Lara McGrath Turns Rags to Riches

The first charity shop I ever went to was a Salvation Army in Buenos Aires, my hometown. Like any teenager, I had one mission: to look special. You either channelled your favourite musician or a character from an old film, but the thrill was always in the range. Extravagant designs, different eras, different social codes, and none of it found in mainstream shops. There was something so cool about owning a piece nobody else would have, at a teenage- friendly price. It’s hard to find fashion that’s both unique and affordable today.

In the last decade, charity shops have been reborn as society has become more conscious of mass production and its environmental cost. Circular fashion became the industry’s watchword. Repurposing a piece means producing less, but it also gives the wearer a new identity: that item doesn’t exist twice, or in more than one size. No one else will have it. You never know what you’ll find. You go in empty-handed and leave with a new personality, all for a few quid. For the Luxury Issue, we step off the runway and into the charity shop. We asked Lara McGrath, the stylist behind @thegoatdancerfittingrooms, to build looks from three of my favourites: Guerrisol and Emmaüs in France, and Traid in the UK. To me, that's luxury.

—Tati Cotliar, LOVE Fashion Director

STYLIST LARA MCGRATH LEARNED SHE HAD A FAN IN CHRISTOPHER KANE BACK IN 2023, when he followed her Instagram account, @thegoatdancerfittingrooms. She did what any avid admirer of the esteemed designer would do: she tagged Kane and asked him for a freebie. “I’d never posted a story on my Fitting Rooms Instagram before, but I thought, ‘Fuck it’, and said: ‘Hey, Christopher Kane, I noticed you followed this page. Can I please get a free dress?’” says the Bolton-raised creative, dialling in from her London flat in a simple blue hoodie, wet hair slicked back and bare-faced. “He replied, and he was really nice—he found it really funny. But I didn’t ever get my dress,” she laughs.

Though she hasn’t earned herself a Self-Portrait x Kane dress (yet), the least surprising part of this story is Kane being an admirer of McGrath. The Goat Dancer Fitting Rooms account (a name inspired by a school dance) is McGrath’s virtual wardrobe, a visual documentation of how a limited budget can be elevated by infinite vision. Typically, she’ll head into a charity shop or high-street store—H&M, Primark, Zara, and more—scan the rails, slip into a fitting room, and turn a basic cardigan, shirt, or pair of trousers into something that could have been plucked from the pages of a glossy spread lensed by Jeurgen Teller.

It takes her “no more than 10 minutes” to contort a shirt into a second-skin dress; calf-hair jackets turn into voluminous, cinched-waist tops; a V-neck sweater is stuffed and sculpted to create overzealous shoulder pads, while a trench coat and shirt become a high-octane embellished skirt. This is the culmination of years of refusing to allow budget to become a factor in fantasy world-building.

If her growing followers—and Kane’s seal of approval—are anything to go by, McGrath has since refined those styling instincts into a distinctive creative language. “People kept telling me to become a stylist, and I’d always just liked finding clothes and reinterpreting them. It was a really organic transition,” she continues. “Most of my initial commissions—and still quite a lot of my commissions—were to shoot and style myself. I’m still working towards traditional styling, but styling myself is what makes me feel like a teenager again."

ENI SUBAIR When did you first pick up a camera and start taking pictures?

LARA MCGRATH My nan was really into charity shopping, so I’d go to Bolton town centre with her, and that was the entry point to feeling like you could experiment with style on a budget. That became my favourite hobby, and I was obsessed with documenting things and taking pictures.

ES How did fashion tie into that?

LM My mum always kept photo albums in the living room, so she was also into more candid documentation; I became a bit obsessed with doing it in more of a fashion way. I’d dress my sister up and make her do photoshoots, and I did a lot of self-portraiture—this has bled into my career. I’d make backdrops at home and then make outfits that I felt matched them—it was very America’s Next Top Model.

ES Whose style did you admire growing up?

LM Being northern, I was a [Vivienne] Westwood girly. Maybe it was her connection to the punk scene and the music. It was a good entry point into the possibilities of fashion.

ES At what point did an interest in fashion and photography turn into you making outfits in a fitting room and uploading them?

LM It was an idea I’d had for a little while, and then one day I needed to go to Oxford Street for something, and I was like, “Maybe I should just give it a go.” It was super impromptu.

ES Zara, Marks & Spencer, H&M, and charity shops are among the places you style looks from. Why did you decide to focus on high-street stores?

LM I think a lot of fashion is aspirational. You have the top 1% of people who are tastemakers in fashion, and then the majority of consumers of fashion, or lovers of fashion, are working-class people or students. It was the accessibility and relatability of seeing it in a high-street context that people really liked. I remember posting the first look on the account, and I had such a crazy response.

ES What’s your thinking when you walk into a high-street store?

LM Usually, I spend 10 minutes on the shop floor and then 15 minutes in the changing room, so it’s a quick process. I try to look for either similar colours or textures; otherwise, I might look to do some colour-blocking. Quite often, I take one piece of clothing, but I’ll get it in small, medium, and XL, and then I’ve got a lot to play with. It’s like I’ve gone in with a roll of fabric, and I’m re-draping it. So, it wasn’t a conscious thing where I thought, “I’m solely going to do high-street outfits,” but it’s more impressive to try and make something look editorial or high luxury from Primark than Selfridges. Although I wouldn’t say no if Selfridges came calling!

ES Everything on your page is concise, but each look is radically different. Do you think that clothes can give people the permission, or imagination, to become different versions of themselves at any price point?

LM Absolutely. That’s what my whole career is sort of about. I love walking past someone and thinking, “Oh my God, I was in their life for 30 seconds when I walked past them, and I wonder what they go home and do.” It’s exciting to have this persona for a day or, in my case, 15 minutes. But for that 15 minutes, I’m this other kind of person.

ES How do your traditional styling jobs and self-styling work inform each other?

LM Something might catch my eye, and I might be like, “Oh, the lining of that is so Margiela.” Or: “If I did this with this item, it’d be so Rick Owens.” Fitting Rooms makes so much sense for me because it’s part of the styling journey. Sometimes I can step back from having to reinvent everything, and I can just do an incredibly simple and chic look—and that in itself is a statement. But sometimes, I try to bend the rules and do things that feel natural to me. It’s finding that line. My friend Grant always tells me to just “Fitting Rooms it” when I’m lacking inspiration.

ES What does luxury mean to you?

LM I'd love to work with Saint Laurent, for example, and in my head, that’s the epitome of luxury. But equally, part of that is indoctrination because I can also put on something I’ve had for 10 years that I found in a charity shop in Bolton and still feel like a million bucks. My career is a luxury to me—to be able to do what I love, be paid, and have the hope of building a career is pretty luxurious.

ES What are your favourite charity shops?

LM I love a north London hospice charity shop. I think I was spoiled up north. Barnardo’s in Bolton used to do three pairs of trousers for 99p—it was insane! When my parents were helping me move to London, we all took bets on how many pairs of trousers I had, and I had 120 from Barnardo’s. I found this insane Bottega Veneta jacket in Bolton for £5, and I left it at my ex’s place.

ES What is the strangest DM you’ve received through the Fitting Rooms account?

LM I barely get any messages, but I have three requests now.

ES Read one out.

LM Just now I looked at my requests, and there’s a guy who said, “I love you. I want you, please,” and he sent me three roses, so maybe there's that.

ES If you had someone take over the Fitting Rooms Instagram account for a week, who would it be?

LM The artist SoiL Thornton. They have an incredible sense of personal style that’s so effortless and feels incredibly innate to them. I would be intrigued to see how they would approach it. ♥