Motherhood and body positivity: How one Long Island mom built a following on self-love through fashion

Katherine Schiro’s rise to social media started as a family affair. It was actually her parents, Al and Vicky, who went viral first in a video that has over 70 million views about Al trying sweet potato pancakes and wanting “14 of them right now.” After a few months of helping them manage their accounts, Schiro, 32, of Suffolk County, was inspired to grow her own following. She tried a few different things until she found her niche: Fashion. “You never know with social media when something could really pop off,” Schiro said. For her, it was dressing room try-on hauls, where she would take her audience into the dressing rooms of popular stores such as Walmart, Old Navy, Target and more to give authentic reviews on how these clothes looked and felt on her body. Since then, she became a mother of two and now shares a mix of content from fashion to mom life on Long Island, garnering over 600,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram. “I hope they can look in the mirror and be like, ‘No my mom taught me that I'm beautiful and I'm strong and I am.’ So, I really hope they can look at my videos one day and be like, ‘Yeah, that's my mom.’”