{"id":738251,"date":"2025-11-25T22:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T19:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=738251"},"modified":"2025-11-25T22:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T19:02:11","slug":"how-horsing-around-helped-me-find-my-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=738251","title":{"rendered":"How Horsing Around Helped Me Find My Style"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fashion<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

How Horsing Around Helped Me Find My Style<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Katharine K. Zarrella<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

November 25, 2025<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Courtesy of Katharine K. Zarrella<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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I haven\u2019t always dressed like the unholy spawn of Sweeney Todd and a can-can dancer. It wasn\u2019t until my mid-20s that I developed the confidence, sense of self, and budget to fully realize my froufrou-goth aesthetic, fueled by inky Comme des Gar\u00e7ons, 19th-century top hats, vintage Ala\u00efa, and Schiaparelli (both by Elsa and Daniel Roseberry). Long before I was Katharine K., a red-lipped, bitchy-bobbed caricature of a New York fashion editor, I was Katie, an awkward kid who yearned to fit in with her Abercrombie-clad peers.<\/p>\n

Katie promptly learned that the black bowler hat, red blazer, and pleated wool skirt she wore on the first day of fourth grade attracted more bullies than besties. So, for many years, she adopted the uninspired, ill-fitting uniform of so many popular girls in suburban Michigan during the late 1990s and 2000s: low-rise flared jeans, too-tight T-shirts, and Steve Madden platforms. She was often uncomfortable, both because all the clothes in the early aughts were deliberately three sizes too small, and because she was constantly suppressing the quirkiness Katharine K. would eventually come to embrace.<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of Katharine K. Zarrella<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The exception was at the barn. I rode horses competitively through college, and relished in the haven of the stable. I loved the formality of competition clothing: a uniform of stiff, high-waist breeches; dandyish shirts with detachable monogrammed collars; tall black boots; and handsome wool jackets in a host of patterns that looked to have come straight from Savile Row. I also adored my schooling chaps, which I was allowed to design myself. Rendered in supple chocolate leather, they were trimmed in tan snakeskin and garnished with a long fringe that would shimmy as I cantered over jumps. Surrounded by other oddballs and eternally understanding horses, and garbed in my equine attire, I could be my weird, young, innocent self, free of ridicule and the peer pressure to conform.<\/p>\n

I hadn\u2019t thought about Katie in years. But last month, as I spiraled into a nostalgia-fueled midlife crisis ahead of my 40th birthday, she returned. My two selves\u2014Katie and Katharine K.\u2014met atop a little Arabian horse while cantering through the gardens of France\u2019s Versailles Palace.<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of Katharine K. Zarrella<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

I\u2019d like to stress: I am not a \u201chorse girl,\u201d a moniker for one of the cheesiest, most inauthentic trends in recent memory. On Instagram, myriad accounts have urged me to embrace something called Horse Girl Fall. I\u2019d sooner go full Lady Godiva. The term \u201chorse girl\u201d is centaurian at best, infantilizing at worst. I abhor it. As for the fashion, no actual horse-riding human would be caught dead in the scratchy, synthetic, old-money-core-meets-athliesure garments being pushed by viral brands. I assure you, ill-fitting checkered breeches with a slippery faux-suede seat are not conducive to staying mounted\u2014or escaping saddle sores, for that matter.<\/p>\n

Likely inspired by the aforementioned midlife crisis, I\u2019ve recently returned to riding. I quickly found that equestrian style has become almost unrecognizable over the last 18 years. On my first day back in the saddle, in an attempt to prove I was a \u201creal\u201d horse person (and not a \u201chorse girl\u201d), I bragged to my new trainer about my robust former riding wardrobe. He told me I could \u201cburn it all.\u201d (Ouch.) Today’s riding wares, he told me, come in breathable, high-performance technical fabrics that are better suited to movement than their rigid predecessors. I did no such thing, but I did enjoy delving into the new world of riding clothes. Mostly. I\u2019m completely confused by the crystal-studded breeches and helmets, and the lacy show shirts befitting figure skaters or Vegas brides, which have become perplexingly popular. But thanks to my new equestrian friend, Florent, I discovered the French brand Dada, whose high-waist breeches and elegant collared shirts are a modern, less-sweat-inducing take on the traditionalism and clean, classic simplicity that Katie so loved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Marie Antoinette, dressed in hunting attire.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Print Collector\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

However, as I soon learned with my return to competitive riding, there are only so many bona fide riding brands. At my first horseshow with my dapple-gray Zangersheide gelding, Canonboy, I realized that everyone looked disappointingly similar, sporting identical bibbed, white-and-navy shirts; quilted leather or elastic belts; second-skin tan breeches; and standard black tall boots. For a sport that is so personal, there was so much conformity and so little flair. And after spending the last two decades cultivating a look that truly represents who I am, I had no desire to dress like a horse-show sheep.<\/p>\n

Fittingly, I identified the remedy at Versailles, the former home of Marie Antoinette, who was among the first female aristocrats to ride in breeches and an ornate tailcoat rather than the more acceptable, unwieldy skirts that most horsewomen wore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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My ride across Versailles was something of a bucket-list experience\u2014a dream I\u2019d had since I was young that I didn\u2019t realize was attainable until I started googling \u201chorse-riding holiday, France,\u201d for a potential 40th-birthday adventure. I stumbled upon Nomad Riders\u2019 \u201cThe Palace and Its Gardens\u201d excursion, which I thought would be a perfect respite from the grind of covering Paris Fashion Week. So I skipped a day of shows and escaped to Versailles for an equestrian escapade.<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of Katharine K. Zarrella<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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Courtesy of Katharine K. Zarrella<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Unfortunately, I didn\u2019t have any 18th-century garb for my ride at Versailles. I made do, combining black Dada breeches with a black shirt, a zipper-laden, Noir Kei Ninomiya leather jacket, tall black boots, a vintage Herm\u00e8s Collier de Chien belt (whose gilded studs would probably break my pelvis if I fell), and red lipstick. It was no Marie Antoinette \u2019fit, but, in my personal and professional opinion, it was comfortable and fabulous. What\u2019s more, it was a strangely reassuring combination of Katharine K. and Katie who I realized\u2014while cantering down an enchanting, tree-lined path\u2014could coexist, sartorially and otherwise.<\/p>\n

Since Versailles, Katharine K.\u2019s eccentricities and Katie\u2019s classic equestrian wear have melded together. At competitions, my wild belts and affinity for unorthodox embellishments set my outfits apart, while, at the barn, Canonboy is determined to eat the fluff on my various Gigi Burris mohawk hats. More than once, I\u2019ve worn my riding gear to drinks at the Waldorf or dinner downtown, garnished with some surreal Schiaparelli jewelry. And at a recent New York fashion presentation, I paired my olive Dada breeches with a Barbour coat, riding boots, a vintage 1991 long-billed Chanel baseball cap, and an obliterated 1963 Herm\u00e8s box-leather Kelly bag. Once the models had retreated backstage, I said hello to a former colleague. At first, she didn\u2019t recognize me in my equestrian attire. But for the first time in a long time, I\u2019m able to recognize my whole self.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Image<\/span><\/div>\n
Courtesy of Katharine K. Zarrella<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

Source URL: http:\/\/vogue.com\/article\/how-horsing-around-helped-me-find-my-style<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fashion How Horsing Around Helped Me Find My Style By Katharine K. Zarrella November 25, 2025 Courtesy of Katharine K. Zarrella I haven\u2019t always dressed like the unholy spawn of Sweeney Todd and a can-can dancer. It wasn\u2019t until my mid-20s that I developed the confidence, sense of self, and budget to fully realize my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":738252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-738251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-vogue-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=738251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/738252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=738251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=738251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=738251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}