Annie Kreighbaum Says, Go Gloss!

Half-way through our shoot with Annie Krieghbaum, the site director for Into the Gloss and Glossier, she told me about the “Wild Cat Wranglers,” which are not, as any denimhead would assume, an epic pair of jeans, but the name of the country western dance team that Annie was on in high school in Dallas. “It was like cheerleading for cowgirls,” she told me. “We’d perform at football games during half-time, and we had outfits – A-line skirts, cowboy boots, and a lot of denim!”

How a girl goes from two-stepping in Texas to running the most popular blogs in beauty in NYC is not a huge mystery (a combination of hard work, good ideas, and being in the right place at the right time can do it). But it is very inspiring, and Annie, 25, is too. She loves makeup – has since she was Spice Girl-obsessed in the second grade – and she makes the people around her (i.e. me doing this story) love it, too. Scroll down and see her apply black eyeliner in the cat shape she prefers to wear with her favorite Acne Studios skinny jeans – “I like doing a little V right at the ends of my eyes with lots of gooey, sticky mascara,” she said – and tell me you don’t want to try that now, too.

Although she’d choose makeup over blue jeans in a heartbeat, Annie does have some pretty killer pieces. A skilled thrifter (she used to have an Etsy shop selling vintage clothes), she found her silver-studded jacket in her boyfriend Brayden’s hometown near in Lake Stevens, WA (p.s. Brayden shot these pics). Her surf-themed Wranglers were an Ebay purchase – deadstock from the Junior’s department with the tags still on. With the Wranglers, Annie wore her favorite black boots, Glossier’s Skin Tint, and a cheek stain by Becca. Want to know the one beauty product she thinks we should wear with all of our jeans? Read on…

What do you love most about the three pieces you wore for our shoot?

I love the fabric of my Wranglers. It’s 100% cotton, no stretch, and has tiny surfers and palm trees all over it, which seems to put everyone in a good mood. My jacket… I love the studs! There’s also one drawback – you have to be in a real Elvis mood to wear it. And I love the construction of my Acne Needles. I buy really tight jeans, so the seams and buttons need to be able to hold up.

If the jeans you wear could offer us one word of advice, what would it be?

Adapt.

What do your jeans know about you that no one else knows?

Oh man this could get dark… They know that I’m one of those nerds who wears underwear with a leotard.

If they could talk, what would they say?

They’d probably mock me for hemming them an inch too short or not short enough.

Click on a pic for more info…

BLUE MOON Annie’s one-of-a-kind jacket is missing just one stud (and we don’t mean Elvis).

What’s the most memorable place your jeans have been?

I wore my jacket on my first trip to upstate New York. A friend of a friend was having a birthday party in Woodstock and a bunch of my favorite bands were playing. It got pretty cold and this jacket was the only thing I had to stay warm. It’s 80% metal, so not much help in insulating body heat. But I’m glad I brought it, and it definitely looked cool in the photos!

What’s the most exciting and/or thrilling thing you’ve done while wearing these pieces?

I was wearing my Wranglers on a trip I took to L.A. for a shoot. I rented a black Jeep, which was exciting because I hadn’t driven a car since moving to New York two years ago. On our last day we were trying to get as many shots as possible before the sun went down, and I was following another car to the next location. The driver was weaving through traffic and blowing through yellow lights, but I had to keep up because I had no idea where this place was and my phone was dying. I managed to follow her the entire way. I thought I was going to die, so I guess you could say that that’s the most thrilling thing I’ve done in those jeans.

When I wear the black jeans, the most thrilling thing to do is see if I can eat more guacamole. They’re tight.

What’s the weirdest place?

I wore the black jeans to Lindsay Lohan’s apartment. We were sitting on this amazing plush carpet in her bedroom chatting. Maybe not the weirdest place, but Lindsay Lohan’s shag rug would be the most unlikely place I would have expected these jeans to go.

If you could go anywhere in the world in your Wranglers tomorrow, where would you go?

Somewhere warm with no cell reception or Wifi and lots of trees.

Are your Wranglers work appropriate?

Yes, if you put a bit more effort into the rest of the outfit to balance out their sloppiness. Clean, new cotton t-shirts, a cropped sweater with a nice fit, maybe a jacket, and something with a heel helps.

Who besides you has worn them?

Nobody to my knowledge! They were deadstock jeans I found on Etsy. They still had the original tag attached. Even in the photo they were shown on a hanger and not a model. I could actually be the only person who has ever worn these jeans.

What does the denim you wear reveal or reflect about the way that you live on a daily basis?

I feel like it’s pretty reflective of the fact that I try not to take every little thing too seriously. You have to have a sense of humor to regularly wear these things.

How does denim help you do what you love to do?

The Wranglers are actually really great to wear on shoot days when I’m meeting someone for the first time because they seem to put everyone at ease. I’m like, ‘Look, I’m chill, I have palm trees on my pants. We’re going to have a good time today.’ And they’re also easy to work in—not too low, not too tight.

What’s the best possible ending you could imagine for these three pieces?

I hope that one day I can find a worthy replacement for my Acnes. My mother shrank them in the wash when I was home for Christmas and they haven’t been the same since. When that day comes I’ll send them off with a Viking funeral. The jacket and Wranglers I hope get bought, along with all of my other clothes, in a yard sale by an entrepreneurial young girl that photographs them beautifully and sells them on Etsy for lots of money that she’ll then use to put herself through school or to start a business or to buy a new pair of Acnes.

What’s the best possible thing you could be doing in each of them right now?

In my Wranglers: driving somewhere for the weekend.

In my jacket: wearing it to the trimmings store to find a replacement for the stud that’s missing. I seem to only pass by one of these stores when I’m not wearing the jacket and can’t quite remember what kind of stud is missing.

In my Needles: going to a show. These are the types of jeans best worn with platform boots.

What kind of makeup do you like to wear with your jeans?

I usually find myself doing some sort of sleek Angelina Jolie-circa-Tomb Raider makeup look when I’m wearing the tight black jeans and a leotard. For the Wranglers, I’ll usually not wear makeup, or smudge some reddish orange blush on the tops of my cheeks, which makes me look like I’ve gotten some sun.

Is there a makeup look that you think is absolutely inappropriate for denim?

Full, perfect pageant makeup would be bad, paired with denim it looks sort of costume-y and only Dolly Parton and Shania Twain can pull that off. But you can take separate parts of typical pageant makeup and they’ll look really good alone with denim – highly contoured blush, or overdrawn lips, or tons of lashes. As long as you don’t completely smother your face, there’s no reason not to wear makeup with denim.

Is there a makeup look that’s always right?

Taupe eye shadow, black top lashes, and terracotta blush is a good bet.

What’s the best advice about makeup you can offer our jean-loving readers?

Wear lip gloss. Shiny lip gloss looks so good with denim, and you can dab it on your cheekbones and eyelids.

Fill in the blank: In my jacket, I feel like __________.

It would be really weird to run into Carroll, whose name is on the tag. I hope she would just say it looked nice, and that she’s glad it went to a good home rather than ask for it back.