Rags-to-riches influencer wears $5 gown to Grammy pre-party

She looked like a million dollars – in a $5 dress.

Influencer Sarah Pearl, who grew up in Bensonhurst, hoped to attend Fashion Week one day — and for the first time this year, she succeeded.

To prepare for her trip to the Big Apple, the current Los Angeles resident packed a bunch of her mother’s clothes — and a bright orange $5 dress she bought on sale at a Santa Monica boutique — that she wore to the ceremony. the Grammy Awards. – a party last month.

“Everyone comes to these fashion shows dressed in the front row as designers, wearing Prada, Gucci,” Pearl, 22, told The Post.

“And everyone walks around with a microphone …“ Who is on you? And I’m like, “Zara… and I’m going to bring it back tomorrow.” I’m just like that.”

In her youth, Pearl has always worn second-hand clothes and cannot break the habit of buying cheap and used clothes.

“Growing up, fashion was never my thing because I just couldn’t afford clothes,” she said in a TikTok video she posted during Fashion Week.

However, she now has the means to fill her wardrobe with luxury brands. She makes $40,000 a month, mostly from selling her pre-recorded lessons, which are based on the belief that your thoughts create your reality.

Her online journey to success began in November 2020 when she was a college sophomore, dual majoring in education and history. She started a page on TikTok under the name HotHigh Priestess, where she read tarot cards.

In just a year, she had 1 million subscribers. Now more than 2 million

“The first videos I posted got millions of views instantly. It was… absolutely unreal,” she explained.

A so-called spiritual leader, she instills in others “the belief that they can achieve more, they can achieve anything, despite the circumstances.”

“Because, you know, given the way I grew up… this story that I was always fed was a story of struggle… People like you don’t survive,” she said. “So my goal has always been to show people that they can survive because I did it.”

She first left Brooklyn to attend a prestigious university in the Boston area with the help of financial aid, loans, and two jobs.

“I was going to college with so many rich people… and I was in a program that was literally for poor kids. And I just looked at these kids who were getting paid for college when I was thousands of dollars in debt,” she recalls. “My parents didn’t even pay for my textbooks.”

Her legion of loyal social media followers include people from her Title I high school.

“In fact, just recently I got a message from a girl in my high school who said, ‘You know, I don’t even think you understand how much we needed to hear this story,'” she said.

Even those who once mocked her lend a helping hand.

“There are people from the past who mocked me and said, “Oh, I love you,” she said. “And I’m like, ‘Well, that’s funny.'”