How I Shop: Christina Najjar, AKA @ItsMeTinx
"I'm the type of person where, if you ask me in Starbucks where my shirt's from, I'll literally pull up the website for you. I'll tell you when I got it. I'll tell you how it fits."
Christina Najjar is what you might call a "girls' girl." In the literal sense, Najjar — a 30-year-old content creator and writer whom you may know better by her nickname and handle, "Tinx" — speaks frequently about her experience attending all-girls' schools or living in a sorority while studying English and Creative Writing at Stanford University. But in practice, Najjar has both created and fostered an online community for women that isn't unlike that of a rowdy happy hour shared between best friends.
With 1.1 million followers (and counting), the London-born Najjar can often be found on TikTok, where she posts her candid and often-comical takes on topics like fashion, dating and celebrity pop culture. In the case of the fashion, Najjar is something of a professional: Her career started in Gap Inc.'s Retail Management Program, after which she worked at the likes of Banana Republic and Poshmark. She then got her Master's in Fashion Journalism at Parsons School of Design. By the time the pandemic hit last spring, Najjar had already relocated from New York City to Los Angeles, when she decided to try something new.
"I had never thought of myself as a camera-facing person before, but I thought, you know what, I really have nothing to lose and I'm going stir crazy,'" she tells me over the phone from L.A. "From the second I made my first video, I was like, 'Oh, I'm obsessed with this. This is what I'm supposed to do with my life.'"
A year and some change later, Najjar is a beloved social media darling with nearly 54 million likes on TikTok alone, where it looks like the internet was in need of a girls' girl. Read on for our conversation, including a secondhand-shopping philosophy on which you'll want to take notes.
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"I love fashion. I always have. I always thought it was going to be my lifelong career. It's always just been an extension of myself, an outlet for creativity and a way to express whatever I'm going through. I remember once when I was a child — I must've been like, 12 — and I was like, 'Mom, my aesthetic is pirate now.' And she was like, 'Oh, okay.' And Lord knows, but I was wearing a lot of flowy blouses and chunky jewelry, like chunky rings.
"I'll also say that I'm a chameleon, and so wherever I am in the world, I like to learn about their fashion. When I was in New York, I was wearing a lot of boots and amazing coats. In L.A., I'm really into the athleisure. I've moved around a lot, so it's definitely cool to experience a new place through the fashion and the aesthetic of the people there.
"I'd say I'm really A Tale of Two Cities in a way, in the sense that I'm either in athleisure — people know I love a hoodie; they know I love a sweatpant and a slide or a sneaker — or I'm going out. I don't do a lot of in-the-middle dressing, which has definitely changed from when I was younger.
"I love dresses and going-out outfits, and I love casual clothes, but I'm not a big jeans-and-a-cute-top girl. That also might just be L.A. because as I said, I always assimilate to the style of the city I'm living in. But right now, that's very much my vibe. I only have two speeds, which is fun and makes shopping easier.
"I'm definitely an online shopper. I really do love the online experience. I love a deal. I do think people know that about me, but I'm telling you, I really hate to pay full price. If I'm looking at something online, I'm checking all the different websites. Where can I get free shipping? Where can I get $50 cash-back? I just feel like shopping online gives me the full picture of the landscape.
"I love The RealReal. I would say The RealReal is where, honestly, a good 50% of my clothes come from, if not more. Though you know what? I used to love shopping in-person when I was little, but it really changed. Now I find it tiresome. I don't want to try something on in the store.
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"The only place I do love in-store is Zara. I don't have many talents, but I swear to God, if combing through Zara was an Olympic sport, I would be a gold medalist. I'll find things in Zara and people are like, 'Oh my God, is that Missoni?' I'm like, 'This is literally Zara, girl.' To me, there's no better feeling in the universe than when someone is like, 'Is your coat Max Mara?' I'm like, 'It's Zara, sweetie.' It's a doubly good feeling because not only do you feel proud of yourself for finding this piece, but then you made that person's day because then they can go get the coat for $89.99.
"I really, really don't like gatekeeping. I'm the type of person where, if you ask me in Starbucks where my shirt's from, I'll literally pull up the website for you. I'll tell you when I got it. I'll tell you how it fits. I don't know if it was because I always went to an all-girls school and then lived in a sorority for my entire college career, but that's my vibe.
"I had seen these really cute pants on this woman in Erewhon, and she was like, 'Oh, I have no idea where they're from.' I made a TikTok about it and there was a very heated conversation in the comments. The happy ending to this story is I found those pants in the end. They were Nili Lotan camo pants, so it all worked out. Just be nice to people. It's not that difficult. We don't have the same group of friends. Relax, you can tell me where your pants are from.
"I do definitely get fashion inspiration on TikTok, and I love when girls will do round-ups or hauls; sometimes I'll do those, too. I'm inspired by my followers. They’re the smartest, coolest group of girls I know. Sometimes I'll post something like, 'I love this look,' and my followers will send me a DM that's like, 'I found this one that's better!' I draw tons of inspiration from my followers. They're the best.
"I'm an impulse shopper. If I see something that I know looks good on me, I'll just grab it. But I'm also not a hoarder. If I'm over something, I'll re-consign it at The RealReal or I'll donate it. I like to always have new stuff, but then I'm always getting rid of stuff. I know this is a common phrase, but my mom always used to say, 'You wear 20% of your wardrobe 80% of the time.' That's so true. I just like to have a very lean closet and if I'm not wearing it, if I haven't worn it in three months, I'm not going to wear it again — unless it's a coat.
"The only exception to that rule is, if there's a big purchase, I'll definitely think about it. I'll go to the store and try it on. But if it's like, a top on The RealReal, you've got to move fast. You have to. Things just fly. My entire RealReal page is like a graveyard of all the pieces I didn't move fast enough on. It's so sad. Sometimes I just look at it and I'm like, 'Why, Tinx? Why didn't you just buy it? It would've been so cute!'
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"I collect Fendi Baguette bags, and not to toot my own horn, but I was collecting them for ages before this current trend, since I was in my early 20s. There was a pink leopard print Baguette, and I don't know why I didn't just buy it — I was in a meeting or something — and by the time I was going to, it was gone. That was a tough one.
"I have a couple old Prada bags, like really old ones, probably 10 years old, that are big. I call them 'rich-mom bags' because remember when big bags were the style? Everyone had big bags. They were great. It's a large brown Prada leather tote with an orange interior. It literally looks like a rich-mom bag, but it's amazing because you can stuff so much in it. I always have my laptop and a ring light and a million outfit changes, so I can just shove it all in there.
"I do think some of those old big bags are super useful. I said that I really like to cycle through my clothes and re-consign or donate them, but bags I tend to keep because I do think they not only retain their value, but you can always make them work with the right outfit. A good bag is a good bag no matter what. Of course, there are trends. Of course, there are styles. But a good bag is really fantastic.
"I try to think about what suits me and what I'm going to wear. I had a time in my life when I volume-shopped, and it's just so wasteful. It didn't even make me look better. I felt like my style was all over the place, but as I've gotten older, I've found what works for me, what looks good on my body. I just stick to it and find updated versions of what works.
"Also, working at Poshmark taught me that when you're done with a dress, that's someone else's perfect dress. That's why I love re-consigning. Again, I bring it back to when I was in a sorority when we would send out these emails and be like, 'Hey, does anyone have a blue tank top?' Someone would always say, 'I've got one!' I love to lend people things. I love to give my friends stuff. I just say, 'Oh, come and find something in my house.' There's nothing I love more than that. There's no better feeling. It's the same feeling as when you tell someone where your pants are from.
"I had a cute moment a couple months ago — and I need to do this more — where I bought this really weird dress and I was showing my followers and one of them was like, 'Actually, I think that's really cute,' so I was like, 'I'll send it to you!' You have no idea how cute she looked in it — which again, there's a dress for everybody. It's not an ugly dress. It just didn't suit me and I needed to find someone it did suit. She sent me the cutest photos. I genuinely feel like we're all really close friends. I feel very lucky."
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