About

Denise is an Irish blogger & Personal Stylist based in Ireland. Having worked in fashion retail since 2012, she has a wealth of expertise in the areas of fashion, trends & shopping for both occasion wear & a capsule wardrobe.

Since its launch in 2015, her blog Holy Chic has gained notable success. Holy Chic has been nominated for numerous industry awards & led to appearances on RTÉ and Virgin Media’s ‘Xposé’. In 2020, Denise graduated from the Dublin Institute of Design in Personal Styling & Image Consultancy. She now offers a freelance styling service that aims to provide clients with a transformative experience, with a menu of services to choose from.

More information is available on the Personal Styling page, or continue reading to find out more about the lady behind Holy Chic.

About Me

First of all, thank you for taking the time to visit Holy Chic. It’s my little corner of the internet where I can express my love of fashion & beauty, & connect with likeminded people, like you, worldwide. As far back as I can remember, I had a huge passion for fashion. My mum was a dress designer & I loved dressing my Barbies in scrap pieces of material & sketching my multicoloured designs on the corners of her sketchbooks.

This stayed with me throughout my teens. And as soon as I had finished my Leaving Cert exams, I went straight on to open up my own designer dress hire boutique, Glitterati Boutique. This made me one of Ireland’s youngest entrepreneurs at the time, aged just 17. A lot of graft went in to it & I enjoyed many successful years at the helm of it. The timing coincided with the beginning of the ‘blogger movement’ online. I quickly noticed the importance of influencing online from an early stage.

In 2013, I made the move to the high street & started working with New Look. I fell in love with the buzz of the retail world, the fast pace & guiding customers to an amazing outfit. I embraced every opportunity that came my way work wise. After a while I realised that retail was where I wanted my career to continue. And in 2014 I began studying my BSc in Retail Management at the Waterford Institute of Technology.

Like with everything, it’s great to have the theory, but experience is key. So I kept working the weekends in retail, moving to a Stylist role in one of Ireland’s best known boutiques, La Creme Boutique. Here, my eminence for 5 star customer service blossomed. La Creme specialised in Mother of the Bride/Groom style, with clients travelling the length & breadth of the country for an outfit. So I loved the experience of styling a lady in a look that suited both her own style & the theme of the impending wedding. And the breath-taking moment she would step out of the fitting room in an outfit she loved & felt amazing in, are all great memories from my time as a Stylist there.

It was at this time that Holy Chic began. Born simply from a love of fashion and the style in my world, I started a little WordPress site in November 2015. I learned as much as I could about blogging, setting up a website, SEO, social media stats, analytics, readability, affiliate links, the list goes on & on! But basically, I wanted to present my blog as professionally as I present myself in real life, so I absorbed all the information I could about my new found hobby. And I LOVED it! In the process, I’ve made so many friends as well, which I think is the real highlight of it all for me too.

Like I said, I loved the buzz & the pace of the high street. So while I was still at college, I returned to New Look part-time. Armed with all I was learning from my degree, I quickly progressed from Sales Advisor to part-time Supervisor. And after I graduated from W.I.T with a first class honours degree in 2017, I took a full-time Supervisor role. My blog was gaining momentum by now too. Holy Chic had been nominated for numerous blogging awards and had been featured on national media with RTÉ and Virgin Media’s Xposé.