Independent Fashion Bloggers Conference: Life, Love, & the Pursuit of Blogging with Style, Substance & Authenticity

Monday, February 15th was my favorite day of 2010 so far.

No, not because it was the day after Valentine’s Day and I was glad not to be reminded that I have no boyfriend or, for that matter, no boyfriend in sight.

No, not because it was roughly one month and one day until I turned 24 on March 16th.

YES! It was because I attended the awe-INSPIRING, awe-MOTIVATING, awe-MAGICAL Independent Fashion Bloggers conference at the Helen Mills Theater.

It was a conference for bloggers — fashion bloggers, in particular — reviewing, discussing and teaching the questions we find ourselves asking in this industry.

How to promote/market our content?
How to make money from our blogs?
How to remain ethical and true to our brand/reader as we grow and work with publicists and brands?
How to navigate the fame game and future of fashion blogging?
And of course …how to network & party in style at the after conference cocktail party as sponsored by the new site Couturious [so new, I can’t link you yet! It’s in BETA baby!]

Special thanks to Pamela Castillo of Market Publique for hooking me with 1st class seats.

Also, to the truly inspiring Greta Eagan & Jessica Schroeder & Suzanne Xie of Weardrobe for hanging with me and reminding me why I’m pursuing what I love. Because life is about surrounding yourself with the things — and people — that you love. Everything else will fall into place.

Scout’s honor.

Evolving Influence. What what.

Jennine Jacob, founder of Independent Fashion Bloggers, introduces the conference to a room of fab, fashionable, friendly bloggers & style-involved peeps.

Jessica Schroeder of What I Wore talks about the ethics of blogging [AKA, if you get something for free and feature on your site, let your reader know about it! Easy as that.]

++ VIDEO!! Here’s a quick snippet of her words of wisdom.

The last — and most star-studded panel — of them all.

From left: Britt Aboutaleb & Lauren Sherman of Fashionista.com, Bryan of Bryanboy, Tavi of Style Rookie, Susie Bubble of Style Bubble, Phil Oh of Street Pepper

[sorry kids, too lazy to link here! Google ‘em yourself!]

Kicking off the day with Kate, resident photographer of Market Publique.

I caught a seat next to the loveliest of NYC fashion bloggers [full disclosure: I’m bias] — Jessica Schroeder of What I Wore & Greta Eagan of Greta Guide. Thanks to Suzanne from Weardrobe, I snagged a copy of the new Weardrobe 100 book. Jessica & Greta are pictured side-by-side in a spread.

Soooo … what more fitting idea than to grab a shot of them next to each other in the flesh, and in the paper form, too?

Fabulous ladies. Paper or no paper.

I hung out with Mariel of Preppy with a Twist & Becky of Prissy Poodle. They inspired me to tone down my style. [um … maybe]

They inspired me at least to interview them about incorporating vintage into a preppy/traditionally sophisticated wardrobe.

++ VIDEO!!! Watch ‘em dish their tips here.

The lovely Zephorah of Zephorah Magazine with Ariel Maile Adkins of Artfully AWear.

Ariel even gave me a shout-out here!

And I gave Zephorah an awesome shout-out [++ VIDEO!!] here!

These were my favorite boys of the evening. Read on to learn why:

They lived in Philadelphia
They went to Temple U
They just started a new blog, all about T-SHIRTS
They love men’s vintage
They were drinking beer at a party where everyone was opting for wine
They had facial hair. But didn’t remind me of a Bedford Avenue Brooklynite. [PHEW]

Check ‘em out here.

Can we please admire this bow tie? It’s purple. It’s shaggy. It has fringe.

I want one.

For those of you who didn’t know, I’m a bit obsessed with street art. So when I saw these shoes, I about passed out. On the floor. On top of these shoes.