2.20.2010

NYFW & IFB CON, or WHAT BLOGGING MEANS TO ME



Whenever FW rolls around, I find myself reflecting upon the nature of fashion, the industry as a whole, and my role in it (or lack thereof). This season was no different. Rather than fashionably skulking around the Tents or rushing to try to catch someone's last minute Reject Show, I focused all of my enthusiasm upon the Independent Fashion Bloggers conference, Evolving Influence, organized by Jennine Tamm Jacob of none other than IFB. You'll remember that I have already hinted at how awesome it was!


We discussed ethics in blogging and journalism and the FTC and how magazines tend not to look the gift horse in the mouth (what does that phrase meeeeeeean?), and we all turn a blind eye to the general shmooziness of the fashion, marketing, PR, and publishing industries, and yet bloggers! the poor-recently-un-disenfranchised-commoners! are now held to stricter rules than Her Highness Wintour. And this was all very interesting to work out and discuss on stage, because, as you may know, I studied philosophy, and Ethics is but one branch of the former.




My plan is to tell you my blogging revelations interjected with photos of fashion blog celebrities, because I am hoping that their awesomeness will bleed from their likenesses into my words, or that they will hold your attention a few seconds longer while I wax poetic on the grand pseudo-modernist topic of:

BLOGGING.

(tutti cutie)

Perhaps it was the light-hearted convos of the Famous Ones or the general sense of merriment and community found in the auditorium populated by those who identify as both Fashion and Blog ... or the fact that, coincidentally, I happened to watch Julie & Julia that night (and loved! Meryl Streep is marvelous)...well, anyway...I found a new respect and confidence in my blog and myself.


Through her year long Julia Child Recipe Project, Julie of Julie & Julia keeps a cooking/blogging routine wherein she nearly loses her darling husband, but also discovers herself, as writer and not mere Government Worker, and basically comes back to the things she's always known, her true self, through...blogging! At least that's the way I see it.



I've often fallen back upon the motto "to never betray the way you've always known it is" (The Shins, anyone? Remember Zach Braff and Natalie Portman and pet graves?). The things I like about blogging are that (1) I have this sort of routine way to conceptualize and narrate my life stories, that (2) there is therapeutic relief in writing and sharing my thoughts, whereby I rid myself of obsessing over old thoughts, make room for new and awesome thoughts and thus, move forward in heart and mind and that (3) both (1) and (2) allow me to keep moving on the Path of Myself, working towards positive goals, while maintaining inner "centeredness," if that makes any sense. Curiously, the fashion bit is just the manifested outward expression of this.


And so I am energized and inspired to keep doing this thing because it, um, helps me realize my true self? And I believe that being who you are is the best way to happiness and success? And that even the Famous Ones chalked their notoriety up to being themselves honestly and openly? And most importantly, because, like Julie, I take joy in this thing, in you and in me, this anomaly of space-time where we meet a couple of times a week, this thing called my blog, from whither we can:

REJOICE
and
THRIVE
together on the paths of ourselves,
which can only lead to continued happiness and success.



So, in the name of fashion and blogging and the hearts of ghosts, rejoice!


(In a serendipitous moment, I caught the Reluctant Celebrity prancing elf-like into a waiting Black Car. And she-of-the-printed-capri-pant-and-matronly-clog-and-jeweled-barrette, who, I surmise, is her Mom, is so adorable, so Norwegian, and so Mom.)

Did any of that make sense?


6 comments:

  1. Go girl. BTW, horse people can tell a horse's age and health condition by looking at its teeth. They do this when buying horses, but, if the horse were a gift, it would be rude and perhaps imprudent, since the offer might be retracted.

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  2. Thanks! This helped a lot! I've read a few
    rather confusing blogs lately, this cleared up some confusion I had.

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  3. i wish i was there!
    hehe my mom is also norwegian

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  4. Thanks again for your comments-- Strange that we had the same idea to reflect on blogging at the same time.

    I think we agree that blogging is a form of creative expression and that it is a medium that evolves with the writer.

    Also, I didn't realize you studied philosophy, guess that's why Heidegger is one of your interests. I'm a Sartre man myself, I spent the better part of my junior & senior year on his underappreciated/underdeveloped aesthetics.

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  5. i love love loved this post. so much (: thank you for sharing your thoughts!

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