On Tuesday, Sarah-Jane released four e-books on her newly launched website. The e-books including, the one I contributed to, So You Want to be a Fashion Retailer?, give valuable advice for starting and maintaining a successful career in fashion and music.

Costing only £6.99 ($11 USD), So You Want to be a Fashion Retailer?, discusses everything from marketing aspects like branding and sales mediums to public relations tools like blogging and press kits. All topics have sound advice from online notables including: Crosby Nicks of PR Couture, Maureen Puia of Smashing Darling, Jenny Hudson of Indie Quarter, Jennine Jacob of The Coveted/IFB, Michael Egan of Model Mayhem, Raoul Keil on NINETEEN74, Jade Stoner, Sarah Ayoub, Reem Kanj of Five Five Fabulous/House of Rena, and me.

Sarah-Jane’s other titles include: So You Want to Be an Urban Model?, So You Want to Be a Glamour Model?, and So You Want to Be an Urban Musician?, £6.99 each. Purchase them on www.sarahjaneadams.com/ebooks. ]]> http://pinkrockcandy.net/fashion/2010/05/19/so-you-want-to-be-a-fashion-retailer/feed/ 3 http://pinkrockcandy.net/fashion/2010/05/11/at-last-i-found-the-d%c3%b8/ http://pinkrockcandy.net/fashion/2010/05/11/at-last-i-found-the-d%c3%b8/#comments Tue, 11 May 2010 12:00:35 +0000 Chelsea Rae Simmons http://pinkrockcandy.net/fashion/?p=1856

I love being introduced to new music, whether it’s “the next Lady Gaga,” a guy from Indiana and his guitar, or a French/Finnish duo called The Dø (pronounced like dough).

While Dan Levy plays the folky, surfer, dance beats, Olivia Merilahti’s bubbly voice chirps the lyrics making each song a sort of electro-nature call.

It was Olivia’s interest in fashion that initially piqued my interest, “I love Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Manish Arora, Chanel, Junko Shimada. I’ve been wearing a lot of Tsumori Chisato and Andrea Crews outfits on stage,” Merilahti says. At a glance you can tell she’s a girl who has carved out a style of her own, whether she’s wearing some secondhand find or designer duds.

“I love independent designer outlets that I come across when I’m abroad, Toronto and NY were my latest faves (I don’t shop much in Paris). I find a lot of designer shops in Helsinki. I also like the customized clothes that some vintage shops sell, like XXL t-shirts that have been changed into dresses, sleeves that become scarves, etc. ‘Episode’ in London is a nice one,” she continues.

The fashion definitely drew me in, but it was the music that made me want to keep listening, and when I say “keep listening,” I mean over and over and over again. After hearing the song “At Last” from their new album A Mouthful— recently released in the US— I couldn’t stop playing it.

It’s romantic. It’s cheesy. It’s tongue-and-cheek. Most of all, it’s addicting.

I’ve spent the weekend singing, “At Last! I found what I was dreaming of / Someone who truly understands me,” under my breathe. Best of all, the rest of the album is just as captivating and fun.

The Dø: Website | Myspace | Facebook
Buy A Mouthful (released April 6, 2010)

From tips on how to score and interview to lists of the best online magazine websites and so much more, this quick read is not only helpful to those looking to digitally publish a mag, but also to anyone writing online— that means you my lovely bloggers!

At $7.50, Magazine isn’t going to break the bank, but it might help you make a little, and at the very least continue on the road to journalistic success.

Before you all run off to grab Magazine: How To Start And Run Your Own Online Magazine or Publication,

In your e-book Magazine: How To Start And Run Your Own Online Magazine or Publication, you explained many people came to you with questions about starting an online magazine, leading you to write this book. With so many intricacies in the process, how did you actually go about planning what is and is not important to write about?
When I started Lipstick Royalty, out of what I’ve included, I knew almost none of it. And the bits I did know I didn’t know the full implications of, like for example what to think about when I was choosing a name, I just chose one and had to change it a year later. My magazine grew organically so I think its important that other peoples do to. It is with this in mind that I have included everything I wish I had known in the planning stage as long as things I could not live without towards the end. I hope I’ve managed to supply a framework for people to build their own vision onto, but a framework they can still refer to if they get stuck!

What are the top three topics people should know about and will learn from Magazine, when they purchase it, if they want to start their own online magazine?
Defining the vision for your publication, if running your own online magazine is really a route you want to go down and all the legal stuff I wish I’d known in the first few months before I learnt all about it!

At 17, you’ve achieved more than many aspiring journalists have at 27. What inspired you to start writing and dabbling in the field of journalism?
Chance. I think of about four big ideas every week, and most of them turn out dead on arrival. It was around the time I had really started to get comfortable with my creative writing – after I had been doing it for about a year – when I wanted to try other stuff. One of my mad, mad ideas was starting my own fashion magazine, so I did it, and its been my most successful spur of the moment ideas yet! Why did I start writing at all? Because I actually listened to what one of my school teachers was saying in lessons and though ‘wait, I can do this!’ I owe him a lot for at least daring to make his lessons interesting and getting me to sit up and pay attention for once!

When you began exploring your writing career, did you know you wanted to publish your own magazine?
I seriously had no clue what I wanted to do, I just wanted to write. Fashion was actually this totally new thing for me, and I’m really surprised that is what I chose to write about. I think it may have been something to do with the fact I had a copy of Vogue on the bed next to me when I decided I wanted to try my hand at an online magazine. Except for reading the magazine occasionally and looking at all my Mum’s beautiful shoes and dresses in her wardrobe fashion never used to be part of my world. I love writing about fashion now though, but I’m looking to branch out into more of a politics/ current affairs direction. I’ll always write about fashion though!

In Magazine, you stress finding one’s niche, how did you go about finding yours for both Lipstick Royalty‘Cause I Rather Waste My Life Pretending?
With Lipstick Royalty I was so unprepared with my vision, I had no clue where the magazine was going at first. Someone introduced me to alternative fashion, I thought ‘okay, lets run with this’, we did and people seemed to love it and it stuck. When the time came to change the name from Inside Out to Lipstick Royalty I had come to understand how important having a creative, niche vision is so I worked hard on tailoring that to fit, so that the magazine was specific for our alternative, but not too avant-garde audience. With my blog I just wanted to do my own thing, so I decided my niche would be someone like me; with an interest in fashion and art, but someone who is also into film, literature and the odd smattering of politics too. By making sure my posts cater to this type of person I’m starting to build a loyal readership inside my specific niche of people like me!

What skills did you learn from starting Lipstick Royalty that you use now with your own blog ‘Cause I’d Rather…?
Tailoring content to suit both myself and the reader; publishing something they want to read but I’ll enjoy writing. While I was running the magazine I became somewhat of a whiz at online PR, and that has been so helpful with the blog I can’t tell you how much!

In what way did blogging help you as a magazine editor-in-chief?
Blogging actually realised for me that I don’t want to be the editor of a magazine, not just yet anyway. It freed me form editorial and time constraints and I loved it, it was actually one of the things that lead me to shutting down the magazine.

How do you deal with the days when you have homework, real life, magazine/blog work, and seemingly everything else to do?
That sounds like every day. During the school holidays I live a very BoHo artists existence either in England or France, unless I happen to have a photo shoot (I’m a fashion photographer) booked that day. I go to a boarding school so when class and homework is thrown into the mix my time becomes insanely structured. I seem to be cramming studying, homework, photography, writing, blogging, classes, leisure time and, when I was still running it, the magazine into every spare second. I literally do stuff as and when they occur to me to do it, or if I haven’t done it by the night/ day before it is due I make myself do it. I know I don’t have the best work ethic for my school work, but love all my other commitments so I try to chop and change so I never stay on the same thing too long! We have compulsory sport which is actually a bit of a blessing, so almost every single day I’m either training with my team if its hockey season, or doing a social sport like tennis so I can hang out with some of my friends! I also make myself watch an hour, and only an hour of TV every evening so my brain can switch off before the last slog before 11pm. However, even with all this you still find me sometimes revising political pressure groups in front of Britains Got Talent and walking along corridors and around the school reading the days paper, as that is the only time I have to spare to do it!

Will there be more e-books to come?
I think I may write an e-Book on getting into fashion photography, but I’m don’t think I’ve yet reached a high enough personal standard to be advising others yet, but I’m getting there I hope! The same with blogging. I would absolutely LOVE to write an e-Book on how on become a publish author, but I need to become one of them myself first!

What else can we look forward to seeing from you in the future?
At the end of late year I wrote a young adult novel, and I’m looking for an agent with a view of getting it published right now but I’ve actually decided I want to re-write it, so that may be a couple of year in the making by the time (if ever!) it hits the shelves. I’m also hoping to greatly expand on my fashion photography portfolio, and maybe do a bit of make-up art as well for fashion shoots, depending on how well this mental full face make-up concept I’m doing at one of my next shoots goes. I’ll always post my fashion photography on my blog so keep an eye out! This summer as well as working on the re-write of my book I have a plan for a nine part mixed media art and photography series of works based on poems by famous poets. Its something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and I’m going to be sure to post pictures/parts of the finished works online too!

I think I say it every spring— if not, I should— warm weather makes me want to dress like a hippie. Many times, I don’t always achieve the look because it turns into an odd rocker/hippie mix. Today, was no exception. My look was slightly hippie, but more utilitarian rock fan.

I adore the Jimi Hendrix tee I found in the men’s section of Target years ago. I don’t often wear tops with images or writing on them, but for some reason, I feel it’s acceptable for me to display my undying support this genius across my torso. Plus, a new Hendrix album, primarily recorded in early-1969, came out yesterday entitled, Valleys of Neptune. I won’t turn this into an album review, but I will say, there are some guitarists who can stir your body, some who can stir your emotions, and some who can stir your soul. Only Jimi Hendrix can do all three.

The way music and fashion influence each other has always intrigued me. It’s a very chicken-or-the-egg situation, but after discussing this with various people in both industries, I often chalk the influencing up to being a sort of dynamic equilibrium. I do, however, sometimes say, fashion is my heart and my music is my pulse— I may need fashion to live, but music let’s me know I’m alive.

Talk Back: How does music influence your sartorial choices, and vice versa?

What I Wore:
Top: Target
Cropped Motorcycle Jacket: Alexander Wang for GAP
Sunglasses: Forever21

Over the weekend, I had a mini adventure with my cerebral-twin, whom I’ve lovingly and ironically dubbed Smiles. We went to Park Slope, Brooklyn— a place, though quite cool, is forever away from Manhattan and a hell of a pain to get to when in 4 1/2-inch heels— to see another friend’s band called Cedric Needs Us.

When we arrived, there was what I can only described as a faux-Chaplin, cowboy hipster who sang songs that were unequivocally ordinary. In fact, there was one song about how he had two shoes. His southern twang was as false as his Charlie Chaplin-esque stache, but there was something entertaining about the entire situation.

Finally after about 45 minutes of the hipster Johnny Cash, Cedric Needs Us, a 5-piece band including a clarinetist and a pianist— that’s a clarinet player and a piano player— squeezed onto the 5×7-foot stage and wowed.

I’d only heard one song, “Silvi,” which can be heard on their MySpace page, and was hoping I didn’t have to grin an bare it as I tried to be a nice person, but I can officially say I’m a Cedric Needs Us fan and will hopefully be at their next concert on February 13, 2010 at Kenny’s Castaways (157 Bleecker Street, NYC). If you’re in the tri-state area, you should totally come too!

p.s. Cedric Needs Us is on Facebook too!

The “exceptional book” Menkes spoke of is called My Favourite Dress, a compilation of stories and pictures about the favorite dresses of fashion designers, editors, and elite. Inspired by the original ‘My Favourite Dress’ exhibition at Zandra Rhodes Fashion and Textile Museum, an exhibit curated by one of the book’s authors, Gity Monsef, this wonderful coffee table book is chock full of mesmerizing masterpieces chosen by over 150 of fashion’s finest, including: Manolo Blahnik, Tom Ford, Dolce & Gabbana, John Galliano, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Hamish Bowles, Calvin Klein, Christian Lacroix, Ralph Lauren, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen, Issey Miyake, Zac Posen, Oscar de la Renta, Zandra Rhodes, Paul Smith, Anna Sui, Valentino, and Vivienne Westwood.

It has also topped Amazon UK’s list of best fashion books, all while donating to a good cause— a percentage of the proceeds go to Save the Children.

I first started reading this book not knowing what to expect, but finished with starry eyes and a little more insight into the worlds of some of my favorite designers. I think I also found my dream dress, a Coco Chanel piece made in the late 20s chosen by none other than Hamish Bowles. Not only does the man write one of the only columns I am guaranteed to read in US Vogue, but he has a collection of vintage pieces, probably, no one can rival. I’d never seen this dress before, but with the low back, a scandalous statement in the 1920s, and intricate embroidery, I can’t help but swoon each time I think of it.

What is your favorite dress?

Buy My Favourite Dress on Amazon.com

There’s something magical about a night bike ride, especially when it involves light up spokes, a guy on a giant bike, about 100 people in costumes, and, umm, Jared Leto (I didn’t say it! I didn’t say it! It’s about the music, I promise!).

Anyway, watch the video, love the song, and get This Is War when it comes out on December 8th.

I saw The Brothers Bloom for the first time, over the weekend, and knew I would love the movie, but I had no idea I would find a new style icon in a character aptly named Bang Bang.

Bang Bang, played by Rinko Kikuchi, not only was the most badass, silent, gun-slinging arsonist I’ve ever seen— maybe the only silent, gun-slinging arsonist I’ve ever seen— but she carried this title while sporting bright red lips and Chanel Willy Wonka sunglasses. In every scene there was at least one piece of utterly inspiring clothing, and the way this character layered pieces was sheer perfection.

Bang Bang easily topped the list of my favorite female characters the first time I saw her— love at first sight!

Of course, I might be biased because Rian Johnson did create one of my favorite film noir-esque movies of all time, Brick. The complexities and abnormalities of the characters Johnson creates truly appeal to me, Bang Bang being one such character. Since she was primarily silent— there was an exceptionally funny karaoke scene— the viewer only had glimpses of Bang Bang’s personality through Kikuchi’s facial expressions and her fabulous wardrobe created by Beatrix Aruna Pasztor.

Follow the jump to see more Bang Bang amazingness.

Click the image to magnify.

On my drive to and from school, I try to listen to the radio, my favorite newish songs are “Wheels” by Foo Fighters, “The Fixer” by Pearl Jam, “Relator” by Pete Yorn and Scarlett Johansson, and “Kings and Queens” by 30 Seconds to Mars. Though I hear these songs often, today was the first day I realized there might be music videos to go along with some of the songs, and I was right!

My favorite video is the one for “Wheels”, not because they spent a billion dollars on it, but because I love seeing Dave Grohl and the gang just jam. So listen, watch, love:

What songs are you loving lately?

p.s. Listen to the other songs too.

• Priscilla Renea, for making catchy tunes, and being super cute and stylish
• Baby Phat because the boots the winner gets are hot
• Jessie Brown for asking me to participate
• Karli Stein and the rest of Cornerstone Promotion for making this giveaway possible

Now, without further ado, the Grand Prize Winner of Priscilla Renea’s Jukebox album, a Priscilla Renea t-shirt, and a pair of Baby Phat ankle boots worth $80 is…

MICHELLE BERRY, who’s favorite doll memory was of a Farrah Fawcett doll with a fierce jumpsuit.

The Runner-Up winner receiving Priscilla Renea’s Jukebox album and a Priscilla Renea t-shirt is…

D JORDAN a.k.a. MELROSE MOONFOX who’s favorite doll memory was of wishing she could get her hands on a doll of a character from the show Sailor Moon, but the doll didn’t exist.

Congrats to both our winners, and thank you for entering.

Keep an eye out for more PRC contests!

p.s. If either of the winners don’t contact me by 12:00PM EST on October 8th, 2009, I will be choosing another entrant to replace them.

p.s.s. Check out a great interview Priscilla Renea did with HipHollywood.com about starting her career via YouTube, and filming the music video for “Dollhouse.

Over the weekend I went to my favorite T.J. Maxx in Mt. Kisco, NY. That location has the best selection of high-end designer clothing I’ve ever seen at a T.J. Maxx, and when I say high-end, I mean high-end. I’ve seen everything from racks of Vera Wang Lavender Label to Helmut Lang to Dolce & Gabbana.

I never thought I’d see Dolce at T.J.s!

Though I didn’t end up splurging on the $300 Dolce & Gabbana maroon blazer with black piping I really want, I did end up buying the perfect black pencil skirt from Elie Tahari for $40.

Normally, pencil skirts look odd on me because I have a tiny waist, normal sized butt, and absolutely no hips— seriously it’s just bone— but the Elie Tahari skirt smoothes out my sharp hip bones giving me some semblance of a curvy, womanly figure. Plus, the high waist, make my legs look forever long especially when paired with 5″ heels.

p.s. The “I Ain’t a Doll” Giveaway winners will be announced tomorrow.

p.s.s. I’ve been listening to the new 30 Seconds to Mars song “Kings and Queens” all day, and I can honestly say, I’m in love! You can listen to it on their website, and make sure to request it on your local radio stations.

For about a week and a half, I’ve had the song “Dollhouse” by Priscilla Renea stuck in my head. Actually, just the chorus, “I ain’t a doll. This ain’t a doll house.” That is why I’m super excited to bring you a giveaway where not only will you be able to have “Dollhouse” stuck in your head, but you will be able to have Priscilla Renea’s entire album Jukebox (In stores October 20th) streaming in your head for as long as you want.

Actually, one grand prize winner will receive Priscilla Renea’s Jukebox album, a Priscilla Renea t-shirt, and a pair of Baby Phat ankle boots worth $80. Also, one runner-up will win Priscilla Renea’s Jukebox album and a Priscilla Renea t-shirt.

So now that you know all the goodies you could get, you want to know how to enter, right?

How to Enter:
1 Entry: In the comments below, tell PRC what’s your favorite doll memory.
1 Entry: On Twitter tweet RT @chelsearae Enter to win PRC’s “I Ain’t a Doll” Giveaway
2 Entries: Add the giveaway banner to your website and let me know by emailing me at pinkrockfashion@gmail.com.

<a href=”http://pinkrockcandy.net/fashion/2009/09/17/prcs-i-aint-a-doll-giveaway/” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://pinkrockcandy.net/fashion/images/PriscillaRenea-Badge.jpg” alt=”Pink Rock Candy I Ain’t a Doll Giveaway”></a>

The giveaway ends on October 6th, 2009 and all prizes will be sent after the Jukebox release date, October 20th, 2009. Sorry, US residents only.

For more info on Priscilla Renea, check out her myspace or youtube page.

I just found out that Rachel Bilson is going to be the guest judge on this week’s episode of Project Runway. She looks so cute, and since she’s such a style maven, I can’t wait to hear her critique of the the designer’s pieces— they work in teams this week, right? Yikes, there’s bound to be DR-A-MA!

It’s the first official day of school, and I’m already stressed. Perhaps, I’ll be able to find solace in tomorrow’s episode of Project Runway.

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 at 10 PM ET/PT on Lifetime.

If I knew more about movies, I could wax poetic about the film, but this is a fashion blog so let’s talk shop.

Obviously, Zooey Deschanel is a fashion industry darling. She wears 1950s kitsch like it’s nobody’s business. There is a gorgeous dress she wears to a wedding that made me gasp— literally, people stared at me like I was crazy—and the running blue wardrobe theme did wonders for her watery-heavens called eyes.

I have a major girl crush on Zooey.

Oh, and this is what I wore to the movies because some readers asked. It’s nothing special, just a lazy Sunday tank dress. The colors are a bit Halloween, but I love orange on me.

Tank Dress: Forever 21  •  Blazer: Kimichi Blue  •  Shoes: Franco Sarto