Street Style: Meet Pamela Wurst Vetrini
Pamela went viral on TikTok at the end of 2021. “I made a video of trends I had observed through the lens of an elder millennial. Overnight I gained 50,000 followers…I had celebs following me,” she shares. “This humorous approach to trends worked for an older audience,” and she kept creating “weekly Cliff notes” for two years as an organic content curator. She struck more gold with spoof reality shows on the platform. “There’s a lot more silliness and physical comedy coming back to social, people need an outlet.”
Today she has over 170K followers on TikTok, and her latest creative pursuit is the #NonTradWife. “I’m a ‘creative’ that has lived so many lives on social media. I’m always trying to innovate in my online space to connect with my audience in new and fun ways. I’m currently challenging the trope of the “trad wife” by calling myself a nontraditional wife or “non trad” wife. I lean into my creative interests like cooking, hosting, and interior design while also diving into feminist topics and issues of the day. Women can be complicated, fashionable, homemakers, who are educated and interested in our society and the world – it’s all very relatable.”
From Tallahassee, Florida, Pamela spent a lot of time on her family’s Georgia beef cattle farm. “It’s been in the family for 150 years, and I spent many weekends with my grandmother learning to cook Southern food. My mom was a child of the Navy and I’m from a big, close-knit family. My dad is also an excellent cook and would often host random cousins at the family farm. There was always a pot of chili or stew on the stove or BBQ in the smoker.” Pamela credits this to her own love of cooking.
She says the time came when she dusted the dirt off her boots, moved to New York City and didn't look back. “I went to NYU, I was very brave, it was right after 9/11 in 2002. I met my husband in college, fell in love with the Italian New Yorker, and we eventually moved to this area for his job. He's an attorney.”
They had a big country wedding down on the family farm. “He brought his big Italian family. It was like the movie My Cousin Vinny…they knew very little about Southerners, and there was a lot of time spent explaining grit and polenta to each other.” This did inspire the workings of a Southern and Italian cookbook. “Fried green tomato caprese salad, Italian wedding soup with collard greens…but that didn’t really take off,” Pamela laughs. “It was just one of many online personas.”
Pamela Wurst Vetrini
Makeup: Sharon Macorol; Hair: Katrina G
Photography: Renée C. Gage Photography
Shoot location: Pamela’s home in Rosemont; Kitchen designed by Kalle Thompson, Stitch Sew Shop with help from Harry Braswell Inc.
During her time in New York, Pamela says she spent five years in marketing and PR working on digital pubs that included Urban Daddy, and did event planning for Surface Magazine. She also joined an all-female PR firm that specialized in wineries and wine regions, and became a sommelier. She credits her professional history of journalism and media literacy for helping her curate content and understand the motivations behind social media trends.
“I started on Instagram. I’m a stay at home mom (she has two boys, 9 and 12), it’s what works best for my family economically. I’m a high anxiety, ADHD person and wanted to focus on the kids, while keeping my toe in the workforce. To stay abreast of marketing and social media, I became active on it, so I could learn it. Well, you know what pictures get the most attention on Instagram? Cheese and butts! I’m not showing pics of my butt,” she says laughing, “But I love hosting, and extravagant dinners and cheese boards.”
She started Cheats and Meeses, and it became quite popular in Old Town. “People started hiring me to make boards, but I didn’t want to be a caterer, I wanted to create content. And I thought maybe I could have influence here, talking about myself, using cheese as the entree into politics. Talking about politics is scary, but I survived it every time. I gave up the cheese and started covering everything. You’re supposed to have a niche you serve online, even though the normal person is interested in 100s of things!”
In the summer of 2023, she noticed a lot of private chefs in the Hamptons posting peak summer aspirational content. “I thought this is so perfect for TikTok, and I staged a fake Abby Lee Miller/ Dance Mom pyramid-style experiment series: I’m a Private Chef in the Hamptons. It went super viral and all of a sudden the private chefs were in my DMs, and I would ask them what they wanted to see. They all ended up connecting in the Hamptons in person and reaching out to me. Being a private chef is so isolating and it was hard for them to form a community when they’re isolated in these 10 million dollar mansions. Now they’re close friends, writing cookbooks together, working with other creators.” And it got some great press, including in New York Magazine’s Vulture and in The Washington Post.
“My son is going to be a teenager soon and I revisit every month whether it’s good for him to have a mom on TikTok. Sometimes I’ll be at Costco and someone will come up to us, and they’ll say, ‘I recognize you, I follow you online’ and then they get shy and walk away…”
Her advice for dealing with naysayers: “I get a lot of negative comments…on Instagram especially. I try to block them, that’s what my rational brain tells me to do. Sometimes I engage because I’m human and want to convince them to like me. The more you do something, the less you’re afraid of it. Pushing the envelope a little more each time makes you stronger. I’ve never been the person to fit into a box. I’m always going to disappoint them – people who like me and people who don’t like me. The only thing I can be is myself and I'm going to do that.”
She says her therapist tells her to write. “My mom passed about a year ago and it broke my whole world and therapy has put me back together. It’s so effective for re-parenting ourselves to make us the best parents for our kids. I have a lot of anxiety…and a therapist that challenges me – ‘Where are these thoughts coming from? Reframe it.’”
To unwind, she loves cooking, crafting and walking. “It’s such a walkable city, and I love to be outside. I’m a reluctant baseball mom…it has taken over my life. The games are long, but at least they’re outside and they’re social. I’m an online person, but I also love human interaction and having a kiki in the bleachers with my mom friends.”
Like many young professionals, she and husband Sal moved into the Courthouse area in Arlington when they first arrived. “We then moved to Del Ray when we were looking at schools. We settled in Rosemont — it’s the best of both worlds. On a Saturday morning, I can walk to the Farmer’s Market in Del Ray or Old Town.”
Pamela says she’s looking forward to warm weather and working with Connect Forward, “to inspire more women to do what I do…and showing them it’s not as scary as it seems. You need a creative outlet when you're a stay at home mom and content creation is a modern version of this.”
So if you see Pamela at Costco or at the Farmer’s Market, don’t be shy. Until then, check out her Street Style (at home):
ABOUT PAMELA
Neighborhood: Rosemont
Hometown: Tallahassee, Florida
What would surprise people about you? I left my family beef cattle farm in South Georgia to attend NYU. I’m a deeply conflicted country mouse and city mouse.
Favorite movies: 9 to 5, Dirty Dancing, and It’s a Wonderful Life.
Guilty Pleasure: TikTok doom-scrolling
Latest binge-watch: Call the Midwife or anything on PBS Masterpiece.
Bucket list travel destinations: Corfu, The Cotswolds, Prince Edward Island.
STYLE
Define your style in three words or less: Careless but confident.
The go-to piece in your wardrobe: A fancy kaftan or frumpy sweatpants and never in between (@laviestylehouse for kaftans).
Favorite trend: Comfortable “dad” shoes like ‘90s sneakers or chunky sandals (Maguire Shoes)
Beauty product you can’t live without: Dieux skincare and quarterly facials at Sarah Akram.
Sandals, heels or sneakers? Sandals.
WELLNESS
Go-to way to de-stress: Doing something with my hands like cooking, crafting, building a cheese board, or making a flower arrangement.
Most fun way to stay active: Walks with friends.
Wellness goal: Removing shame from my health journey.
Want to try: Every adult dance class in the DMV, and building up strength to do an advanced pilates class at Old Town Pilates.
Proudest wellness achievement: Accepting help and choosing to start a Glp-1 medication. Understanding the hormonal issues in my body that need the help of medication.
HOME
Favorite room in your home: My dining room. I love hosting dinner parties. I love the gigantic thrifted painting on the wall. I love all of my mom’s and grandmothers’ china in the cabinets. I love having a door that I can close to the chaos of the kitchen during holidays.
Antiques, modern, or a mix? I love something with a story. I’m always hunting for treasures at estate sales and flea markets.
Last item bought for your home: I’m always grabbing farmhouse pottery pieces from Red Barn Mercantile. I just bought a gorgeous painting from Meghan Hendy, a local artist. I also got this adorable picnic basket from Coco & Wolf with a Liberty of London print fabric lining.
Favorite way to entertain: Over the top. Hosting is my love language so I always have too much and am too much.
Clutter-free or well-lived in? My brain is constantly fighting the forces of Monica from Friends and Big Edie from Grey Gardens.
Next planned purchase: I’ve been stalking estate sales for a silver punch bowl to use as a champagne bucket.
ALEXANDRIA
What do you love about Alexandria Stylebook? I love seeing local businesses, especially local women-owned businesses thrive. It seems like Stylebook is a space where all those entrepreneurs are honored and celebrated.
Favorite spot in Alexandria: I love all of our museums and historic sights. I think Alexandria does a really good job of sharing our history with honesty. We can enjoy the Market Square and also grasp that the Square played a part in the horrors of the slave trade. I think it’s important for us to honor the complexities of our history and not sugarcoat the reality of what our fellow humans went through.
Your go-to shops: Red Barn, Penny Post, Look Again thrift store, Old Town Books, The Hive, Stitch Sew Shop, all of the artists at the Torpedo Factory
Best food spot: Andy’s Pizza, Goodie’s Ice Cream, Momo’s for sushi. I recently developed a shellfish allergy, but I still go to Hank’s Oyster Bar for the vibes.
Favorite local organization: Alive, Together We Bake, Friends of Guest House. I try to support organizations that help women.
Alexandria event you most look forward to: I like the Farmers’ Market every Saturday at Market Square with my family. I like gathering fresh ingredients for a cheese board, getting fresh flowers to make an arrangement, waiting in line for a breakfast sandwich, or fancy pop tarts for the little ones and listening to the musician.
