voice for approachable, lived-in style.

2010s-Coded Shoe Trends

Footwear is a recurring focus in Clapinski’s work, and she often zeroes in on styles that revive or reframe past trends through a contemporary lens. Her jelly sandals piece for InStyle uses a nostalgic, early-2010s-coded shoe to argue for a “fun upgrade” over standard ballet flats, making the case that familiar silhouettes can feel new when rendered in unexpected materials and colors.

In other coverage she has highlighted the comeback of specific shoe eras, including a 2010s-coded trend she describes as poised for a “massive revival,” underscoring her interest in cycles of popularity and how they affect what people actually buy. Sneaker stories for Marie Claire extend this footwear beat into both budget and status territory: under-$100 sneakers framed as fall must-haves that “will sell out,” a retro Adidas “It-girl” shoe worn by celebrities, and a claim that an Onitsuka Tiger style is set to replace the Adidas Samba as the next dominant casual sneaker. Her earlier work at Editorialist, where she tested designer sneakers and argued that Loewe makes the best pair, shows the same product-specific rigor applied to luxury footwear.

Across these pieces, she treats shoes as central characters in trend narratives, moving from nostalgic plastic sandals to high-performance trainers and designer styles while always attaching clear price, comfort, and styling context.

Celebrity Style and It-Girl Moments

Clapinski’s fashion lens extends into celebrity style, where she uses individual looks to map broader aesthetic currents. Her celebrity coverage for Marie Claire ranges from Gigi Hadid’s loungewear on a public date to Dua Lipa’s choice of a controversial shoe, Sofia Richie Grainge’s off-duty maternity overalls, and Hailey Bieber’s swap from classic black loafers to a trending color. These stories are built around vivid, image-driven language - Kylie Jenner as a “modern-day Aphrodite” in a frothy sheer dress, Jennifer Lopez as Paris Fashion Week’s “flower queen,” and Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone as a “full-on fashion powerhouse” - that captures how clothing, styling, and setting combine into a cultural moment.

The focus is less on personal biography and more on what specific garments, silhouettes, and accessories signal about where fashion is going, and how quickly those signals will filter into mainstream wardrobes. The Quality Edit’s description of her work as covering celebrity style, beauty, trends, and “everything else fashion-related” aligns with this pattern: she uses celebrity outfits as a fast-moving barometer for trends that later surface in her shopping and product stories.

Her perspective as a Gen Z editor, explicitly stated in a Marie Claire piece about the six trends she is shopping in 2025, further shapes how she parses these moments, favoring contemporary references and digital culture over archival analysis.

Shopping Guides and Branded Content

Beyond editorial roundups and celebrity coverage, Clapinski has substantial experience in structured shopping guides and branded content. At Who What Wear she worked on the branded content team, producing fashion stories tied to specific retailers and campaigns, including fall finds with SSENSE, cozy holiday pajamas framed as essential seasonal purchases, and an investment bag positioned as “the” piece worth buying that season.

These assignments show her ability to align product storytelling with brand goals while retaining a clear, direct writing style focused on value, aesthetics, and use cases.

Earlier at Editorialist, she penned tightly curated lists of luxury and beauty items - water-based foundations for glowing skin, Jacquemus bags that will transcend trend cycles, metallic pants capturing a space-age allure, and indie makeup that doubles as skin care. In each case she narrows broad categories into a handful of vetted options, explaining why specific formulations, silhouettes, or design details justify inclusion.

Taken together with her current news and deals role at InStyle, this background marks her as a commerce-forward fashion writer comfortable moving between aspirational luxury edits, mass-market deals, and sponsor-backed content while keeping the focus on what clothes and products tangibly offer to an audience.