The Founder of Girlscarryingshit on Building Instagram's Most Unlikely Community
We speak to Halle Robbe to find out more about the viral IG account and working with Nike.
Girls carrying sh-t isn’t necessarily the image that comes to mind when you think about building community, but somehow, that’s exactly what it’s done. The Instagram account was founded by Halle Robbe back in 2021 and has since amassed almost half a million followers, resulting in a community of like-minded women bound by their “superior grip.”
A few years into its launch, Robbe’s teamed up with Nike as part of its Studio Fleece campaign, featuring seven next-generation voices across fashion and culture. Each embodying different archetypes like the Documentarian, the Nomad and the Tastemaker, the cast reimagines Nike’s signature fleece through their own unique lens.
As for Robbe’s involvement, Nike tapped the founder to create a series of bespoke objects for each character, inspired by who they are and how they express it through the pieces they carry.
We caught up with Robbe to find out more about the story behind girlscarryingshit, working with Nike and how she plans to evolve her idea of community.
Read on for the full interview.
Tell us a bit about the story behind girlscarryingshit, how did it start, and what was the aim?
I used Tumblr excessively as a teenager, which helped me develop an eye for “oddly satisfying,” candid imagery and an interest in social justice. I’m also kind of camera shy; I think the things I notice & the photos I take of them are a better representation of who I am than photos of me. One thing I noticed repeatedly — especially after I moved to NYC and was walking everywhere — that really scratched an itch was women & girls carrying shit.
I liked trying to guess where they were going or what they were doing based on what was in their hands, and was inspired by all the different configurations they came up with to get their shit from place to place. One day I caught myself doing it (two Red Bulls, keys, phone, wallet, headphones) and posted a picture of it to my personal Instagram story where I had maybe 700 followers, with a caption similar to GCS’ bio. My friends swiped up like “I do this, too!” and I made the account that day. I started by posting pictures of myself and my friends, then friends-of-friends started submitting, then friends-of-friends-of-friends, and so on. My aim was just to see how far I could take it and what I could do with it the bigger it got. Specifically, how I could use it to help other women, girls, and non-men, which I think is what I was put here to do.
Almost half a million followers is pretty impressive. Did you ever anticipate it would turn into the community it did?
Thank you, and yes! I was a fan of accounts that were based on hyperfixations over a single, mundane aspect of life, so I knew there was an audience for something like this. Everything — accepting submissions vs. taking all the photos myself, the lack of faces but use of names/tags, the lists of objects in the caption, etc. — was an intentional choice to create a sense of community between non-men & to grow that community. But it’s not just about aesthetics, which I think is what’s given it longevity. People come for the photos, but stay for what they represent, which is the deeper, intersectional inequality that women face and which I’m trying to chip away at with GCS, utilizing the platform I’ve built and the resources I’ve garnered through that platform.
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What’s been the most unique submission you’ve had to date?
I’ve said it before, but I think the reigning champ for me is still the girl who submitted her freshly-cut ponytail held in her fist and a speeding ticket.
Now, you’ve just teamed up with Nike for its new Studio Fleece campaign. How did that partnership come about?
For this campaign, Nike featured community leaders who are utilizing their platforms to make an impact in Nike. Not only to amplify each person’s individual mission, but also to inspire others to make an impact themselves. You don’t have to wear a suit or use fancy equipment to make an impact; you can wear a good hoodie and use whatever fits in your hands.
The people featured in the lookbook are prime examples of those working in their respective fields, but they’re also symbols to others of what they could become and how we can each make an impact, starting within our communities. Nike partnered with me because that’s my mission: to inspire others to make an impact, using the tools at their disposal (while looking aesthetic, of course).
What can you tell us about your involvement in the campaign, and the process behind it?
I came up with the archetypes, wrote their descriptions, and determined what props to use to convey them visually. They also asked me to be one of the subjects, which was very meta, but very fun. My process involved a lot of internet stalking to get to “know” everyone else’s public-facing personas, then distilling what I’d learned into tangible objects.
The prop list ended up being a combination of things I’d seen each person carry in their Instagram photos, things I assumed they would be carrying just out of frame (ex., The Nomad was a biker, so I assumed she’d have a bike lock & a helmet), and practical things I know people carry from my 5+ years of daily photo study. Then, Nike flew me out to London to physically prop-style each shot. That was probably my favorite part, because that’s one of the aspects I’m the pickiest about when it comes to shooting or selecting photos for GCS: making sure the objects are being held in a way that feels simultaneously organic and aesthetically pleasing.
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What was your favourite object that you created and why?
It’s a cop out, but they were each my favorite for different reasons. America’s arrangement was the most fun, physically, because there were so many long objects to whip around (see my personal page for BTS of me swinging them around in the office to find the best pose); Romaisa’s involved iterations of the same object (cameras) that all needed to be handled in different ways, which is a recurring type of GCS image that I always find satisfying to arrange.
Miriam’s had the most feminist slant, which — balancing what anyone would need to go on the road with what women, specifically, have to equip ourselves with for our safety — is something I wish I could convey in every image; all of the objects Aya was carrying were something I’d literally seen her carry and she even brought the ones she actually uses, which scratched my eternal itch for authenticity; and the image of myself holds a special place in my heart because it’s a recreation of the first handful of “shit” I ever posted, that started it all.
What have you carried today and what does it say about you?
Today I kept it light and carried myself, keys, wallet, headphones, and a cup of coffee to the GCS studio so I could do some work. It’s the weekend, so that probably says I’m a workaholic (true).
Finally, how do you see the community evolving?
I recently announced the GCS Studio, which is a 900 sq ft space in Brooklyn, with the intention of creating a third space for the GCS community. The plan is for non-men to use it for creative projects, educational programming, and events — either at cost, in exchange for a barter of goods/services, or (depending on the project) even for free. So many good ideas never come to fruition due to a lack of resources. I want the GCS Studio to help close that gap and give non-men a springboard to achieving their dreams, the way GCS has been a springboard for mine.
