My grandma always pulled a fit.” Beyond her grandmother, Emma doesn’t have too many other fashion inspirations - not even Jewish fashionista Fran Fine from “The Nanny,” whose style she said she loves, but quite literally could not wear. Apparently, she would also never go out of the house disheveled. “ My mom says that whenever walked into a room, people would stop and turn their head,” Emma said. She went on, “I would say that I’m definitely more culturally Jewish than I am practicing Jewish, but I still feel really connected to Judaism.”Īnother connection to her Jewish identity comes from her grandma Edna, whom she was named after and considers a style icon. But it’s such a crucial part of my identity,” Emma, who grew up Reform in the Brookline, Massachussetts Jewish community, explained. “ I love being Jewish, and I feel like I don’t talk about it enough. Sitting around the strawberry accessory display, Emma told me that her Jewish identity is very important to her. Though my inner reason was healing, outwardly I was there for a styling session - Emma had graciously agreed to assemble Jewish outfits for me to play dress-up in. For the first time in my life, I was in a room full of chic outfits and most (if not all) would fit my zaftig body. Though the space was small (Berriez has since moved into a studio three times bigger), its excess of clothes, ranging in sizes from small to 4X+ and hanging neatly on racks all over the room, weren’t overwhelming in the slightest. The white walls were brought to life with a giant pink watch, bedazzled purses and food-themed sweaters. In the center of the room, a strawberry coffee table displayed a menagerie of jewelry, scrunchies, barrettes and lighters. On the warm day in August that I visited Berriez, I hoped Emma could help heal my inner bat mitzvah girl, too.Įntering Berriez’ sunlit Williamsburg studio, I felt like I had stepped into a fat, funky, sexy and sartorial Garden of Eden. Throughout it all, Berriez has been healing her inner bat mitzvah girl. Inside the Berriez closet, clients can shop from Emma’s impressive collection of vintage as well as collaborations from Berriez and independent designers. In addition to the website and weekly Instagram story sales (which I’ve shopped a few times), Berriez also started offering ultra-popular in-studio appointments this past spring. Now, Berriez has 32K followers on Instagram and has been featured in The New York Times and Good Morning America. In 2018, after years of collecting plus-size vintage clothes for herself as a hobby, Emma decided to redistribute the clothes that no longer fit her body and began Berriez on Instagram. But it was what I found, and I had to work with what I was given,” she told me recently. She ended up wearing a black lace shirt with a blue silk taffeta skirt for her bat mitzvah. Ultimately, Emma couldn’t find the Jessica McClintock dress she so desperately wanted. Her arm was weighed down by the pile of potential bat mitzvah dresses we both knew weren’t going to zip all the way up.” “My mom walked in and found me bawling in the corner. “I was 12 years old when I cried on the floor of a Macy’s dressing room, one of those carpeted fitting rooms with the harsh overhead fluorescent lighting and three full-length mirrors that make you cringe from every angle,” Emma wrote in an op-ed for Teen Vogue. Emma Zack, the Jewish founder of “curated for curves” online vintage shop Berriez, had a worse experience.
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