February Letter from the Editor

Current State of Mind

Hey ladies – Welcome to February. I’ll spare you the typical “how is it February already”, “time is flying by” sort of comments. In fact, it kind of seemed like January lasted forever. Not in a bad way necessarily. It just did for some reason. Thankfully it was super productive. We made great leaps and strides around here in terms of getting in a great flow as a team.

As we’ve established recently, on the first Monday of each month, I’ll be sharing a letter from the editor of sorts with you. This letter provides me a simple opportunity to share my current state of mind — as it relates to this website and more. A state of this colorful union, if you will. 🙂

What Value are We Bringing to You?

The predominant thought resonating with the team and me these days is value. That is, what value are we bringing you?

Are we putting creatively inspiring work into the world? Are we doing things in original ways? Are we making you smile each day? Are we making you think? Are we challenging the way you look at the world? How are we enriching your life? Most of all, are we empowering you to live, think, and dress with more color? After all that’s our mission!

Our mission is to empower women to live, think, and dress with more color.

What does that mean to us? Obviously, we are enamored with color itself. But “color” means so much more than that. We want to help each of us to live out loud. To live boldly and authentically. To be unabashedly your most authentic, beautiful, and true self.

How does that look around here? Well, you may have noticed more consistent, more evergreen, more value-adding content. Each and every day of the week, the team crafts a story that we think is timely, relevant, creative, colorful, and inspiring in one way or another. We cover a variety of topics. Right now, our flow is like this:

Monday: thoughts from me – a letter from the editor, a letter to Elle, Q&A with me, or something of that sort.

Tuesday: a helpful, informative, in-depth fashion article. It might be how to wear a certain color, a trend we are loving, or a designer you need to know.

Wednesday: an inspirational post centered around a quote beautifully hand-lettered by Amy Tan, which we also provide as a free downloadable printable.

Thursday: a recipe or food feature or guide or travel feature of some sort

Friday: this day is somewhat flexible… In January, we did the wellness series; this month, we are going to focus on self-care through the form of learning new skills, crafts, hobbies, and such.

Saturday: a round up of all the good, happy, positive, beautiful, colorful things we loved online for the week. This one is a fun one to put together!

Now, the particulars of this schedule may change over time as we evolve. But I hope you can appreciate the thought we are putting into bringing you valuable content. And of course we have our daily looks feature as well, where you can find new outfit inspiration three or so times a week.

A Few Thoughts on Outfit Posts

Speaking of our daily looks, that brings to mind another topic I want to mention to you… My daily (or not so daily) looks.

When we launched the new website and brand in November, I was committed to one new article and one new outfit post every day of the week. And we tried that for some time. But you know what? It just didn’t fit me for several reasons.

First, who needs a new outfit each and every day of the week? Frankly, I quickly grew tired of the consumerism. I felt like I was buying and wearing things and running around town hurriedly just to take outfit photos — not necessarily because I was truly excited about what I was sharing with you. That was exhausting! There are some bloggers who post a new look every day of the week like clock work. More power to them! It just didn’t work for me. So, now we are focused on bringing you three or four new looks a week. But we are committed to doing it with intentionality.

Second, the rush and pressure to turn out something new every single day of the week zapped our creativity. We weren’t able to put the thought and foresight and planning and time into our photoshoots as we like to do. Maritere (our photographer) and I both enjoy the creative process of planning the looks, discussing the vibe we are aiming to achieve, and selecting locations.

Even in regards to the clothing itself, I missed being intention with my selections. I want you to always know that I choose each look for a specific reason. I find no satisfaction in just showing you cute pictures of me in random outfits. Our goal through the looks combined with the long form fashion articles is that we can bring more why and how to the fashion equation – not just what. 

An Important Distinction

Many fashion blogs out there are what I would actually term “shopping blogs”. They encourage you to click here, swipe up, buy this, buy that. They let you know when this sweater is on sale for $42 or when that jacket is back in stock. And there’s nothing wrong with that!

We want to be different and unique in a sea of many. Of course, even here there will be an element of shopping. But we yearn to move beyond that. We want to go deeper and wider with you. We want to be a resource for you as you seek to live your best, most color-filled life.

In Closing

I guess the overall message is that as life evolves, so does the content here. We want less fluff, more substance. We want quality over quantity (though you can still expect high quantity here too – just not at the expense of quality). Particularly, we want intentionality over haphazardness.

My sincere hope is that you can sense the professionalism, the thought, the planning, the organization, and even the passion with which we conduct ourselves here. This is not a hobby for us. It is a drive. It is a business. And it is indeed a passion.

We believe in us. We believe in what we are doing. And we believe in YOU! Thank you for being a part of this journey with us.

Thoughts on any of this? Let me know in the comments or via email. I truly value all your feedback. Have a great day! See you back here tomorrow.