Welcome to Fashioning February

I launched this series last year and it proved to be so popular that I decided to bring it back again. Fashioning February is an editorial celebration of fashion focusing on New York Fashion Week and London Fashion Week which takes place during next month. It will be rammed full of features, interviews and profiles on the fashion industry and fashion bloggers. Tomorrow we will kick with Blogger of the Month which will feature Sasha Wilkins from Liberty London Girl, there will also be a video interview with Amelia Gregory, founder of Amelia"s magazine which took place at the launch of her new book and also each week a blogger will be discussing her favourite fashion decade. You would have to be under a rock not to have come across the saga involving Jennine Jacobs regarding her blog, The Coveted. She took time out to talk to me about her other baby, the superb Evolving Influence Fashion Blogger Conference which takes place next week. As well as the usual My Space feature I will be talking about the pending Teen Vogue reality show and just why is that magazines reality shows are so popular.

I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow and let the start of Fashioning February begin.

Giveaway
In order to celebrate the launch of Fashioning February I am giving away books by the following fashionistas.

A copy of Style Diaries by Simone Werle which takes a look at fashion bloggers and their style
A copy of Style by Lauren Conrad where she talks about the secret to looking fabulous.
A copy of The Truth About Diamonds by Nicole Ritchie which is her debut novel.

To enter the competition all you need to do is drop me an email at ondolady@gmail.com and put the name of the book you want in the subject line. The competition will close on Monday 28th February at 12am GMT time.

Be Coveted

We all know Jennine Tamm as that lovely lady who runs Independent Fashion Bloggers, the global social networking site for fashion bloggers. When she is not plugging away with IFB Jennine dons her other hat as editor of The Coveted. Described as a blog about style without compromise, The Coveted covers style, beauty, fashion culture, beauty trends, eco-beauty, vintage clothing and emerging designers. This delightful blog was launched in 2007 and it is regarded as one of the best fashion blogs around. The Coveted has been featured on Glamour, IQONs, Modepass, and Pronto. I decided it was time to catch up with Jennine and get the 411 on The Coveted.

What made you start blogging?

Oh, there really isn't a straight answer to this. I had been interested in blogs since about 2002 when I heard people were keeping 'diaries' online. I even tried starting an online diary, but my daily life really isn't that interesting. For about a year or two before I started my own blog I was going through a few things... One, I wanted to do something interesting with my life. I liked my job, but I didn't love it, and greedy me wanted a job I loved and felt fulfilled with. Two, I had developed a shopping addiction. Three, I loved reading blogs. I guess the combination of the three gave me a purpose, a subject and a passion so when The Coveted was born in 2007 I had the stamina to keep it going and to keep trying to improve it.

We know the concept behind The Coveted is about style, beauty, fashion, tell us about the team behind it and how you work. Well, last year, my best friend started posting with me about beauty. But her life got busy, so in November Sonja started posting. She's been really great, as she has a background in journalism, so she's done a great job of mixing the two disciplines. She posts about twice a week, and I post about twice a day about fashion related things, and inspiration points. I've actually never met Sonja in real life, but through working together these last 7 months, I feel like I have met her.

The Coveted is such a pretty blog, how did you come up with the look?

Thank you! Well, I was a graphic designer for 10 years, so I think some of my skills were used in the making of my blog identity. It really was an evolution really, from when The Coveted was on blogger, and I was figuring out the blog templates, and from there I kept tweaking. To tell the truth, I'm thinking of doing a site redesign, but I"m going to keep the logo, it took 2 years to come up with it. I mean, it took me that long to really feel good about my identity online, so the logo came out of reaching that point.

How do you think bloggers have made an impact on the media?

I'm not really sure yet. I can say from my own experience, that I fell in love with blogging because I loved the idea the author was so accessible. That when I got into a blog, it felt more personal than reading the newspaper, or flipping through a magazine. The blogger felt like a friend, that I could ask questions and would let me in on their own musings. Online media has really come a long way, and traditional media is beginning to operate with community in mind, but I don't know if they have really captured that personal touch that makes blogging so appealing.

What do you do when you are not working on your blog?

Watching movies, baking, riding my bike, reading, giggling over D-Listed and icanhascheeseburger.

Describe a typical day.

I wake up, take a shower, make coffee. By 10am I start to working, I get my posts finished by 12pm then I work on all the other things that revolve around my sites, usually that will go until 7pm and then I go for a walk with my husband, then we make dinner. I finish up my work, or dilly dally about online for a bit, then I watch some TV or read a book. It's all kind of boring really.

Name your top fashion icons.

I'm really loving Tilda Swindon these days, she just impresses me so much! Also Lara Stone, Bjork, Patti Smith, Catherine Denueve, Grace Jones, Marchesa Luisa Casati... wow, I have an eclectic mix here.

Name five blogs that you read religiously.

Other than the two in #5? Heh, well, let's see I read my RSS feed every day, and there's over 300 blogs in there, not all fashion of course... and I don't read them all every day, and they don't all post every day. Thank god. At one point I had something like 703 blogs in my reader, that makes me cry every time I remember that.

Here are the ones I read just so I know I'm not missing anything. A Shaded View on Fashion, Style Bubble, Pedestrian.tv, The Business of Fashion, Problogger.

How do you see The Coveted evolving over the next two years?

You know, I'm not really sure about that. One thing I can say, is that it'll always be a work in progress.

In the Name of the Blog

I am addicted to blogging; I find it fun, challenging and therapeutic. There is nothing like banging out a blog to put me at ease and get the juices flowing. I also love talking to other bloggers and finding out their thoughts and experiences and of course reading their blogs. In reality bloggers are a community and we share a bond that others cannot really understand, hence the creation of the Independent Bloggers Forum. This was set up by Jennine Tamm aka The Coveted to assist bloggers with developing their blogs into a commercial venture. While reading the forums I was struck by the originality and vibrancy of a lot of the blog names which led me to pen an article about it. The story has been published in the Independent Bloggers Forum and you can read it here.

Picture by Kevin N. Murphy