Amy Sexton is the city’s newest lifestyle influencer, and she wants to share her good fortune with everyone

Amy Sexton lives a luxe life, and she’s inviting everyone in the world to follow along. Many already do. Her Instagram account, @AmyPlusJoe, boasts over 34,000 followers, and she racks up thousands of views on TikTok, too.

There’s no lack of content — or eye candy. She and husband Joe split their time between two Architectural Digest-worthy homes, a primary waterfront residence in Fort Worth and a vacation spot in Southern California that’s cantilevered off a cliff overlooking the ocean. Sexton attends New York Fashion Week and commissions couture from designers like Christian Siriano. Her apartment-sized closets feature walls of mirrored cabinets and show shelves punctuated by artfully arranged vignettes of designer bags. The reel she shared on social media of her enormous marble bathtub in California, topped with a retractable glass roof and offering expansive ocean views, has received over 7.5 million plays on Instagram alone.

While the internet loves to hate, people aren’t coming to Amy Sexton’s grid to gripe. When viewers comment, compliments flow. Heart and fire emojis are common, as are questions, which Sexton always finds time to answer.

What makes Sexton so relatable? She does relatable things, of course, like doting on her husband and figuring out what to wear to go out for dinner. But what sets her apart from other affluent influencers might come down to the authenticity and gratitude that infuse her online identity, starting with her Instagram bio. The first line following
@AmyPlusJoe is “AMY’S LOVE STORY,” followed by “Living my Blessed Life.”

It’s also very clear that Sexton doesn’t take a single aspect of her life for granted. She’s also very forthright about her faith. It’s all part of how she came to be in this rarified space in the first place.

Twelve years ago, Sexton was a single mother in Colleyville. She may not have had her own tennis court back then, but she says she still felt rich thanks to her faith, family and friends. She loved her job as a high school varsity volleyball coach and athletic director, and her daughter was heading to college, bound for medical school. She had even built her dream home, decorating it exactly the way she wanted thanks to savvy shopping and serious DIY. After surviving a toxic marriage, she had leaned into living her best life, joyfully and joyfully alone, as she says she was in no hurry for another relationship.

That’s when she met Joe.

She and her best friend had just wrapped up a school athletic banquet, and they decided to grab a drink together at Bob’s Steak & Chop House in Grapevine. They sat down at the bar, and Joe happened to be sitting next to them. In the spirit of fun, Sexton leaned over and asked him what she and her friend considered to be an amusing question: “So, do you come here often?”

That simple, silly question sparked a conversation that became a friendship. Initially, Sexton says she wasn’t interested in anything more.

“But Joe’s in sales, and he would tell you right now, selling starts at no,” she explains, flashing her megawatt smile. “Not only was he persistent, he was unlike any other guys I had met before — he was genuine, kind-hearted, a wonderful father and full of joy and optimism.”

A decade into their marriage, she still marvels at how their love story unfolded. “I look back and I think about where I was in life to where we are today, and it assures me that God has a plan for us all, even if we don’t see it coming,” she says. “Yes, we have nice things that we love sharing together with family and friends, but ‘things’ don’t make us happy — it’s all the little moments together that have created our forever bond.”

Meanwhile, through the good and the bad — and even before she met Joe — Sexton was posting about her life on social media, especially Snapchat and Facebook.

“Ever since MySpace was a thing, I’ve loved sharing news and special moments with my friends and family,” she says. “I realize I am the opposite of most and love to post — it’s simply in my DNA.”

Around four years ago, her stepdaughter knew she loved taking photos and suggested she look into a social media platform called Instagram. When she checked it out, she saw the endless possibilities and opened an account.

“I thought, I’m just going to make this fun,” she recalls. “I’m going to post about me enjoying my life, but I’m also going to create a place where I can bring joy to others.”

That, she adds, is how it all got started, and the goal that drives her today.

“I never had a business plan or any sort of specific platform, I just posted things from my life, and people started liking it.”

For example, the point of the bathtub post with the millions of plays was to share her favorite part of a four-year home remodel that she’d directed.

“I was shocked it went viral,” she admits. “I didn’t post it to get attention, I was just excited the project was finally done — I’ve remodeled a total of five homes with Joe, and that required a lot of due diligence, and I gained a lot of experience, and I wanted to share one of the things I was proud of.”

She’s also proud of how much she’s come to love fashion, something that’s accelerated in the last four or so years.

“My boutique-style closets inspired me to learn more about fashion — they made me want to up my game,” she says. “There is nothing more exhilarating than finding designer pieces on sale.”

Sexton has long recognized the connection between clothes and confidence. That happened about 20 years ago, she says, when she looked at her wardrobe and realized almost everything she owned was black.

“I challenged myself not to buy anything black for an entire year, and after I did that, I found myself drawn to bright colors, fun patterns and all sorts of florals, and I stuck with it because I realized it simply made me happier,” she says. “From that moment on, I realized the connection between fashion and positivity, even if it’s just starting your day wearing your favorite pair of earrings.”

Of course, Sexton says it wasn’t always easy finding the right clothes to fit her six-foot-tall, athletic frame — and sometimes it still isn’t. Health issues didn’t help.

“Several years ago, I had a full hysterectomy and mastectomy because of the BRCA gene, and that made it harder to find clothes and harder to find that self-confidence, and it’s still a challenge for me every day,” she admits. Fashion, “affects how you feel and how you carry yourself, and it can help you realize that perfection lies within imperfection.”

Last year, Sexton says that she realized her following had reached an influencer-level of engagement, and she decided to see what would happen if she got serious about her social media.

She launched an official website, started a newsletter and began making her posts “shoppable,” allowing people to buy her home decor and also the clothes that she and Joe are wearing in a given image. (“Ironically, the top sellers so far have been Joe’s clothes,” she says with a laugh.)

Part of the commissions she earns from the shoppable links go to a charity called Educate Me 4 Life, which she founded in 2014 to help single mothers.

Sexton’s experience as a young single mother inspired her to start the organization, which offers academic scholarships to young mothers pursuing post-secondary education, from a college degree to vocational training.

“One of our first applicants was a single mom from Grand Prairie High School who had just gotten accepted into Texas A&M but had no way to pay her way through school,” she says. “We were able to help her get through four years of college, and she’s actually working on her master’s degree right now.”

What’s so rewarding about helping single moms, she says, is that “you’re not just helping them build a better future, you’re also creating a better life for their kids, and that always has a special place in my heart.”

Recently, Sexton had another opportunity to give back, this time to her followers. She held her first giveaway, offering the chance to win two Hammitt tote bags, each with a retail value of $750.

“That was so fun,” she says. “One of the ladies who won is a school teacher, and after she won, she emailed me and said, ‘I’m going into my 36th year of teaching, and never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be able to walk in with a designer bag.’ That really meant everything to me, to bring that kind of joy to her life, and I am definitely going to be doing more of it — that’s what it’s all about.”

Follow along at amyplusjoe.com and @amyplusjoe.