One of the most anticipated happenings by fashion bloggers and our supporters at New York Fashion Week (as confirmed by the LA Times), was the Independent Fashion Bloggers Dress Up Soiree and Evolving Influence Panel. I had the privilege of working closely with IFB founder, Jennine Tamm (also from The Coveted), on the planning and execution of the event. What fun! This is where my background as a communications strategist fully blended with my fashion blogger persona.

Above: Jennine (in a Market Publique/Topshop combo) & me (in Jesica Milton - more to come) 

After falling in love with the concept and brands featured on indie e-tailer start-up Moxsie last March, I was thrilled to connect with them about collaborating with the IFB event. After all, IFB and Moxsie are both all about indie love and enjoying fashion from unique perspectives. Julia Kung, marketing director for Moxsie, sat on the panel and had great insight to share on Moxsie’s business model and the value they’ve seen in working with independent bloggers.

I also had the opportunity to get Microsoft Windows phone, a new client I work with during the day job, involved in the festivities. Most fashion bloggers are pretty geek chic and always craving the latest tech trends to ease their blogging experiences. Debbie Anderson, director of communications for Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business, weighed in on new mobile offerings for the blogging community. I just tried my first mobile post last week and hope to be doing more!

Above: With Susie, Geri, Wendy and Jessica 

Did I mention I moderated the panel sessions?! Talk about  nerve-wracking!! First I got to ask live Q&A to some of the blogosphere’s most talented muses and the second half involved interviewing experts about the evolving digital fashion world.

Evolving Influence Part I: Let’s Hear it for the Pros!

Susie Lau of Style Bubble weighed in on all hot topics in the indie fashion blogosphere and believes blogging has peaked. Is she right? I would argue yes – in order for bloggers to stay relevant, we need to evolve with social media in the way we’re reporting and the forms of content we’re using.

Geri Hirsch of Because I’m Addicted shared insight from how she’s inadvertently publicized her blog. The magazine marketing guru from Good also has another brilliant project in the works that she’s been dreaming of for the past several years. Stay tuned for more on that! I totally believe in what she’s doing and can’t wait to see it come to life.

Wendy Brandes of Wendy Brandes Jewelery and Christian Francis Roth began by stating how she’s won awards for being the blogger who swears the most! IFB members adore Wendy and if you asked me…she’s one of the most unconventional, business-savvy women I’ve ever met! She truly is her brand, and as a result, is now helping Christian Francis Roth build his brand online through clever social media tactics. She got me! I wouldn’t have ever seen his designs for Francis if it weren’t for her and now I’m hooked (more on that soon).

Jessica Schroeder of What I Wore (pictured above) also shared about how she’s publicized her blog. What I find especially interesting about her is that she was among the first personal style blogs to take off and niche content is one of the ways indie bloggers can differentiate themselves from the masses. I’m excited to see how she evolves with social media trends and I’m sure she’s already on top of it!

Carolyn Hsu of Daily Obsession daylights as a writer for The Economist and knows a thing or two about monetization. I’d like to think some of her talent can be attributed to the fact she is from Seattle and went to the same college as me…j/k, but she explained the importance of making money from a blog is being able to show potential ROI and offer alternative forms of sponsorship, like hosting contests and giveaways. What? You can ask brands to pay for that? I’ve been a little slow when it comes to selling sponsorship because I want to make sure the brands I feature are trustworthy and align with my visions for the blog.

Evolving Influence Part II: Tips & Tools from the Experts 

Crosby Noricks of PR Couture shared insight on how bloggers can establish credibility with brands they want to work with. As someone who lives at the intersection of fashion and PR, she knows her stuff when it comes to cultivating relationships. For starters, don’t be humble about your stats and info when reaching out and make sure to do your follow up after you post about a brand!

Julia Kung of Moxsie.com sees an important value and connection when it comes to Moxsie’s business and fashion bloggers. She explained what the pay-off is for them in working with bloggers vs. mainstream media along with how they’ve built a place for the Moxsie brand in the social media world. Moxsie’s business model is about finding and supporting new and undiscovered independent designers which aligns with IFB’s model of supporting independent bloggers. Several amazing Moxsie designers contributed prizes for the gift bags and for the IFB Dress Up Contest including 80%20, Emma Carroll, Pretty Little Things and others.

Helen Zhu CEO of Chictopia.com gave tips on how to make a website more interactive and sticky. She’s done a phenomenal job with Chictopia – once you start browsing the site, it’s so hard to tear yourself away! Her advice? Engage with your audience and add features to allow your readers to interact with your content beyond traditional comments (e.g. voting buttons).

Debbie Anderson of Microsoft talked about the transformation of the smartphone over the past few years. What used to be a clunky, geeky gadget clipped onto a belt buckle (eww!) has now become the ultimate accessory for fashion bloggers. She also shared some of the new services and features to expect from Microsoft Windows phones, which will be available for purchase starting October 6.

Tricia Royal of Wardrobe Remix build a community within a community (Flickr) before the term social media had even been thought about! The brilliant blogging maven, who came to speak despite being a little under the weather, shared how she identified the opportunity for Wardrobe Remix and a few modest predictions about what she sees in the future of social media and fashion.

Erika Miller SEO Manager of Elle.com spoke on one of the most highly demanded subjects among fashion bloggers – how to make your site findable! I need to follow up with her for the specific tips she outlined, but wow! This girl knows her stuff! Some of her advice included when to link, how often and the importance of keywords and headlines. As a PR geek, I loved it, but it was also so relevant for my website too!

Above: Julia, Helen and Debbie on the panel (credit: Anthony Tilghman) 

In total, over 300 attendees gathered at Broadway East to celebrate Independent Fashion Bloggers. There was a line out the door and wrapped around the block!

Above: A snapshot of the line via FatLace

Though I had my working girl hat on the entire time, it was refreshing to see some of my fashion blogger friends and meet others in person for the first time.

Above: With Geri and Wendy

Above: With Deanne – love her and here CRHEE sheer trousers! (via DreamSequins)

Above: Jennine, WendyB and Queen Gilda – creativity at its finest! (via Queen Gilda)

Above: With Jeanette of ShopManhattanite.com – love this girl!

Above: Action shot with Vyque and Alixrose

Above: Pamela, WendyB, Alix and Sara (via Alixrose)

Above: Danny, The Glamourai and The Stylish Wanderer 

Above: With Crosby and Jordanna from Touch of Pink PR (via PR Couture)

Above: With Punky - we finally met! (via PunkyStyle) 

I don’t have pics at the moment, but also got to see Julia DiNardo of Fashion Pulse, Yuli Ziv of My It Things, Nubia of Nubia’s Nonsense, Natanya of 39th & Broadway, the other Fasshonaburu girls Alyssa and Kathy, Camille from Childhood Flames, Lucretia from Fashion is Poison, Zephyr from College Fashion and Carlene from The Guardian, among other fabulous people.

I have to give a special shout out to my boyfriend, Jordan (yes, we know our names are almost the same), for manning the door the whole night!

The pic is from my dear friend Jess who stopped by to show her support (happened to be in town on a work project).

Above: With Jess! 

Below is a summary from Jennine’s recap as it appeared on Independent Fashion Bloggers:

The first two Dress Up Soirées last season in New York and London were great, intimate, refreshing, a new turn in fashion…but nothing could have prepared us for the turn out and spirit that came with this season’s Dress Up Soiree and Evolving Influence panel discussion (Jennine, so adorable, shed a few tears of joy in her intro). This time around having amazing sponsors like Microsoft and Moxsie.com allowed us to put forth a great event.

As people started to show up for the panel Evolving Influence, it really honed in the need for us to meet in person, that the volume of our community is growing, and with that we’re also creating a culture of professionalism. Unfortunately, we didn’t foresee this need, and we really could have gone on for a much longer time, but the venue was more of a party space, and we also needed to socialize with each other! So next time we’ll take this into consideration, and create something even more useful to the community!

All in all, if there ever needed to be proof that we are a powerful community, then this was the night. Meeting everyone in person, feeling the energy and warmth in the air really spoke volumes about where fashion blogging is heading… and it’s only going up.

Above: The Fine & Dandy boys!

Above: Marie from Agent Lover and Yoshi from FatLace

There are a lot more photos from the evening in the Dress Up Photo Album! There were also so many people who posted about their experience at the event – check out the list here!

Special thanks to… Moxsie, Benefit Cosmetics, Equinox, Cosabella, Note to Self, 80%20 Winona of Daddy Likey, and ideeli for helping out with the goody bags!

Thank you Dustin Fenstermacher for taking all these great photos (unless noted, they are all his work)! Also, make sure you check out our contest!

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