The woman in New York who was shamed for flaunting her madcap, eccentric outfits says she's 'empowered' by the hate — as backlash against her continues to grow

• A month ago, Kristina Rogers created a TikTok account to post her outfits.
• Twitter users have been resharing her clips this week, ridiculing the eccentricity of her fashion.

A month ago, a woman in New York created a TikTok channel called @subwaysessions to post herself flaunting her daily outfits on the subway. Kristina Avakyan Rogers had been posting her clothing to a private Instagram page for years, and her friends suggested she share it more widely.

"I'm starting my new TikTok page, I don't know where to go from there," Rogers said in one of her first clips. "Who knows, maybe one of my outfits will go viral. Fuck it, no? It might."

In less than a month, one of her outfits did indeed go viral — but not for positive reasons. One of her TikToks was reshared to Twitter this week, where it was viewed over 59 million times — and sparked a fiery debate. Internet users seemed baffled by her look: black undergarments covered by a translucent tan top tucked into sparkling-orange basketball shorts. She also wore pink heels.

"Newyork gotta be a fucking joke," the Twitter user wrote.

The tweet — and other similar posts that aimed to diss Rogers for her style ("addicted to never serving," one person wrote) — have been flooded with equal amounts of ridicule and praise. Her critics say she has no sense of fashion and deliberately dresses haphazardly. "Shorty dressed like she got attacked by a Marshall's clearance rack," one popular tweet said.

All the while, a growing chorus of fans are praising her confidence and inventiveness.

Rogers, who is a bartender and a freelance stylist, told Insider on Wednesday she was "empowered," not hurt, by all the hate. She said she's not sensitive and that she "laughed it off because I'm awesome."

"I'm not afraid to be judged; that's why I post it out there," she said. "I'm not afraid of criticism, like any artist."

While her outfits are curated, Rogers did haphazardly create her TikTok page in early July.

"I was trying to get laid, I didn't get laid, so I was like fuck it, I'm gonna start posting on TikTok," she said.

Rogers' channel now has nearly 21,000 followers with hundreds of thousands of views on each post. Numerous videos feature similarly madcap clothing configurations. She has worn oversized suits over bikinis, furry winter coats over unbuttoned Oxfords with fishnets, and a piercing-red Adidas track jacket with over-the-knee boots. Her opposites-attract and anything-goes style evokes the same genre-shattering attitude as hyperpop- and indie-music artists. Rogers did cite musicians and acts such as Iggy Pop and Nirvana as some of her inspirations.

If her fashion feels like it's randomly thrown together, Rogers said that's partly the point: she wants to create "outrageous looks."

On a core level, she said she's driven by a desire to push boundaries and make people feel things, even if that feeling is discomfort.

"For example, wearing a blanket over my neck: I will do that as a shirt," she said. "I believe that wearing a dress and being beautiful is too easy. Even though I do that from time to time because I'm a woman and I like to be pretty and feminine."

Rogers said it took a while to realize her outfits were going viral since she isn't on Twitter, but she's thankful for the newfound attention, even if people were making fun of her.

"All of a sudden, it got attention, the one that actually looked the most ridiculous," she said of her now-infamous lace-on-basketball-shorts look. "I love it, but at the same time, I'm like, really, this one? This one got attention?"

While backlash toward her personal style has subsided, a new, more serious wave of criticism is mounting on Twitter. In an interview with The Cut on Wednesday, Rogers said she is comforted by the fact that she lives in the Lower East Side and not Queens or Harlem "where people don't understand" her vision. Internet users have said sentiments like this are "dog whistles" for racism because of Queens' ethnic diversity and Harlem's long-standing status as a historically Black neighborhood.

"LES is one of the most gentrified neighborhoods in NYC and to basically admit to never leaving.. feels.. off.. idk," one person tweeted.

When reached about these criticisms, Rogers told Insider in a text message she should have "worded it differently."

"That never crossed my mind," she said. "I understand that I should've maybe worded it differently. I used to live in Harlem — on 111th and Adam Clayton Powell. I used to work in Harlem! I love Harlem!"