The 28 year old Frédérique Tietcheu, or Freddie as her friends call her, was born in Paris. But for the past few years she’s been calling vibrant London her home. Two years ago Freddie started her fashion blog I go by Frankie. But why Frankie, you ask?

“My friends all call me Freddie, but somehow other people had a hard time remembering my name. ‘What’s her name again? I think it’s a boy’s name, starting with an F. Must be Frankie!’ So people started to call me Frankie. I liked this sort of second identity, it was a bolder version of myself.”

So we can say that Freddie has her own Sasha Fierce kind of thing going on. And with this alter ego, she has been delighting us with spunky fashionable looks, wittily written experiences and a radiant smile.

    

The bigger the better
If you follow Freddie on social media, you know that she can rock a fro like no other. But she didn’t always style her hair like this. “I used to straighten my hair, but for the past five years I’ve been wearing my afro. When I walk into a room, I often forget I have this big hair that stands out.”

Although, the natural hair movement is now in full effect, for Freddie this hairstyle has nothing to do with a ‘hair journey’. It just fits her personality and style. To give her fro some extra volume, Freddie doesn’t shy away from throwing in a clip-in or two. The bigger, the better! To maintain her style she likes to keep it simple with a couple of favorite product lines. “Because I am a blogger I have access to a lot of products, but I am not a product junkie. I love using Sheamoisture and Mizani on my hair.”

Bold, colorful Fashion

Freddie can teach us a thing or two about mixing and matching patterns and bold colors. She is often seen in the most colorful ensembles, with a tomboy kind of touch. “When I just came to London I had a more conservative style than I had in Paris. People here don’t care, they dress however they want. This inspired me so much. When I just came here, I worked in Digital Marketing at ASOS, later on I went to Topshop. I was constantly surrounded by fashion and I always had the opportunity to go to sample sales and get a lot of clothes for a good price. That made me try a lot of different styles. I started to mix things together. Slowly my personal style started to evolve.”

Freddie’s blog, www.igobyfrankie.com, started out as a place where she could share these fun looks and her personal stories. Eventually her blog turned into a true portfolio. So after working at Topshop, the people at ASOS fell in love with her looks and hired her again, but this time as a stylist.

“I didn’t have any training to become a stylist. I really don’t think that you need that. Styling is a personal thing. I see it as buying a car. If you like Mercedes, you go to a Mercedes dealer. People come to me, because they like what I do. They like the idea of freedom around it. I want to bring out the personality of that person and talk about how can we unleash it.”

SHE Unleashed

After seven months of working as a stylist, Freddie felt that doing styling alone wasn’t fulfilling. She is a true feminist at heart and passionate about helping women become their true self. So in May 2015 she launched her own company called SHE Unleashed. With SHE Unleashed, she helps women claim back their power and confidence, by combining style and empowerment coaching.

“SHE Unleashed came very naturally. I wanted to do something with more substance than styling alone. My boyfriend (soon to be husband!) told me that I was always coaching people. So I thought, I should do something with that. Women are constantly trying to fit in. In the past, ladies came to me with questions and remarks like: ‘I am thirty, I need to change the way I dress. How can I do that?’ or ‘I want to look sexy…’ etcetera, etcetera. As I noticed this, I said: No! Don’t try to fit into someone else’s box. Use fashion as a tool to claim yourself back and fully be who you are. SHE Unleashed was born from this observation.” 

“Don’t use fashion to fit in. Use it to express who you are.”

        

Freddie points out that even in 2015 women have to fight against gender stigma. We are restrained. “As women we are told to be the soft and sensible, the reasonable, the nice, the lovely, the caring… So we are constantly in battle with ourselves. We have to break those gender barriers. We have so much potential, but we often don’t realize that. So we have to step outside this box and and check who we really are, what we can do and what we can achieve.”

While helping other women become their confident and unleashed self, Freddie says that she also has to remind herself to be confident as well. “I wouldn’t say that I am always completely confident now. But I am a better friend to myself. Growing up I was really shy and I always felt weird. Now I tell tell myself: ‘Don’t be afraid, don’t be shy, you are here to share your vision.’ I am constantly reminding myself of this. As women we, should do this more consistently and we should celebrate ourselves more. We have to treat ourself as our own best friend.”

I couldn’t agree with her more. Therefore, to me Freddie is not only CERTIFIED STYLISH, but also inspiring. The journey of becoming your empowered self can be quite scary, but most of all it is liberating. This past year, I learned that in order to fully be myself and reach my full potential, I need to dig deep and push myself more. That sometimes means you have to get uncomfortable to be comfortable. But…I also learned not to be too hard on myself. We often are our own worse critic. Balance is key, right?

Besides cool fashion posts, Freddie also has some great videos that can help you become the ’empowered you’. These videos are candid and fun to watch. So if you want to work on being your unleashed self (and be stylish while doing so), check the videos below.

Until the next post!