Since 2012, Derria Underwood has been sharing her sense of style and fashion as a stylist, influencer, and content creator. Born in Buffalo, raised in Charlotte, and now firmly established in LA, she brings an authenticity to the fashion game informed by her vast array of personal and geographic experiences. In addition to her solo work, Derria is also one half of the Frugalshopaholics, providing budget-friendly advice on how to look your best for less. Most recently, she’s helped lead timely and public conversations about the impact of systemic racism on influencers and influencer marketing. In everything she does, the key to Derria’s success follows from her mantra: only wear, and do, those things that ignite your soul.
The following interview has been lightly edited.
What influences you?
I would have to say, really, just the world and people. I would say that I’m a people person. I feel like I go about my life seeing people, and how they dress and carry themselves influences me and how I carry myself. I’m a people person; I work full time in HR. So I deal with people a lot of the time, and it influences my style and influences how I carry myself and how I deal with people in general.
I’ve always been observant, always felt like I liked just to see how people are like, to just kind of fall back and watch. I grew up with my mom in Charlotte, North Carolina, and she was a single mother. She worked at the airport and sometimes I would go to work with her and we would sit around and people watch while she was working. So at an early age, I think I thought being observant, watching people, was cool. I saw different people from different walks of life, from all over the country in one place, you know?
What’s the most overrated?
Hmm. I think right now, just buying popular things. When it comes to me and how I shop, I buy things because I actually like it. It’s not because I know I can wear it and have people see it. I’m intentional. I feel like so many people just buy things to buy it because the world says that it’s popular or you need it. And I think that’s overrated. I think people should stop. Just be intentional about the things that you purchase, especially when it comes to clothing and fashion.
But sneakers are different. Sneaker culture is very different from when I was in high school and could go to the store and grab the pair I wanted with no issue, most of the time. But now that’s not the case. It’s a race to get things! I love Melody Ehsani, and I think all of her collabs are super freaking dope. And I don’t have any of them because I’ve missed them all. I feel like the hype is warranted for her, and I think it’s cool for women to have a voice in sneaker culture, too.
What’s the most underrated?
I would say, just do it. I hate for it to be so cliché, but I feel like we put a lot of thought into things that we want to put out, like projects or whatever. Instead of doing it, just putting it out there, we hold on to things because we’re thinking too hard. We act like perfectionists; we feel like we can’t do it because it’s not perfect. I know I have projects that I’m holding on to and waiting for the perfect time to do it. There is no perfect time! You just have to do it.
What are you excited about right now?
Right now, I’m just excited about where I’ll be by the end of the year and where our world will be. I feel like we’ve had a lot of progress, even within the setbacks, over the last four or five months. I’m doing what I can to push forward. It’s all about pushing through adversity. I’m excited about where we’ll be as a culture at the end of all this. We have to have some positivity about what’s coming, and you know because there’s a lot of negativity out there. It’s up to us to remain positive and put positivity out there.
What’s next for you?
I am really big on helping people, helping my audience, or whoever it is that may be following me. I am a content creator, and I influence others to buy things and do things. What I’m working on now is putting out resources for those people who want to get into the content creator space. I also want to create my own product. I feel like I push a lot of people’s stuff, and of course, they are items that I use that I love, but why not have things that people can buy direct from me? They trust me already, so why not? That’s what’s next for me.
Bonus Question: You’ve talked about dealing with covert and overt racism as an influencer and working in influencer marketing. How have you been able to navigate systemic racism, and are you optimistic for lasting change in the wake of sustained national protests advocating for racial justice and equity?
For me, navigating through it is the fact that we’re talking about it. I’m glad that there’s a conversation, and now more people even outside of the industry see it. I think as humans, we just kind of act like, if I don’t see it and I don’t hear it, it doesn’t have anything to do with me. Even in the middle of everything and all of the conversations, I’m still being approached by brands. All I can do is see if those opportunities are right for me. You have to be ok with saying “No” if it doesn’t feel right. Sometimes, being a woman of color, you feel like you kind of want this opportunity, but they’re not willing to pay what I’m asking, and you have to be ok with saying, “No, this is how much I’m charging,” or “This is my fee for this.”
To the second question, am I optimistic? Absolutely. Absolutely. I feel like if we all stick together, all races, when it comes to racism in any industry, there can be change. In the influencer industry, we’ve all seen comments where it’s like, “Oh, wow, I didn’t even know that that was an issue. Like, that’s so crazy.” I think if we’re able to share information, have conversations with the brands, or really call out some of the brands, that there’s definitely an opportunity for change. Big change.
