Carla Rockmore helps women of all ages define their personal style and now boasts over 2 million followers across platforms
Credit: Cullen Blanchfield
NEED TO KNOW
- Carla Rockmore began posting on TikTok during the COVID-19 lockdown to channel her creativity and avoid boredom
- Her first TikTok video went viral, quickly gaining her over 500,000 followers within a week
- Rockmore now shares styling tips and closet pieces with over 2 million followers across platforms, focusing on engaging with their feedback
Carla Rockmore never set out to become an influencer.
In March 2020, the Texas-based designer was working on a jewelry collection in India when her husband called to tell her she needed to get home as soon as possible, explaining that there was a disease called COVID-19 rapidly spreading.
"I flew right back home, and we went straight into lockdown," she tells PEOPLE. "It was a week or two later that I thought to myself, I don't know how long this is going to last, and if I don't create something, I'm going to go whack-a-doodle."
Credit: Courtesy Carla Rockmore
However, Rockmore didn't have any of her fabrics, stones for jewelry or anything else she typically used to make garments. What she did have was her extensive closet and a camera, so she started posting online as a way to flex her creative muscles.
"I am a clothing designer by trade. I've always created, I've always made stuff," Rockmore, 58, says. "I've always had a reason to go online and absorb visuals and pump out what I thought my customer would want."
Her closet full of colorful, curated pieces and helpful styling tips soon caught the attention of thousands, who later dubbed her the 'real-life Carrie Bradshaw' based on the fashionable Sex and the City character.
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However, Rockmore admits that she "was never a social media scroller."
"So it didn't naturally come to me to ever post anything before COVID. It forced me to look at another medium, and this was the one available at the time. My kids begged me not to. It was a bit of a 'What do you mean you're going to go on social media?' " she said with a laugh.
At the time, Rockmore had a small Instagram account that she primarily used to wish friends happy birthday, but beyond that, there was not much in the way of a social media presence.
"I didn't know enough about any of this social media business. I was focusing on 10-minute YouTube styling sessions at the time. I did that for about a year, and I had a whole 91 followers, and I was very happy," she says.
Credit: Courtesy Carla Rockmore
Then Rockmore's daughter, Ivy, suggested she go on TikTok. The challenge she faced was getting her videos down to one minute.
"That was the challenge and the excitement because I've got to tell you it wasn't so much making the video that saved me during COVID, it was learning how to edit and then editing the work," she tells PEOPLE. "That was the fun, because I was once again using my hands tangibly to create something. I got it down to a minute, and she uploaded it, and it went viral. She called me and said, 'Mom, you have 35,000 views.' I said, 'What's that?' "
By the end of that week, Rockmore says she had "over 500,000 followers on TikTok," noting that "it was a different time."
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While she didn't have much of a strategy when she began posting, it has since blossomed into quite the career, as Rockmore now boasts over 2 million followers across platforms.
"It took me a while to understand that this is a business. I really didn't jump on the bandwagon and start posting daily. It was still every two weeks that I would come out with a video," she explains. "I was more interested in learning how to better myself, and I was more interested in teaching the followers the questions they were asking."
Rockmore frequently posts outfit videos, styling tips, and shows off her fabulous collection of accessories. However, she notes that posting on social media is drastically different than designing clothes due to the short feedback period.
Credit: Stewart Cohen/Courtesy Carla Rockmore
"The beauty about social media compared to clothing design is that when you put out a garment, it takes nine months from the time you design it to the time it hits the market for you to see or get back the feedback, what they liked about it, what they didn't like about it," she explains.
With social media, she emphasizes, "it's immediate."
Once something is uploaded, people aren't afraid to comment on "exactly what you did right" and "what you did wrong."
"What I found interesting is that rather than show, show, show, show, show, absorb what the follower wanted and try to develop the next piece of content to hopefully hit some of their questions," she says. "But to do it in a way where rather than me standing there like a teacher and saying, 'Wear this with that, and this doesn't look good with this.' "
Instead, Rockmore says it's always important to offer advice as a friend, saying, "'Let's do this together. Let's all make mistakes. Let's all figure it out together,' And if I threw in a piece of bling, okay, so bonus.' "
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