Sara Kloepfer
Managing Editor
The future leaders of the fashion industry are going to work in their pajamas. Fashion bloggers can run an entire career out of their bedrooms with just a computer and an Internet connection. Sonia Evers (’04), a freelance fashion writer, started her blog RunwayHippie.com over a year ago and has since been hired by Glamour magazine as a part of their blogger network.
“I started my blog while I was working at a [public relations] company and found that it wasn’t fulfilling my creative needs,” Evers said. “I created my blog so that I would have an outlet to post, write and share things that inspired and interested me. I never thought that my blog would go anywhere, but I certainly hoped it would.”
After only a few months of blogging, Evers was picked up by Modelinia.com to write about New York Fashion Week. She left the public relations job and has been freelance writing and blogging since. Evers was then approached by Glamour’s publication company, Condé Nast, about writing for their “Young and Posh” blogger network, composed of 18 fashion writers.
“I was totally shocked when I first heard the news from Glamour because I never would have thought that editors at Condé Nast were reading my blog,” Evers said. “This is huge for my career as it has put me on a much bigger radar in the fashion world and online community. Tons of opportunities have popped up since the announcement of my partnership with Glamour and I only hope that more are on their way.”
In addition to blogging three times a week for Glamour, Evers pitches ideas to editors and researches her pieces.
“Whether it’s reading magazines, checking out the latest items on shopping websites or studying a designer’s collection, a lot of my time is spent reading online,” Evers said. “I love that what I do now is what I used to do when I was procrastinating in college and high school. Even if I spend an hour browsing around on shopping sites, it’s all for a purpose and can go into my next marketing story or shopping feature.”
Evers says she never thought her career would involve writing. It wasn’t until she wrote her thesis as a student at Dickinson College that she realized her passion for research and writing. Her Art History major also influenced her writing.
“[My major] definitely helped me perfect my writing skills and taught me to think and write with visual eye,” Evers said. “Suddenly a look will come down the runway that reminds me of a Van Gogh painting and after interviewing the designer I come to find that he or she was in fact inspired by that artist or particular painting. And the vernacular I use is very similar to what I used in my art history papers.”
Thanks to her mother, AP Art History teacher Sunnie Evers, Sonia Evers says she has always loved art and fashion. After about a month of blogging, she realized she was mostly writing about fashion, and decided to make that the focus. Evers advises anyone interested in fashion blogging to start their own blog.
“You never know what it’s going to turn into,” Evers said. “Just be persistent about it and write and update constantly. Even if you don’t know what you want to blog about, the best thing to do is just start and you’ll be surprised by what it develops into.”
For Evers, blogging has developed from something she did for fun into an entire career.
“The best and worst part of my job is that it’s not a steady office job,” Evers said. “I have to keep myself motivated and focused and constantly have to be ahead of the game making sure my ideas or stories get to an editor or blog before anyone else’s.”
See also “Innovation is key in approaching job market” and “Libby Brittain fuses social media and journalism into career“
