She looked like a million dollars — in a $5 dress.
Influencer Sarah Perl, who grew up in Bensonhurst, hoped to one day attend Fashion Week — and did for the first time this year.
To prepare for her trip to the Big Apple, the now-Los Angeles resident packed a bunch of her mother’s clothes — and a bright orange $5 dress she bought on the clearance rack at a boutique in Santa Monica— which she wore to a Grammys pre-party last month.
“Everyone comes to these fashion shows, front row in like designer, decked out in Prada, Gucci,” Perl, 22, told The Post.
“And everyone’s walking around with the microphone … ‘Who are you wearing?’ And I’m like, ‘Zara … and I’m gonna return it tomorrow.’ That’s just who I am.”
Perl always wore hand-me-downs in her youth, and can’t shake the habit of buying cheap and second-hand outfits.
“Growing up, fashion was never my thing, because I just couldn’t afford clothes,” she said in a TikTok video she posted during Fashion Week.
However, she now has the means to fill her closet with luxury brands. She earns $40,000 a month, mainly from selling her pre-recorded classes, which are based on the belief that your thoughts create your reality.
Her online road to success started in November 2020, when she was a college sophomore double-majoring in education and history. She started a TikTok page under the name HotHigh Priestess, doing tarot card readings.
In just one year, she had 1 million followers. Now it’s more than 2 million.
“The first videos I posted instantly got millions of views. It was … absolutely unreal,” she explained.
A so-called spiritual influencer, she gives others “the belief that they can achieve more, they can accomplish anything despite their circumstances.”
“Because, you know, given the way I grew up … this story that I was always fed was one of struggle … People like you don’t make it out,” she said. “So it’s always been my goal to show people that they can make it out because I did.”
She first left Brooklyn to attend a prestigious university in the Boston area, with the help of financial aid, taking out loans, and working two jobs.
“I was going to college with so many rich people … and I was in a program, it was literally for poor kids. And I was just looking at these kids who were getting college paid for when I was going thousands of dollars in debt,” she recalled. “My parents didn’t even pay for my textbooks.”
Her legion of loyal social media followers include people from her Title I high school.
“I actually just recently got a message from a girl from my high school who was like, ‘You know, I don’t even think you understand how much we needed to hear this story,’” she said.
Even the ones who once bullied her reach out in support.
“There’s people from the past who used to bully me and are like, ‘Oh, I love you,’” she said. “And I’m like, ‘Well, that’s funny.’”
By: Ny Post
