Chase Stokes Reveals How Girlfriend Kelsea Ballerini Influenced His Style: ‘She’s Very Honest’

The morning after the Met Gala—following a pizza feast on the floor of a glitzy Carlyle Hotel suite in the wee hours, as documented on his girlfriend’s Instagram— Chase Stokes was up at 5 am ready to be back at work at 7:45. No rest for the wicked, huh? “I wish there was,” he says.

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The Outer Banks star and Kelsea Ballerini made their debut at the annual Costume Institute’s fundraiser wearing Michael Kors. For Stokes, events such as this are an opportunity to showcase a “heightened version” of himself, though not without its challenges. “As somebody who definitely battles social anxiety, it’s an overwhelming experience more times than not, but it’s an opportunity to push that barrier for myself and say like, ‘Hey, have fun with it,’” he reflects.

Day-to-day, though, his choice of attire is whatever’s easiest to get on and off for the sake of changing into costume; “a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt or a tank top and flip-flops and running to work to put on an entirely different set of clothes,” he says. However, he notes that his relationship with Ballerini has provided somewhat of a vetting process. “She’s very honest with me if I put on an outfit that I should not be wearing in public, which I’m very appreciative of because sometimes I will just grab whatever’s closest,” he says, chuckling.

“So sometimes on the weekend when we’re having a little time to ourselves, she’ll be like, ‘Hey honey, let’s maybe not do sweatpants today.’” He continues, “She has to turn it on and off so often and put something on that’s elegant and beautiful and we’re both such creatures of wanting to sit at home with the dogs.”

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In addition to his adventures in high fashion, Stokes has lent his hand at design by partnering with affordable eyewear line, Zenni, for a collection of 35 unisex frames just in time for summer. He’s needed to wear glasses for the past six years, recalling that “it used to be a running joke with my friends that I could never drive at night, and it was because I couldn’t see street signs.” It eventually prompted him to get his vision checked.

For anyone who grew up in the early to mid-2000s—Stokes and this writer included—glasses earned nowhere near the kind of style points they do now. It was quite the opposite. “I’m such a sensitive human being,” he says, reflecting that some jokes about his eyesight hurt his confidence. “But I think growing and figuring out what glasses work with the shape of my face and all that, it’s a journey,” he says.

It doesn’t take much time to understand that authenticity is at the heart of what Stokes sets out to achieve, personally and professionally. “Being somebody who is able to hold a conversation with any and everybody and be malleable to the world, while also being sturdy in your beliefs and I have translated that, in a career sense, of wanting to make art that I feel like everybody can enjoy,” he says. Seeing the road clearly in front of him—literally and otherwise—is just the beginning.