EmilyAnne Skinner wore burnt orange every day that she hiked in Sequoia National Park and Yosemite in California last summer.
“I saw 20 people in Yosemite that were like, ‘Hook ’em Horns! I went there too!’” says Skinner, a proud University of Texas alumna and staff member.
No matter where she is in the world, Skinner will start a conversation with someone if they are wearing burnt orange. She was already known for her love of burnt orange fashion within Texas Development, where she is the executive director. But in June 2023 she decided to take her passion a step further and create Burnt Orange Buys, an Instagram account where she finds and shares burnt orange clothing and accessories with thousands of followers.
Born and raised in Austin, Skinner graduated from the University in 2005 and worked in public relations in Washington, D.C., and New York for a few years before moving back to Austin. Here, she began her work in fundraising after starting a nonprofit with some friends. Skinner was drawn to any burnt orange clothing she spotted in New York because it was so much harder to find that perfect color match years ago. She started wearing it regularly after beginning work at the University.
“I wear burnt orange almost every day,” Skinner says. “Now when people see if I’m wearing a blue dress, they’re like, ‘What are you doing?’”
Texas Development, the University’s fundraising program, expanded several years ago with a lot of new hires, and the current employees kept referring them to Skinner for help on finding burnt orange for game day and work events. Skinner realized she should start a platform to share her burnt orange finds with everyone.
“I’ve literally just been flying by the seat of my pants,” she says.
To get approved for the online influencer marketing platform LTK, a way to monetize the account, she needed a certain number of followers and engagement. She stuck to a schedule of twice-daily posts and aimed to get 5,000 followers in her first year. After surpassing that, she has set her next goal at 10,000 by year two. She posts every day featuring items for women, men and children, as well as accessories and home goods.
“I’m hopeful to continue to grow it, but at this point I don’t necessarily view it as a business,” Skinner says. “I started this to have my creative outlet and to help other people.”
A majority of the clothes she shares are pieces that Skinner orders and keeps for herself, but sometimes she posts things she sees online or items that people send her. Skinner enjoys tying in Longhorn companies too, such as a recent post highlighting Poncho Outdoors, a company started by one of her former classmates at UT.
“I’m still figuring it out as I go, but it’s been a really fun process, too,” Skinner says. “It’s connected me with a lot of people that I didn’t know before, or people that I did and reconnected on this.”
She celebrated her 15-year anniversary of working at UT on Jan. 10. “Not many people my age or younger stay at jobs for this long,” Skinner says. “I was so lucky I found my dream job and what I wanted to do forever in my 20s.”
Skinner started her work in Texas Development as a special gift officer focusing on raising gifts of $50,000 and up, and she’s been promoted over time to now oversee a team running student success fundraising and the Texas Challenge initiative. About six years ago, she identified scholarship funding as the role she loved most because of its direct impact on students.
“There’s a lot of students that have a lot of difficulty on our campus,” Skinner says. “When you’re asking somebody to pay 30 grand a year to come here, it’s a tall order. Any way that we can make it an easier lift or give somebody access — that’s the thing that motivates me to keep going.”
I’ve always said, cut me open and I bleed burnt orange.
Skinner has raised over $200 million for the University since she started in development, and although she’s not able to write the big checks herself, she donates directly from her paycheck to University scholarship programs every month. With Burnt Orange Buys, she wants to one day do even more.
The minimum amount needed to endow a scholarship at the University is $50,000, which can be paid over five years. Burnt Orange Buys is a long way off from making that kind of profit, but Skinner hopes that someday she can grow the account enough and use it to connect with University alumni to make that scholarship possible.
“If there’s any profit in it, that’s what I would want it to go to,” she says.
While burnt orange pride isn’t exclusive to sports, Skinner says, she hopes the University’s recent success in so many sports will bring more attention to the account and to the University.
“I’ve always said, cut me open and I bleed burnt orange.”
