Pursuing Marketing, Entrepreneurship at Whitman Gave Social Media Influencer Business Savvy to Succeed in Fashion

Take out your skinny jeans and pop on the polka dots—as well as ruffles, studs, micro shorts, and preppy classics like Oxford shirts and cable knit sweaters. Just ask Hannah Krohne ’24. Or, better yet, catch her on social media, and she’ll tell you all about the latest in fashion in the posts she puts up every day, dressed to perfection at trendy restaurants, fashion pop-up events and iconic New York City locations.

Originally from Indiana, Krohne instantly fell in love with Syracuse University. She was always interested in fashion but never wanted to be a designer. Instead, she says she “loves fashion in the psychological sense,” like why people choose the clothes they do,  understanding why certain fashion choices catch on while others don’t, and learning how to apply analytics to human behavior. For this reason, she decided to study business, not fashion, and enrolled in the Whitman School of Management with a double major in marketing and entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises (EEE).

While at Whitman, she started making a name for herself on social media. Her friends had always told her she had great clothes, and she liked to talk about fashion. So, in her sophomore year, Krohne decided to start posting on TikTok (@hannahlizzy_), which was becoming incredibly popular at the time. Soon, she was posting four times a day, detailing her outfits and accessories, as well as the places she wore them.

“Social media is a lot about convincing people that you have something important to say and putting together enough content so that eventually something hits and goes viral,” Krohne explains of the more than 425,000 followers she has today across channels.  

“I’m an entrepreneur, and I’m marketing myself as a brand,” she says. “I appreciate that my Whitman professors always took me seriously and never wrote me off as just a girl who liked wearing pretty clothes. I’ve applied so much of what I learned at Whitman, like the benefits of forming an LLC, how to read marketing studies on consumer behavior and using analytics, to benefit my brand. All in all, I learned how to make a living doing what I love, and so much of that came from Whitman.”

Over the summer before her senior year, Krohne interned as a celebrity styling assistant for Danielle & Alix, a company that dresses high profile clients. In the spring of senior year, she was offered a full-time job as an assistant digital merchandiser and social media strategist for ASOS.com, an online store for premium clothing brands, which put her in New York City after graduation. Just recently, she made the move from full-time to part-time at ASOS, as she has begun to make a profit from her personal brand.

“I’m my own boss, but I’m a really difficult boss to have!” she says, noting that it takes a lot of self-discipline to post multiple times a day, create relevant content, research what’s happening on the runway, attend events and be intentional about looking around to see what catches her eye in the city of New York. But, it’s something that has become ingrained in her.

“Fashion is part intuition. I see something, and I just know. But, that’s only some of it. The other part is having the confidence to tell my followers what I think in an authentic way that keeps them coming back,” she says.

Whitman also taught her another vital lesson: the importance of diversification. This has become critical given the recent controversy surrounding TikTok’s use in the U.S. While Krohne has a heavy following on TikTok, she recently upped her presence on YouTube (@hannahkrohne) and Instagram (@hannahlizzy_), so her followers can always find her.

Whether it’s a post about what she’s wearing for a Saturday night at the latest Manhattan club or showing off chic loungewear for working at home, Krohne is busier than ever as she becomes more widely known in fashion. In February, she attended New York Fashion Week, and recently Krohne was mentioned in an InStyle article about how Gen Z has brought the classic Coach brand back. She also was invited to attend the grand opening of AVA Resorts in Cancun, Mexico, with fashion brand REVOLVE.

“I’m sure I would have done something in fashion had I stayed in Indiana, but I don’t think I would have ended up in New York City if not for going to Syracuse,” she says. “Besides a Whitman education, it’s been all the extra things—going abroad for a semester in Barcelona and taking side trips to Paris and Milan; leveraging the outstanding alumni connections, particularly in New York City; having the guidance and support to be brave enough to take the next steps. It’s been a dream to see my brand grow and start making a living at this, and the Whitman School has helped me in so many ways.”

By Caroline K. Reff