Independent Fashion Bloggers Conference Day 1

Thursday and Friday I had the pleasure of attending the Independent Fashion Blogger Conference. Day 1 was held at Milk Studios in the West Village at the ungodly hour of 9am. It didn’t actually start until after 10, so I had a bit of time to walk around and explore all the fun sponsor stations. ShopBop was a holding a “Best Dressed” Competition and handing out notepads, along with a photo op.

My favorite station was the Aldo “Life’s A Beach” corner set up. The Canadian brand has teamed up with emereging designers to bring the HOTTEST shoes. I’m in love with all the wedges they were showcasing. In between these two spots was the Levi’s set up for their “Shape What’s To come”. They were sizing every girl and giving them the perfect fit of jeans, and also doing a photo op (I’ll spare you the numerous monotenous images of me in the same outfit 30 times).

On the other side of the studio Windows 7 was showing an entire line-up of computers and hosted a raffle where two lucky bloggers won a laptop, Jonathan Adler case, and camera. I saw THE tiniest, cutest, little orange Sony Vaio. Sadly, I just bought my new 17″ Vaio less than a month ago. Also, a new fashion website, The Find, was there with tutorials on the new site and a raffle for a gorgeous See by Chloe satchel!

I made SO may new friends these couple days, so here’s a few shout outs.

With the lovely Jen of HouseofJeffers.Blogspot.com

the fabulous and fashionable Taylor of SterlingStyle.

Nina of Style Glossary and Amy of Stylish Year.

The VERY informative conference covered some major business aspects to blogging. The Panels were “Who owns your blog content”, which focused on trade marking and copyrighting. The second panel was focused on the business of blogging, and how to make monetaries off your blog. As you’ve noticed my blog is still small (but vapently growing!) so I don’t do too many collaborations or sposorships. There are some lovely plans for the future though, so keep watching!  Looking back I took over four pages of notes on this panel alone…

The next panels was branching off of the same topic, focusing on how to work with brands gracefully and get the most out of your collaborations without offennding anyone, be it readers or companies.

The final panel was all about the rise of the professional blogger, which was pretty much a collaborative discussion on the future of blogging. It’s entrhalling to see everyone’s opinions on where blogging will be headed towards in the future, and I’m excited to hopefully be a part of that revolution.

Lastly, Lazaro and Jack of Proenza Schouler were interviewed by Imran (the founder of the must-read Bussiness of Fashion) and answering Q&A, twitter questions, and our own bloger questions. They’re adorable (personality wise and aesthetically) and have such good chemistry, no wonder they’re the masterminds behind the brand. The best advice they gave out? “You’re best design tools are paper, a pencil, and google”. Apparetly GoogleImages is their home page for inspiration.

After the MiLK conference, the 21+ crowd headed to the Chelsea Hotel bar for some drinks and mingling. The after party was sponsored by The Find and Windows 7, who were raffling off two new Windows phones, which are actually pretty sweet. You basically go to one person in your phone and can see EVERYTHING together; facebook, twitter, call or text them…very convenient technology if you ask me.

With Tomeka of FashionSteele and Yanil of The Vintage Devil and New Yorker Style.

The fabulous Deanne of Dream Sequins

As I mentioned, The Find was one of the hosts of the afterparty, and they had concocted a “signature” cocktail (which I was seen with in-hand at almost every second). It was actually quite delicious, a mix of vodka, cranberry juice, seltzer, and garnished with lime. Other people I ran into there was Andy, of Style Scrapbook, Vahni of Grit and Glamour, Chiara of The Blonde Salad (are links really needed? you should kow who they are)…so many great people, who are all surprisingly SUPER nice and real!

After leaving the after party at a reasonable hour (I’m trying to be “responsible” this FW, you’ll see how that works out later), I got home and emptied out my gift bags, which were 100% fabulous.

MAC, Juicy Couture, Carlotte ronson, tee shirts, gift cards, press packets….so much STUFF!

Anyway, this concludes my post of day 1, stay tuned for day 2 and more NYFW events!!!