An entrepreneur, mother and lover of DIY and gardening, Marissa Carter’s personal style varies depending on the day—and the activity—though double denim and a dash of pink are sure to feature! She shares a week in her wardrobe below.
MONDAY
Monday’s mantra is plan, don’t execute! I use Mondays to organise and get my ducks in a row for the week ahead. This means not scheduling any important meetings or executing marketing activities on Mondays. It’s a day to analyse where we’re at, where we need to be and how we’ll get there. I’ll be at my desk in the office for the day so I’m wearing a smart casual get-up. I’m a millennial so I’ll never be over Britney’s iconic double denim look! My denim shirt and skirt are both from Tesco F&F. I’ve recently started shopping there more for workwear and have been pleasantly surprised by how on-trend they are. I’m wearing Primark cream, sling-back kitten heels and my navy and gold Chanel Boy handbag. I don’t often splurge on designer clothing but I do invest in handbags I can pass down to my daughter someday.
TUESDAY
Tuesday is the day I try to schedule my most important meetings of the week. It’s the day I put the most effort into my professional appearance as I believe in the importance of embodying my brand. I’ll have my Cocoa Brown Sunshine Serum on and be radiating a bronzed goddess look as best I can! Today, I have back-to-back meetings in Dublin with some of our key retailers. We’ll be pitching ideas for Cocoa Brown Christmas gift sets if you can believe it! Christmas decisions get signed off in April and May in retail! I’m channelling French Riviera vibes today wearing a white and blue print dress I picked up on a recent spree in Fran & Jane Blackrock. I’ve paired it with nude velvet Jimmy Choos that I treated myself to when I went to the States to record for QVC North America and an anniversary gift from my husband Ronan, my Chanel Deauville Tote. It fits my laptop and anything else I need to take with me to meetings.
WEDNESDAY
On Wednesdays, we wear pink. Today I’m out and about visiting stores and meeting store managers and their marketing teams. I’m wearing pink for two reasons – I love the colour and it means I’m on brand if I take photographs with my pink bottles in-store. My waistcoat and trousers are from River Island. My heels look like Valentino but they’re actually not – in fact, they are so old that I don’t even remember where I got them! Anyway, they have served me well. They’re just the right mix of comfort and style. My handbag is a dusty pink cross body from YSL that I purchased in Brown Thomas about ten years ago. It was one of the first designer handbags I splurged on when my business started to take off.
THURSDAY
Thursdays are usually dedicated to the PR side of running a business. If I have a podcast interview to record or a shoot to do, Thursdays are the day I try to mark out in my diary for anything that takes me away from my desk. Being regimented about using Thursdays as the day I mark out for new product launches, press events or PR and marketing activities means that my week doesn’t get overloaded. The glamorous side of the business – like doing a photoshoot for a magazine – is just one small aspect of the business. As it turns out, today I’m spending the morning in Summerhill House to do some photographs for a Sunday paper and I’m going to be in the lab with my cosmetic chemist in the afternoon. We have some tweaks I want to make on products that will launch in 2025. My outfit today is a Khaki jumpsuit from a label called Joplin. It’s perfect because it’s easy to change in and out of at the shoot and comfortable enough to wear under a lab coat.
FRIDAY
My team and I work from home on Fridays at the moment, so it’s a casual Friday for me today. I’m wearing a pair of white Zara chinos, a white T-shirt and a kaftan with a pop of red fringe. I’ll spend today catching up on emails, doing a couple of Zoom meetings with our international distributors, analysing the week’s sales and catching up on the phone with my team. I try to squeeze in a lunch date with Ronan before picking the kids up from school. I rarely finish work at 5 o’clock any other day of the week but I do try on Fridays. We have pizza in our house every Friday so my white outfit might not have been the wisest choice. Oh well, living on the edge!
SATURDAY
Saturday – date night! I’m having dinner this evening back at Summerhill House in Enniskerry. I adored the location for the newspaper shoot earlier in the week so we booked dinner with friends there this evening. I’m wearing a black gúna from a designer called Ninni, also something I picked up in Fran & Jane. It’s oh-so glam and I feel like a 1950s movie star in it. I’m wearing a pair of Jimmy Choos that I treated myself to in 2019 when I won the Image Magazine Entrepreneur of the Year Award. I’ll always link these shoes to that accolade. It meant so much to me and still does today.
SUNDAY
Sundays are packed with soccer and GAA matches with the kids and as much gardening as I can squeeze into the day. I’m wearing yellow wellies that the kids tell me I look ridiculous in, my Creidim Ionat hoodie and my Creidim Ionat necklace from Betty & Biddy. Creidim Ionat is an Irish language initiative run by Foras na Gaeilge and supported by RTÉ. I’m part of the Creidim Ionat alumni having participated in it two years ago. I revived my love of the Irish language having gone to a Gaeilscoil but I didn’t really use Irish in my daily life after leaving school. Creidim Ionat helped me fall in love with Irish again and I proudly use my cúpla focail every day since participating. In small ways, I’m more engaged with Irish. I sign off my emails as Gaeilge, usually either with “Tabhair aire”, which means take care or “Míle buíochas”, which means thanks a million. Other ways I’m speaking more Irish is by saying “dia dhuit” or “go raibh maith agat” in the shops more frequently. All small things, but they add up to feeling closer to my language.
#CreidimIonat is a @ForasnaGaeilge initiative in partnership with RTÉ that helps you take the next step with the Irish language. Join their mentors and mentees and take the next step on your Creidim Ionat journey by following the steps each week on forasnagaeilge.ie
Imagery courtesy Marissa Carter. Outfit credits: Stylist Barbara Meade. We may earn a commission if you buy something from any affiliate links on our site.
This article was originally published in April 2024.
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