HOME & DESIGN

VERY VINTAGE

Elise Fox describes her design aesthetic and how it led to her having over 100,000 followers on Instagram

BY VALERIE HARDY PHOTOGRAPHY BY CAROLINA MENAPACE

Over 100,000 people follow Elise Fox on Instagram (@thefoxfamilyden), but she did not set out to become a highly visible social media content creator. Rather, when construction began on Fox’s Downers Grove home in 2018, she set up an Instagram account separate from her personal one simply to document updates on the house for herself, family, and friends.

However, when Fox, her husband, and their two sons moved into the home in 2019, she kept the Instagram account going. “It was a hobby of a thing, and then it became something else entirely,” Fox said.

Fox attributes her significant following, especially early on, in large part to her home’s exterior. “It is very memorable,” Fox said. “It has been shared a ton,” including by wellknown interior designer and lifestyle influencer Becki Owens.

While Fox herself is not a professional interior designer, people really responded to her sense of style. As the momentum of her following grew, Fox began to receive products from various brands and realized her Instagram account might, in fact, be professionally lucrative.

She started adding hashtags to her posts and sought out others with home interior design accounts. “Meeting that community was massively influential to my growth,” Fox said.

Fox’s background also helped. She worked in operations prior to starting her family and “knew the guts of business,” she said, describing social media influencers as outsourced advertising departments for brands.

While Fox continues to feature home design trends, she has shifted to broader lifestyle content. Her posts are “a bit entertainment, a bit tipsharing, whether it’s design or baking or whatever,” Fox explained.

Lately, she has enjoyed sharing about clothing, flowers, and plants over furniture. “I have an indoor tree in my backyard that I’m trying to get healthy,” Fox said, noting how helpful it has been to crowdsource tips about this and other gardening-related matters from her followers.

Fox is willing to go beneath the surface with her content too. She has a degree in social policy and does not shy away from posts of political nature. She also shares her struggles with anxiety, even when it is uncomfortable, because it is important to her to normalize

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mental health concerns. Fox said she also intentionally shares her “messy house… and wild children a lot. I try to portray that things here aren’t balanced or clean.”

This is what makes Fox relatable to so many. Yet Fox was quick to point out: “I’m not for everyone. It is impossible to please everyone.”

Fox sincerely appreciates her social media success, but notes that it comes with some strings attached. For example, “People have ‘met’ me before they’ve met me,” Fox said. “All of my neighborhood friends knew me before I knew them.”

Another challenge Fox faced is finding the balance between her family and her work. Being a social media content creator “can take over your life. You’re on your phone all day, and it can become something so unhealthy,” Fox said.

Getting swept up in the numbers game can be problematic also, Fox added. “I try not to pay too much attention to likes on a post or number of followers…but that’s not to say I wasn’t really excited when I hit 100,000 followers.” ■

ELISE FOX IN HER KITCHEN