" I’m a HUGE advocate for ELEVATED LIVING and I believe that EVERYTHING you invest into and EXPERIENCE should be of the HIGHEST QUALITY."
When Melissa Holdbrook-Akposoe was pondering how to break into styling as a 20-year-old student, she decided to experiment with a blog. “People will be able to see that ‘she dresses really well, [and think], I want her to dress me!’”, the Londoner, now 31, explains of her thinking over Zoom. And thus, Melissa’s Wardrobe was born – and the requests quickly rolled in. The first? “Somebody messaged me about this new talent called Maya Jama,” she remembers. With that increasingly high-profile client on her books, word of mouth swiftly spread, and Melissa ultimately became a personal stylist to the likes of Anthony Joshua and Stormzy, was tapped to work with luxury brands like Dior and Chanel, and branched into interior design.
To her sizeable Instagram audience (246,000 followers and counting), she is renowned for her Midas-like ability to sell out the beauty, homeware, and fashion picks she recommends on her personable Instagram Stories (which inspired the fan-created hashtag #MelMadeMeDoIt). Now building her new platform It’s A Lifestyle, Hun, along with a YouTube channel filled with tips for elevated living, Melissa is also preparing to go back on tour with Stormzy in March. Such trips are not always as glamorous as fans might imagine, she says. “You’re basically on tour with a bunch of young boys playing PS5,” she laughs. “On the tour bus, I’m out here doing my skincare routine; they couldn’t believe that I was taking care of myself.”
