We recently connected with Caitlin Rutherford and have shared our conversation below.

Caitlin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you wish you had started sooner?

If I could go back in time, I would have started my creative journey sooner rather than later. I started my creative journey in 2020 during Covid when I had a ton of free time while doing college from home. I do wish I had started earlier in the creative process but, during Covid I had so much time to create and take a ton of content it may have been the perfect time for me to start my creative journey. I originally started out with posting for fun and eventually it turned into a side hustle where I began working with multiple companies whether it was in the fields of fashion, beauty, wellness, and other random categories.

Caitlin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I got into the creative influencer industry during Covid in 2020. I simply began by posting freely on Instagram primarily pictures of myself whether it was fashion or beauty and eventually brands began reaching out to me to work on collaborations whether they were paid or UGC content and after a while I got picked up by an influencer agency and they began sending me companies to pitch too as well. I do not discriminate when it comes to products, I have worked with in the past, but I have primarily worked with companies in the fields of fashion, beauty and wellness, some of the companies I have collaborated with have been Urban Outfitters, YSL Beauty, Elf Cosmetics, and Urban Outfitters. What sets me apart from others are that I have creative ideas for companies always and I always try to create aesthetic pieces that pertain specifically to the feed of these multiple companies. The aspect I am the proudest of is being able to secure deals with some of my all-time favorite brands in the past and almost all of them have reached out to me first and personally.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

A particular goal or mission that has driven me creatively from start to finish has been wanting to make influencing a full-time job (still getting there but that would be the ultimate dream), building my own brand as a creative individual, and also building relationships with brands. For example, I have the best brand deal right now with Youth to The People and overtime I have been put on their PR list, and I am beyond obsessed with all of their skincare products.

Have you ever had to pivot?

A story about when I had to pivot was when I was creating content for a brand that was ultra specific on what they were looking for and we went back and forth sending content and edits and it took over two weeks to shoot the correct content, make the wording a certain way, and eventually came to a conclusion as to what we thought would be the best to post on their wall. It was very much a trial and error situation but in the end it all worked out.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/lovely.trance