Style with Substance: Kerry Washington's Empowering Fashion Brand

Kerry Washington is a hardworking and talented actress and there is no denying she has a great sense of fashion. Many people knew her through her role in the Scandal drama series aired from 2012 to 2018.

In the series, Kerry played Olivia Pope and the role opened her doors to new entrepreneurial opportunities, including a new clothing line.

Before the clothing store The Limited closed all its stores, the company collaborated with Kerry and Scandal’s costume designer Lyn Paolo on a collection inspired by the Shonda Rhimes series.

“It's been really fun to have a voice at every stage of the production from picking buttons, choosing fabrics, and weighing in on hair and makeup people," Kerry told Elle at the time. "Being an actor who has worn fashion and being somebody who is a fixture on red carpets, I have been able to pull from every level of my experience, including working with magazines."

The collection ranged in price from $49 to $242, and featured pieces for the businesswoman who wanted to channel her inner Olivia Pope. It is no surprise that the collection was a hit, and it was not the last time Kerry brought the fashion.

While promoting her memoir, Thicker Than Water, in 2023, Kerry made fashion statement after fashion statement.

In London, she wore an all-beige Michael Kors ensemble, and in NYC she rocked knee-high green leather boots with a printed dress and boyfriend blazer, that screamed Olivia Pope with some edge.

Kerry credits her stylist Erin Walsh for her fashion, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “We’re very collaborative. I feel like we were fashion twins separated at birth. We come up with stories for a particular season or a particular press tour.”

Kerry Washington uses her platforms to let her fans know everything is possible. She has maintained a strong fashion sense for decades and inspires others to do what makes them feel beautiful — and ignoring the noise.

"If I let other people decide what success looks like then I'm going to spend my whole life going after somebody else's dreams," she told Harper’s Bazaar. "For me, what's most important about success is labelling it as something that I can control and achieve.... When I make it about something that's in my zone of responsibility – like how hard I worked, how nice I was, how faithful I was in the process – those are things I can control. I like to be able to have some say about what success is and whether or not I have achieved it."