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At only 28 years old, Hoboken resident Victoria Alario has lived many lives. In 2016 she was an aspiring blogger, climbing the ranks of NYC’s PR world, in 2018 she was a reality star on MTV’s Ex on the Beach, and now, in 2023, she’s a fashion influencer, a business owner, a confidence coach, and a podcast host. You could say she wears a lot of hats, but accessories might be more accurate — you know, fashion designer + all. The Hoboken Girl recently chatted with Victoria about her business ventures and how Hoboken — which she calls her “Hallmark movie dream town” — has influenced her journey to where she is today. Read on for our conversation with Victoria Alario, a Hoboken resident who’s making her mark in the fashion + influencing worlds.
(Photo Credit: @victoria.alario)
The Hoboken Girl: Where are you originally from? Where do you live now?
Victoria Alario: I’m originally from Staten Island! I moved around a few times to Tampa and Miami but wanted to come back up north after a few years and used to love coming to Hoboken when I was younger, so I decided to move to uptown Hoboken!
HG: Is there anything about the influencing world — brands or people — that has surprised you?
VA: I’d say something most people don’t know is that the influencing/content creation world can often be a lot of “hurry up and wait.” Meaning, brands expect a super fast turnaround rate where they want you to shoot the content immediately upon receiving the product, but sometimes the content doesn’t go up for weeks, and then you don’t actually get paid until 30/60/90 days after that. One brand deal from start to finish could be a 5-month process.
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HG: Did you aspire to be an influencer before your account blew up? What was your past career (or current!) path?
VA: I’ve been creating social media content for 8 years now, starting in 2015 college when bloggers were on the rise. Fashion blogs were all the rage, so I began one when studying abroad in London and would literally borrow clothes from all my friends, or buy clothes and shoot photos with the tags on and then return them. I worked 3 jobs at college with the sole focus and intention of investing in my wardrobe and blog, even though it was nothing more than a hobby with a few hundred followers. I was dying to make it as a blogger, but especially at that time, there wasn’t as much opportunity for virality since all we had were blogs, Facebook statuses, and Instagram posts (stories, lives, videos, reels, none of that existed yet). But it was still possible, so I knew I’d figure it out somehow.
Fast forward when I graduated college in 2016 I was working in the fashion PR world in the city and met so many bloggers (I don’t think the word influencer existed yet) and I was so obsessively inspired by them that it kept me up at night with ideas and plans. So I’d borrow my coworkers’ clothes or secretly use the samples from the showroom I worked at and would shoot at least 3 outfits on my lunch breaks at work every day, and my mom and I would be at the Brooklyn Bridge at 6 AM on a Saturday to get the classic sunrise shots and spent the whole morning in DUMBO with at least 10 different looks so I’d have enough content to use for the next few days.
As I started growing (very slowly), I was approached to do reality TV. We filmed that at the end of 2017, and then it came out in 2018. So by 2018, Instagram stories, IGTV, and lives came out, giving us so much more styles of content to make, all while my show aired, so the timing was everything and I was able to quit my job and take social media as a full-time career. Over the past 5 years, I’ve signed up with a talent agency that helps me do all of my brand deals, I started a podcast called For The Girls, I do 1:1 Confidence Coaching, and launched a lingerie brand called Vicsen The Label. So my entire life has been on social media for the past 5 years and opened the doors to all different business ventures!
(Photo Credit: @victoria.alario)
HG: At what point did you become aware of your following? Did your approach to social media change?
VA: Followers is an interesting subject because it’s not that black and white. In 2018 I went from probably 5,000 followers to 100,000 followers– but there’s a catch. At that time, everyone was following me for the sake of a show, so I’ve lost about 80% of those followers over the past few years and now I’m only at around 160k on Instagram from organic growth. I wish TikTok was around at that time because I know the opportunity to expand x10 then would’ve been huge and gained an audience outside of MTV viewers. I began TikTok last year from 0, and I’m almost at 200k now, so it’s a completely different playing field there. I have videos that go viral all the time, so in 1 year I’ve gained a following surpassing what I’ve been building for 8 years.
With that said, all of my Confidence Coaching clients come from Instagram, because that’s an investment that requires trust in someone and seeing their value, and even if I have fewer Instagram followers, they’re more “quality” because a lot of them have been following me for years and have witnessed my entire journey and growth process. They know me and they are willing to invest in themselves through me, and this has become my highest income. TikTok has grown my listeners and downloads for my podcast because I have a more “quantity” following, and For the Girls is free. It doesn’t cost them anything to listen to and download, so whether they know me well or not, they might come across one video and like what I have to say, so then they want to hear more. I get paid a little bit through ads, so that’s more of a side income for me. Ultimately, my approach to social media changes often and varies depending on what’s trending, what my focus is, and what my followers from either platform want to hear.
@victoria.alario #selenagomez #haileybieber #justinbieber ♬ original sound – VICTORIA
HG: How do you block out negativity you might get from the internet? How do you cope with it?
VA: I do exactly that– I block. People often ask how I cope or how I deal with it, but I say there’s nothing to cope with or deal with. If you’re negative toward me, you’re not welcome in my space so I block them immediately. Out of sight out of mind hahaha.
HG: Tell us about your time on MTV’s Ex On The Beach. What was that experience like? How, if at all, did it influence your path to becoming a content creator?
VA: Filming EOTB was a lot of fun, but watching isn’t as fun. It wasn’t all that bad but just the way they edit things down because they have a storyline to produce is really interesting and often frustrating. You really don’t think about how much they can manipulate something to go any way they want. Soundbites can be used in any context, names can be swapped to make it look like you’re talking about someone you’re not, and they often make you say little one-liners in interviews like “I’m so pissed off” or “I can’t believe it” and they’ll insert you saying that into whatever situation they want… even though you’re literally just sitting in an interview room being told to say these little things and you have no idea when it’ll be used.
I was always able to notice when they’d take something I said from episode 1 and insert it into episode 9 because of the outfit I was wearing. But these are things people don’t pick up on when watching, so that’s just the name of the game. You sign the papers and whatever comes out, comes out. You can’t choose how your edit goes and it can give you a lot of anxiety watching each episode. But I was young, straight out of college, and just turned 22, and don’t have many regrets. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be wild and carefree for the entertainment of others, and ultimately it did benefit me in the long run because I don’t know what my career would be if I couldn’t make it on social media. But I’d like to think I’d figure it out somehow, if I didn’t grow from ETOB I would’ve found a way, I’m confident my career was my destiny no matter how I got here.
HG: Tell us about your lingerie brand, Viscen the Label. What was the idea behind that brand?
VA: I’ve always loved super feminine clothing like corsets and bodysuits, and materials like lace and silk. When announcing my launch, I actually included photos of myself at my 8th-grade prom, my sweet 16, and my high school prom, all of which I wore corset-style lace dresses too. I’ve always worn lingerie as part of my outfit no matter where I was going, which is hilarious because some outfits were definitely inappropriate at a younger age but I just had such a thing with dainty, delicate pieces.
So Vicsen the Label (for those who haven’t picked up yet: VIC as in Victoria, SEN as in sensuality, creating VICSEN, like the word VIXEN) came to be because I’ve also always been inspired by, and quite frankly mesmerized by, really feminine women that I would see on TV or in magazines. Summer Roberts from The OC (Summer was the original Little Miss Vixen!) Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl, Brooke Davis from One Tree Hill; plus Cher, Audrey Hepburn, Christina Aguilera, and Victoria Beckham. I mean I would see all of these characters and women and just want to be exactly like them. I would envision myself showing up as these highly feminine women that were just effortlessly confident and sensual.
So that’s exactly what a Vicsen is: a woman who exudes confidence, sensuality, and femininity. She is timeless, sophisticated, and poised. A Vicsen embodies high standards, she always raises the bar, and women like her don’t come around often. Collection 1 includes 6 pieces that you can wear simply as lingerie, or like I always have as part of my OOTN. My goal is for each woman who wears VTL to take up space and have an energy and presence you don’t just see but feel. And that’s the exact kind of feedback I get from my customers who tell me they wore the pieces out and got complimented all night long!
HG: You also host a podcast, called For The Girls. Give us the rundown — what does the podcast discuss? What makes it different from other podcasts out there?
VA: So one thing about me is that every single one of my businesses and projects encapsulates one brand: confidence and raising the bar. For The Girls is all about stepping into your 2.0 self, demanding more out of life, and refusing to settle for less. Whether we’re talking about dating, business, friendships, boundaries, health, self-love, motherhood, social media, or spirituality, it’s all about how to improve your mindset to recognize how powerful you are and to step into the best version of yourself. Which is literally the driving force behind VTL, my confidence coaching, and my TikTok, anything I touch turns into being about raising your confidence because I feel so passionate about it!
I don’t think I’ve seen many people talk about so many different topics while keeping them all under the same umbrella of one sole purpose. Other hosts will interview all different people just for them to share their story, but for example, I’ll interview someone whose business failed and they had to rebuild, and title that episode “Rebuilding Your Business With Confidence,” because I believe we’re so much more powerful than we realize and can literally do anything we want in this world. If you believe you can start a business from scratch, you will. If you don’t believe you can start again, you won’t. I never wanted to niche down and stick to one thing like dating or business, because then you stick yourself in a hole and it’s really hard to get out of it if you’ve built an audience on one topic and then try to throw a curveball and talk about something else. It won’t resonate the same. My girls love when I talk about dating though – but I can’t give it to them every week!
HG: Tell us something about yourself that we wouldn’t know by looking at your social media.
VA: Probably that the little things and simple things make me happiest. I’m such a homebody. I travel often and I enjoy fashion and working hard so you’ll see all of that on my feed, but most of the time I’m home in sweats rewatching The OC for the millionth time, I’m perfectly content staying in all weekend long with pizza or sushi. Truth be told, I’m really not a huge jet-setter, and I really don’t love hustling.
HG: How, if at all, does living in Hoboken influence your content?
VA: I love shooting photos in Hoboken, especially where I live uptown because all the brownstones are beautiful, and I’m obsessed with my apartment details and molding. It all matches my aesthetic perfectly so the vibes are a huge inspiration. Very classic, timeless, intricate, and charming.
HG: What is one thing about Hoboken that you didn’t know you needed until you moved here?
(Photo Credit: @victoria.alario)
VA: Hoboken is my Hallmark movie town dream come true. I’ve always wanted to live somewhere that’s really homey and has that “feel good” vibe. Christmastime here with the tree lighting uptown by my house is something everyone needs to experience. I remember last year (2021) when I moved here I had no idea about it. I was sitting in my office working and I could hear someone singing Christmas music on a microphone but it sounded like people just having fun and messing around, and after about 15 minutes I went to my bedroom and looked out the window and saw there was literally a mob of people on the corner surrounding the tree. It was the cutest thing ever, and I’ve never seen anything like it other than in Hallmark movies, so this past Christmas (2022) I was fully prepared for it.
HG: What are some of your favorite local businesses? Including:
- Favorite Hoboken restaurant? Grand Vin or Sirenetta!
- Favorite Hoboken boutique? It’s not a clothing boutique, but Luna Rosa is my favorite little store where I spend basically all of my money.
- Favorite workout spot in Hoboken? Project Sculpt!
- Favorite coffee shop? Tosti Cafe is my go-to, crazy enough I’ve never been to The Hive or Mojo but I’ve heard they’re amazing and I need to go!
- Favorite spot for a bagel? Bagels On The Hudson
HG: What does a typical day look like for you?
VA: Mornings are spent on admin work, so I’ll spend that time on the computer. If I have any orders for VTL I’ll package them up, and then I spend my afternoons at Project Sculpt working out so I’ll stop at the post office on the way to ship out my orders. If I get lunch out, I usually go to Tosti, the Madison, or this small spot by me Yeung II for sushi. After I work out is when I get my bigger projects done like recording or editing my podcast, working with my coaching clients, or creating content. On Tuesdays, I take pottery at Blue Skies so I’ll spend my evening there, but otherwise, I like to wrap up work by 7 PM and then spend the rest of the evening watching my shows or a movie.
HG: What challenges have you had to overcome?
VA: Just like with every business, you go through periods of being stagnant, or even dry spells where you feel like no one is interested or paying attention. It’s honestly just the name of the game of entrepreneurship. I have a pretty strong mindset and don’t feel like any challenges over the past 5 years have been detrimental, rather they’ve just been periods where I have to get more creative and find solutions to the problem. It’s really all about confidence!
(Photo Credit: @victoria.alario)
HG: What advice would you give to someone who wants to start their own platform?
VA: Success is not linear and failure is part of the process. A winner is simply a person who failed 10 times and kept going until it worked. A failure is a person who failed once or twice and then quit. You’re not always going to be motivated, so you need to become disciplined. You have to love what you do enough and care enough about your goals, to get up and do it even on your low days when you have no motivation. And lastly, the way you perceive anything in life will determine your reality around that thing. So if you think it’s impossible to build a following, then it will be. If you think the market is oversaturated, then it is. Someone else will take your spot because their perception is that it is possible and that there’s plenty of room. I have a bunch of podcast episodes on these topics, these four come to mind: “Tough Love: Discipline vs. Motivation,” “Failure is Part of the Process. Is Winning Non-Negotiable For You?” “Results or Excuses: You Can’t Have Both,” and “Don’t Quit Until It’s Done.”
HG: What are the next steps for you + your brand?
VA: I’m in the process of launching a group confidence coaching program in addition to my 1:1 coaching because I really want to build a community of women who share the same mission and goals and get them working with me together. The link to the waitlist is here. Speaking of building a community, I just hosted my first event here in Hoboken for my listeners of For The Girls. That’s a huge focus for my podcast this year because even though it’s a ton of fun online, I know the power of taking things offline and building relationships in person. We had a boxing class at Project Sculpt which was a ton of fun, and I have a few ideas of what to do next but always looking for more! So we’ll definitely be doing more things in the area to build that community around here.
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HG: Anything else you want to share about Hoboken, your business, or yourself?
VA: I honestly can’t talk highly enough about Hoboken, it feels like our own little world that people outside of Jersey don’t know about. Maybe the dating scene could be a little better, but it’s still the perfect place for a single woman because it’s super safe and you can’t help but love being here! Walking everywhere is my favorite, the parks are great to relax in, and there are always events and fun things happening to participate in, it’s very easy to be happy here!
You can follow Victoria on Instagram and Tiktok, tune into For the Girls here, and check out VICSEN. We can’t wait to see what’s next for this Hobokenite!
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