Sequins & Sparkles & ROK Coffee, OH, KITTY!
Written & Interviewed By : Hannah Corbett
The polka dots, the sparkles, the ROK coffee talks. I could only be talking about one person, and you know exactly who it is. We know her, we love her— Kitty Murphy. There’s something about Kitty that feels instantly familiar, like the internet’s own people’s princess, but with insanely good accessories and a sense of humor.
Alongside being the visual style designer for Havens Magazine, Kitty has quietly, and confidently, blossomed into someone who is so unapologetically herself that it’s impossible not to be inspired. She is whimsy and effortlessness, heart and hard work, a girl who can style an outfit, build a moodboard, and send you into a spiral over a pair of sparkly socks all in the same breath. And that’s exactly why she needed to be In the Haven.
What people don’t realize is that Kitty wasn’t always this polished, sparkly version of herself. In fact, she laughs about it now. In college, she traded sparkles for a basketball jersey on the court. She reminisces over leggings and sweatshirts, the “please don’t perceive me” era of high school. She remembers wearing a uniform all week and saving absolutely zero energy for style on the weekends. That girl, she’ll tell you, would not recognize the Kitty of today. When she headed off to college, she tried new things, experimented, wore outfits that she now lovingly admits were “really ugly still.” Her style didn’t land overnight. It was a slow evolution, tiny attempts, until she eventually grew into the fashion identity she has now. Even the outfits she wore as a college senior, she says, weren’t great. But she wore them. And at the time, they were the first sparks of the Kitty she was becoming.
Someone who dresses with such ease, such playfulness, such immediate recognizability. You’d assume she was voted “Best Dressed” in high school. She wasn’t, she thinks she would’ve been voted “Most Shy,” or “Most Likely to Turn Red When Called On.” The Kitty who speaks confidently into a camera, who plays with textures and silhouettes and sequins, who takes up space in a way that feels gentle but certain, she had to grow into her.
Her love for digital creators started early, long before she’d ever think to film herself. In fifth or sixth grade, she says “I fell deep into YouTube, watching creators long before the people around me really knew.” She never talked about it with friends, not because she was embarrassed, but because it simply wasn’t something people discussed back then. But Kitty was hooked. She watched everything. And even though she loved it, she assumed she’d never be the one on the other side of the screen.
Then college happened. I asked Kitty, when did you just say, “hey, you know, I want to start posting, when did you have that thought”. She had roommates and in that quiet space, she picked up her phone and started talking. Half wondering if her roommate would overhear her speaking to her camera. Those early videos weren’t confident. They weren’t polished. But they were the beginning.
Speaking of confidence, I touched on social anxiety, and maybe having the feeling of imposter syndrome. “I’ve been really lucky because being on social media has made me so much more confident. Growing up, I didn’t have many spaces where people were genuinely building me up or paying attention to what I was doing, so this kind of acceptance has been completely new. I try to be as vulnerable as possible online, and the fact that people respond positively to that has made me feel incredibly grateful. It’s helped me feel more confident not just online, but in my real life, too—even in small moments, like talking to my family. Showing up authentically and being open has been such a transformative experience for me.”
Her first industry experience came as an intern for a celebrity stylist during her junior year of college. The job wasn’t glamorous— lots of errands, shadowing, and running around— but it was formative. “It was really fun. It was definitely more like running around… obviously, like, an intern. Like, I'm not gonna be styling the people. But that was like my favorite job because I love my boss so much. It was literally just me and him every day. It was really fun.” The internship confirmed a love for fashion beyond aesthetics; it was about people, energy, and connection.
Since then, she’s found joy in meeting creators and designers in person, seeing the vibrancy behind the content she admires online. “It’s really fun and I like actually talking to people… I love their content, but when you see them in person, it’s so much more fun to converse and not just be like, ‘Yeah, you’re so pretty.’” Her work and her life now take her frequently into the city, traveling by train for hours, attending events, meeting brand owners, and making connections. Exhausting? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely. “It’s definitely worth it… sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do,” she reflects.
Even as she navigates the fast-moving worlds of content creation and fashion, Kitty remains reflective and intentional. She has recognized the power of her own manifestation: shaping her opportunities and presence not by luck, but by being deliberate. “I literally manifested like… I didn’t even know I was good at manifesting like that.”
Kitty recalls a moment on tiktok where her videos became inescapable. People would message her saying she’d appeared on their For You Page twenty-five times in one day. It made her laugh, but it also validated something deep inside her. She wasn’t flooding people’s feeds by accident, she was working. Showing up. Creating. Committing to the thing she once thought she’d never do. And she owned it with the gentlest confidence: “this is my job, babe.”
Even as Kitty has built her name, I asked her where she’d want her career to be in five years. The idea of one day launching her own brand is something she’s twiddling her fingers over. “I definitely do want to have my own brand, but I’d have to really think about it,” she says, reflecting on the saturated market of influencers-turned-loungewear designers. “I wouldn’t do loungewear if I did something, I don’t feel very inspired by loungewear.
“I feel like I’ll be more proud of, like, a full-blown clothing line,” she admits. The emphasis is clear: Kitty wants something alive, expressive, and distinctly hers— a reflection of her aesthetic and personality.
In five years, it’s easy to imagine Kitty with a brand that carries the same warmth, playfulness, and authenticity that she brings to every outfit and every room. A line that merges approachable style with her signature quirk, something that her community can genuinely connect with. Her journey is ongoing, but the vision is vivid, tangible — and unmistakably Kitty.
The Kitty people know now— the one with her signature sparkles, the one who designs visuals for Havens, the one who has stepped fully into her own charm— is someone she built piece by piece. Not from perfection. Not from being the “best dressed” girl in high school. But from showing up, trying and trying again, whispering into her phone on the train just for a video, posting in her driveway all dressed up, and eventually discovering a style and presence that feels like magic that everyone knows and loves.
Kitty Murphy didn’t just grow into herself— she allowed herself to. And that is why she is here, in this moment, in this community, in this story.