I have more Vogue magazines than I know what to do with. The top shelf of my closet at my parent’s Connecticut home is sagging under 4+ years of my collection and my room at my San Francisco apartment has a stack that is ready to fall over.
My love of Vogue started back in college when I first got interested in fashion- after a trip to see a Versace exhibit in London and a very small modeling stint back in Connecticut.
After my mom realized how excited I was about this industry she started letting me read her Vogue magazines… little aware that I was about to steal them to begin my collection.
Biography about Anna Wintour published in 2005
Anyway, not long after my collection started, so did my interest in Vogue’s driving force- the sunglasses wearing, Prada wearing “devil”, Editrix Anna Wintour. I become so passionate that one of my college friends dubbed me “Voguie”, and it’s a nickname that’s stuck to this day.
I love that her reign over Vogue has spanned two generations of women in my family who have enjoyed the magazine. So a very happy birthday to my first inspiration in the fashion industry.
Last Thursday, 6 of my close friends and I hosted another Digitally Chic meetup. This time we featured fashion and lifestyle apps from around the Bay Area whose creativity was shown through small group demos and one on one discussion.
Being silly with some of the DC co-founders after the event
Just one year after we met for drinks and realized we all had a love for fashion and tech in common, we’re 230+ members strong in our Facbeook group, but also have a public Facebook page (where all of the event photos are located) and Twitter account you can follow for more updates: @DigitallyChic.
And, we were very honored to have our Apps & Apps event featured in the San Francisco Chronicle!
What’s next? Our first birthday party! That’s right, we’re currently organizing our one year celebration, so stay tuned for details coming soon!
All of the DC co-founders celebrating Sharon's college graduation!
Sparkly things have been taking over my life lately and I am not complaining.
Sequin
About a month ago I spotted a sequin clutch on LookBook.nu that I was just dying to own. After tracking down the bag to Zara, I was finally able to score the last one in the store on Wednesday night. My next step is to figure out an outfit to go with this bag.
Source: ThisNext.com
Sparkle
The other fun purchase I made recently was a small pot of silver glitter that my girl friends and I wore on a recent day trip. I don’t think you can ever outgrow a little silver glitter eye makeup on occasion.
Source: shopping.com
Shine
And finally, my big news! About a week ago, I was offered a position as a fashion & beauty guru for Yahoo! Shine. Come Monday I will receive my first assignment, so stay tuned for my first piece soon!
I’d say, considering everything that’s gone on in my life lately, including a work trip to New Orleans last week and a seemingly long week this week (nobody likes the sniffles), I’m ready to enjoy the glint of the weekend, looming just a few hours away!
In less than one week, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week kicks off!!
I was a very happy girl today when I found out that more than 30 runway shows can be viewed live via YouTube. The feed will also offer backstage access, show trends, and pre-season coverage leading up to September 8th.
Source: mbfashionweek.com/
I’m most excited to see Anna Sui, Badgley Mischka, Tibi, and BCBG.
On Saturday I spent the evening running around San Francisco trying to find, among other things, strangers to Vogue with and a newspaper article containing the words “digital” or “chic”. Why in the world would I be doing these things? Because I participated in my meetup group’s first (and hopefully annual) scavenger hunt.
Fellow Co-Founders Ashley LaFerriere and Jennie B spent a month organizing the hunt by coming up with lists of tasks and goodie bag swag so participants could have a fun list of things to photograph, tweet, and grab around the city in hopes of winning some pretty cool things from hunt sponsors.
The group met at The Grove, a cute coffee shop (that serves champagne!) over on 3rd and Mission for a meet and greet, to divvy up the teams, and some pre-hunt photos.
#DChunt Attendees
And then, we were off!
I was put on a team with Sarah Long, a girl who found out about the hunt by a tweet a prior member of the group had made about the event (thank you Twitter!). We decided to name our team “Pretty Ambitions”, because of our blog names, Pretty Innovative and AmbitionS.
After Ashley handed out the envelope containing the task list, Sarah and I immediately completed one task, by getting a photo of the two of us jumping. Then we ran across the street to the Big and Tall store for a team prom style photo. After that, we decided to take a trip to the Westfield Centre (visiting stores that included Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, Madewell, and Sanrio). We also went to places like the Four Seasons, Jeffrey’s Toys, tourist shops in Chinatown, and the Metreon to complete the rest. As time went on, Sarah and I were laughing harder and harder and it was easier and easier to walk up to strangers to ask for things. Here are a few photos of us starting off the hunt:
Deciding on our strategyTask: Photo of the team jumpingTask: Prom style photo of the team (Thank you Big and Tall store)Task: Photo of team Voguing with Three Strangers
To throw us off further, Ashley and Jennie tweeted more tasks from the DC Twitter handle while the hunt continued, two of which can be seen after completed below:
Mira completing Twitter Mission 1: Find Doug/@HansensSF at the beginning of Market St & tweet a photo w/the Hansen's ThingSarah and I completing Mission 6: Tweet a picture of all the items your team has collected so far
At 7:30,the final location was tweeted and teams had to meet there by 8 pm for the completed tasks to be counted.
Another team counting up their numbers with Ashley
And my team won!!!
With our bags of swag! (and my new feather clutch)
From Amy: “My favorite part was probably when we ran into a toy store to find a unicorn and a kid to hi-five. One boy was scared of us but then we found another boy and he was sooo excited to hi-five us!! He was trying to hi-five both of us before we could even take the picture. It was so cute! We were very excited to have won 2nd place! Our prizes were great. We got a 1 year membership to ZipCar, 6mo subscription to Tab Juice, $25 gift certificate to Starbucks, and a Gowalla tee shirt. This event was so much fun..can’t wait to do it again next year!!”
Well the much talked about opener for Project Runway for Season 9 finally happened last night. And I have no shame in saying that I spent quite a few minutes watching old clips of Tim “Gunnisms” on YouTube today purely out of excitement.
Many of my friends were also excited, like Boston-based Brian Forte over at Please Welcome Your Judges, and Twitter friend Yuli Ziv of Style Coalition from New York City. In fact, in conjunction with HP, Style Coalition and hosted a special blogger event just for the occasion! While I wasn’t lucky enough to attend that event, and test out some fashion friendly HP products, I did watch the show from my couch in San Francisco (while doing some online window shopping on my iPad- hey, I can never get too much fashion and tech).
Source: MyLifetime.com
Now, onto the contestants. While David Chum, Becky Ross, and Olivier Green were my three favorites leading up to the show premiere, Bert really turned it out and deserved the win for the first challenge. He might be my new favorite? I’ll wait and see.
Already you can vote for your fan favorite on the Lifetime website, check out the official Project Runway blog, and blogs about this season from some former contestants (like Peach!). Also, you can view a real-time feed that shows what people are saying about each designer if you go to their bio pages.
Since the preview for the rest of the season looks particularly juicy, I can’t wait to watch the drama unfold both on TV and online.
In the meantime, happy birthday to Mr. Tim Gunn!!!
On Saturday I spent a very rainy morning trekking over to de Young for a dose of Cristóbal Balenciaga’s haute couture work and I wasn’t disappointed (only about the fact that I missed Anna Wintour by mere hours). Check out pictures from the opening night on Vogue.com.
Image credit: Vogue.com
Balenciaga, dubbed “Fashion’s Picasso” by Cecil Beaton, has been known for such feats as getting women to stray away from wearing Dior’s new look (which popularized the hourglass shape) in the 1950s. Instead, Balenciaga created dresses with broader shoulders and less of a defined waist. Also during this era, he created voluminous jackets (like his 1957 cocoon coat) and skirts (specifically the balloon skirt, a style that became popular again just a few years back).
Image credit: StyleBistro.com
The Balenciaga exhibit clearly captured his work, showing a wide range of garments influenced by the likes of bull fighting, flamenco dancers, religion, and quite generally, all things Spain. Bold shapes and color combinations definitely made for an exciting roundup of looks. Of the 120 pieces on exhibit, the ones I liked the most were the flamenco inspired dresses. Don’t they just make you want to dance?
Image credits: Vogue.com and Grant K. Gibson
After the exhibit I popped into the cafe for lunch and enjoyed the Herb Roasted Wild Escolar with patatas bravas (basically, this means I had an amazing dish of fish over potatoes).
The exhibit, curated by Vogue’s Hamish Bowles, runs through July 4, 2011. Let me know your thoughts after you visit!
If you haven’t heard of ModCloth yet, know this, they’re one of a kind!
Why? Well, not only does the e-retail site feature both vintage and vintage inspired (aka indie) clothing, shoes, accessories and apartment finds, don’t forget to check out the blog before leaving. More than 20 fashion bloggers contribute to the ModCloth blog, discussing everything from ModCloth news to ModMusic. I also like how a new blogger of the moment is featured seemingly every few days, which includes an interview about his/her style and personality.
In addition to incorporating outside style bloggers, this company is very social. Already, I’ve seen ModCloth on Facebook, Kaboodle, MySpace, Twitter, and (personal favorite) Polyvore. On each of these sites, ModCloth brings something unique to the table. For example, right now there are a few weekly Twitter contests, including the Thursday “I Spy” game. This game is especially smart because it gets followers to not only check out the website for the right answer, but also engage with the brand in a creative way.
But want to really engage fans of your brand? Throw a party.
Earlier this week, ModCloth took the social offline as well, with their “Behind the Scenes” party to celebrate their move to San Francisco. Between meeting a good amount of the ModCloth staff, including Chief Creative Officer, Co-Founder Susan Gregg Koger (she’s on the right), and enjoying a fun atmosphere complete with a great DJ and open bar, I had a blast!
True to ModCloth style, there were also two contests at the event. One, called “Be the Buyer”, let party goers choose from the six garments to pick or skip. The piece with enough votes, will be produced and sold exclusively on ModCloth.com.
The second contest, called “Name It and Win It” invited us to choose the final name of this dress. In the first round, ModCloth customers were asked (by way of blog) to name the dress. After hundreds of suggested names were sorted through, the favorite four were selected my the team for us to choose from.
The last contest, well more of a dance off really, happened later in the evening after the drinks kicked in. Let’s just say, Michael Jackson was involved, and no, there aren’t any pictures.
Anyway, this is one company to watch. I’m curious to see just how the company will use its new funding of $19.8 million. In the meantime, welcome to San Francisco, ModCloth!
*Click here for the rest of my pictures from the event!
You’d think seeing a live haute couture show would breathtaking enough, but how about one in 3D? Just recently, in Paris, one designer offered his audience a very unique collection, with just a touch of technology.
On the first day of Paris Fashion Week, Jean-Peaul Galtier’s Moroccan themed show of his 2011 Spring/Summer men’s collection had a very special twist- futurism. Not only did his models where the silly 3D glasses that I haven’t worn since I went to see Avatar (ok, only like four months ago), show invitations included 3D glasses so attendees could enjoy a very special fashion show experience.
Image credit: StyleBistro.com
pretty-innovative.com 