Style Icon
Style and fashion is something that runs through Tracy’s veins, having inherited it from previous generations… Her grandmother was forever dressed to the nines, while her mother was a fashionista too - traveling all over Europe for shopping sprees, contributing a fashion column to a New York newspaper, and rubbing shoulders with many of the Big Apple’s pre-eminent designers of the day.
As a teenager, Tracy collected all the latest high fashion pieces and, ever the creative soul, started repurposing vintage to create her own designs. This was recognized by her peers when she was voted 'Class Individualist’ in high school, and she’s been standing out from the crowd ever since.
In college, Tracy started up a tee shirt line, and also designed ladies one-off pieces which she sold to boutiques in several states across the US. From there her reputation grew as a style icon of New York City, attending the city’s celebrated Fashion Week 15 years in a row, not to mention strutting the catwalk herself on numerous occasions as a celebrity feature including opening and closing for fashion impresario Gemma Kahang.
Tracy also attended numerous Paris fashion house shows as well, regularly seen front row dressed by luminaries such as Emanuel Ungaro and Guy Laroche to name but a few. She was voted 'Best Dressed New Yorker' five years in a row by the respected Avenue magazine, and has also featured on style-driven TV shows such as Bravo’s 'Mad Fashion'.
Over the years Tracy has been a constant fixture on the red carpet at a multitude of glamorous events, with photos from these appearances published in countless magazines including Vogue, W, Town & Country and more. On numerous occasions she’s also been photographed and profiled in Bill Cunningham’s lauded ‘Sunday Styles’ section in the New York Times. Meanwhile, Tracy was also documented across a number of pages in celebrity nightlife photographer Patrick McMullan’s book ‘Glamour Girls’.
In this time, Tracy has been no stranger to the front pages as well, appearing on the cover of the Wall Street Journal’s fashion section and on the magazine ’25A’. A social event in the Hamptons saw Tracy dressed in an amazing butterfly costume that garnered attention as far afield as German TV.
But Tracy is not just a fabulous wearer of fashion, as an artist, she can’t resist the urge to continually create it too. This was indeed the case with the Tracy Stern Shoes line. It started with her designing her own patent for an interchangeable shoe that allowed the wearer to swap out the multiple uppers available, depending on the style and occasion.
From there the Tracy Stern Shoes brand took off internationally, selling to destinations such as Japan, Russia, Paris and Italy. It was equally popular with celebrities around the world including the likes of Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson and Lindsay Lohan. Elton John even championed the collection at his Vanity Fair Oscar party where he had 200 lucky people win the opportunity to have Tracy customize a pair of shoes for each of the winners drawn from the celebrity crowd in attendance.
Today, Tracy continues to set a fast pace when it comes to style, with magazine spreads in both Vintage Style magazine, a retro-inspired spread in Pinup Kulture Magazine, and runway appearances at the A Curated Collection show in her current home town of Palm Springs.
