Signature Style With Digital Creator Jordan Turner

Jordan Turner hates the word “influencer”. Instead, he prefers using “digital content producer” to describe his unorthodox fashion career, which began in 2015 with the Mr Turner fashion blog and Instagram account.

Today, he presides over a highly engaged community of 20,000 fashion lovers and works with high-fashion brands like Prada and Dior on collection drops, sharing his favourite styles via Instagram or producing magazine-style editorials for his website.

Telling stories through fashion
He always knew he wanted to work in fashion. “When I was four years old, I wanted to be a fashion designer,” says Turner, who remembers sketching wedding dresses spotted in shop windows as a child. Mr Turner is a platform where he can combine his many passions: “bringing an idea or concept to life and then producing it, directing it, styling the clothes, modelling them, being the photographer, the videographer, editing all that and bringing it all together in a story.”

When he’s not immersed in fashion, he’s working at Gertrude & Alice, the renowned Bondi bookshop his mother established 20 years ago. “My sister and I bought into the business two years ago,” Turner says. “It’s one of the most humbling things I’ve ever done. I go from shooting runway pieces from Christian Dior straight from fashion week in Paris, and I walk into the bookshop and my mum’s there going, ‘You’re half an hour late.’ It keeps me very grounded.”

Variety is key
In a typical workday, Turner splits his time between the bookshop and his fashion commitments, relying on his Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 to ensure this juggling act works smoothly. “Let’s say I start work at Gertrude & Alice at 6.30 in the morning,” he says, “I’m running through the bookshop, making orders or notes on my Surface about things I need to order, and then checking our e-commerce platform to see what orders have been placed online and getting all those ready.” Next, he might pack his Surface in his bag and run to an agency go-see, reviewing the collection lookbook on the way. If he’s shooting later in the day, he can load the images straight to his computer and edit them in real time. “It’s so easy,” he says. “It’s the perfect computer to have on the go.”

Turner acknowledges that it’s a hectic work schedule, but he loves the variety. “I get bored easily,” he says. He also makes downtime a priority. “As a Libra, I always try to fit in at least a couple of hours of personal stuff each day; otherwise, I’d go absolutely mad. I’m a big believer in balance. I try to read books or listen to music each day.”

Searching for inspiration
Music is a major source of inspiration for Turner, who makes time each week to listen to new releases from artists he loves on Spotify. He also regularly returns to favourite albums that send him into a creative flow: Solange’s When I Get Home and A Seat at the Table, Take Me Apart by Kelela, Words and Sounds, Vol 1 by Jill Scott, and London Grammar’s If You Wait. “These are the key ones that I always go back to and listen start to finish if I’m ever needing something to spark joy.”

Turner also loves 1950s films such as Rear Window and Dial M for Murder – both starring Grace Kelly, one of Turner’s idols. “She is stunning; her style was impeccable,” he says. Kelly appears in a new book Turner recently read, The Barbizon by Paulina Bren. “You get to hear about her before she became famous,” he says. “She was quite a nerdy girl and wore big-rimmed glasses.”

Turner’s style cues come from similarly diverse sources: 1960s French workwear, contemporary Manhattan, New York edge and Parisian confidence. Tying it all together, he says, is silhouette. In 1960s fashion, “the clothes would be oversized, but the cinched waist would bring everything together.

“I love that silhouette.”

Style can be fluid
Turner believes “style is your identity and self-expression”. His own style varies from day to day. “I couldn’t pinpoint it in one word,” he says. “Some days I wake up feeling like Jay Z, and I’m wearing my favourite Nike Airs and I’ve got basketball shorts on... and the next day I wake up feeling like a sartorial gentleman, and there’ll be a heavy tailoring element.”

Creating your own style requires a strong sense of self-belief, says Turner. “Being confident and strong and knowing who you are and what your brand is – people will see that and want to be part of your story.”

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Microsoft Surface to launch the new Laptop 4. It’s designed for the worker on the go: long battery life, an ultra-thin and lightweight design, touchscreen capabilities, immersive studio quality sound and HD video calls. It's stylish too - think of it as a very functional accessory. Find out more.