About

About Me

Kristen Bradley brings a unique skill set to the high-end event planning industry via a background in finance and an eye for elegance. She plans weddings, corporate events, and parties with a distinctive touch while managing an up-and-coming YouTube channel, The Chic Maven, focused on luxury fashion purchases and styling.

Throughout her career, Bradley has focused on cultivating a purposeful life where her time is her most prized possession. She also advises others to consider time their most valuable asset.

Current Role and Responsibilities

After launching her YouTube channel and associated social media profiles for The Chic Maven in 2021, Kristen Bradley occupied multiple roles.

As the owner of Panache Style, she focuses on floral and event design for various high-end events. While Panache Style is based in Miami, Florida, the company works with personal and corporate clients nationwide and globally to provide elevated experiences. The business provides full floral design, event decor services, and holiday decor installation.

Career History

The wide array of knowledge Bradley brings to The Chic Maven finds its roots in the earliest days of her working career. From high school through early adulthood, she stayed employed with various retailers before transitioning to a career in finance and later owning her own business.

Forever 21 was her first stop as a teen, and she stepped her way up from one role to the next before landing at luxury retailer Neiman Marcus. She was first exposed to high-end and couture brands, such as Chanel, Giorgio Armani, and Yves Saint Laurent.

She still considers Saint Laurent her all-time favorite brand, and she worked for the company independently for a time before phasing out of retail and pursuing her current career as an event designer.

Professional Qualifications and Experience

Fashion

Articulation and presentation help elevate the experience on The Chic Maven's YouTube channel. Kristen Bradley credits pageants with helping her develop confidence and the ability to present herself in the best way possible.

Her experience in luxury fashion shines through with specific tips focused on fashion pairings, how to invest in high-end pieces strategically and on a budget, and how to use personal grooming to complement a look. True hallmarks of professional fashion, such as fit and tailoring, are discussed to help viewers learn how to carry timeless outfits confidently.

Events

Bradley's eye for detail carried over to the event planning industry. She discovered her love of flowers and knack for floral arrangements and design while helping a friend with wedding decorations. She still experiments with unique pairings and staging to help elevate each event produced.

Panache Style started with a focus on weddings and events, but the plan is to limit future weddings to hand-selected high-end occasions and focus on corporate clients. In the past, Bradley has worked on corporate events for Samsung and Capital One and coordinated floral and decor for the Super Bowl events held in Miami in 2020, such as the Legends Event and the NFL Honors Awards.

In the event industry, a professional must prepare for the unexpected and manage vendor needs and demands with clients' expectations while managing a staff of full-time, part-time, and contract workers.

For anyone hesitant about pursuing their dreams, she advises the journey can be difficult, but it is important to overcome any adversity and persevere.

Academic History

Kristen Bradley graduated from the University of Houston with a major in finance. She competed in the extremely demanding Texas pageant circuit through her college years.

Accomplishments and Achievements

The Chic Maven launched as a fashion website in 2020, and Bradley founded a companion YouTube channel in the first quarter of 2021. The channel quickly established a subscriber base and elevated Bradley's social media presence.

While her YouTube channel was experiencing meteoric growth, Bradley's floral business, Panache Style, also experienced a web bump, with floral arrangements from one high-end Miami wedding receiving recognition in a viral video produced for the event.

In 2017, Panache Style received the Best of Weddings award from The Knot, and the company earned a Wedding Wire Couple's Choice Award in 2016 and 2017. Examples of the firm's work are regularly featured in top wedding and design blogs and print publications like Miami Modern Luxury Magazine.

Hobbies

It's unusual to describe a YouTube channel with over 60,000 subscribers as a hobby, but it is a professional outlet for Kristen Bradley's passion, high-end fashion. Through The Chic Maven, she provides unique insights from past careers and personal experiences to help others find new ways to pair existing pieces and invest in timeless options they can keep in their closet and wear for decades.

She delayed starting the channel for years because of Panache Style's demands on her time. Still, she ultimately decided life was short, and it was time to build an audience and a community for fashion discussions.