‘RAD’ blogs: Pitt fashion bloggers bring latest trends to campus

Some students are turning to the Internet to vary the campus style palette of sweats or Uggs that accompany a long Pittsburgh winter. 

Fashion blogs allow students to become representatives for national fashion platforms while still showcasing their own personal style. Many national fashion sites, such as CollegeFashionista and Her Campus, are divided into separate pages for participating universities, creating smaller on-campus networks. Meanwhile, other websites, such as Boohoo and Jewelerry, simply hire individual representatives to market their products on campuses.

As its name suggests, Jewelerry.com plants representatives at college campuses with a focus on selling jewelry. Boasting affordable products for college students, the website sells products for $20 or less.

Jordan Cook became a campus representative after her sorority hosted a Jewelerry trunk show. The representative position is unpaid, but she receives 20 percent commission on all sales as well as occasional jewelry samples to show off the brand on campus.

“I fell in love with all of the products from the trunk show,” Cook said. “I wanted to help Erica [Bernstein, Jewelerry’s founder] spread the word about her company. Going into fashion and social media [as a career] is one of my dreams, so this is a great opportunity for me to get started on what I love.”

Boohoo, a clothing company based out of the U.K., works similarly to Jewelerry. Recently, the company has teamed up with Her Campus to create the Boohoo Style Squad at 15 college campuses in the U.S. Jessie Iacullo, who writes for The Pitt News, and Naomi Kliger are  Boohoo brand ambassadors at Pitt.

The Style Squad’s job is to represent the Boohoo brand on campus. Iacullo is the social media and marketing manager, and Kliger is the PR and event planner. While unpaid, ambassadors receive free merchandise, online shopping credit and have access to possible internships with Boohoo.

In addition to representing the brand, Iacullo is required to keep the StyleSquad social media pages up to date, as well as inform students around campus of Boohoo’s discounts and promotions. She and Kliger meet weekly to fill out status reports. The event planner is also required to do one event per semester — this year, it will be at the Porch at the end of the term.

According to Iacullo, the editorial work she does as social media and marketing manager has made her well prepared for internships and careers in the field.

“Being a Boohoo rep has broadened my interest for a future career and makes me stand out from someone with just editorial experience,” Iacullo, a sophomore English and Communication major, said. “I also have background in advertising because of the internship I have held for the past three summers, so [I can] use what I learned there, as well as my own knowledge, to curate content across social media.”

CollegeFashionista is a website that features photos of and articles written by college-age interns who have their own style. The internship is unpaid, but it allows the bloggers to potentially gain national exposure. Readers can search for looks and articles by college, article title or fashion trend. They can then click the “RAD” button if they like what they see.

Pitt has six CollegeFashionista representatives, or “Style Gurus” — Meredith Kearns, Lauren Kucic, Cat McNulty, Lexy Medgaus, Brianna Dela Torre and Abigail Weaver.

To apply, the Style Gurus filled out an application on the website. In addition to the general application, they needed to write a mock article and include style photos. CollegeFashionista requires Style Gurus to own a personal camera. 

“I think, in college, it can sometimes be hard to find your personal style,” Kearns, a senior general management major, said. “With CollegeFashionista, you can read about what other college students from all over the country are wearing, find out where they get their style inspiration from, and, from there, you can piece together the parts you like the most and it can help you put together your own style.”

Style Gurus post an article and accompanying photos each week under specific categories: Style Guru Style, All in the Details, Style Advice of the Week, What to Wear and All Around Town. Style Guru Style features the specific blogger, while all the other categories feature students around campus. These profile subjects could be friends, family members or anybody the Style Guru thinks has head-turning style.

“I really like to write about trends and specific pieces, as well as the individual and their preferences, [or] me and my preferences,” Medgaus, a sophomore communication major, said. “I like to incorporate humor into my articles to make them fun to read, instead of making them purely fashion advice and critiques. I don’t claim to be any pro at this stuff, I just enjoy it.”

Though the internship is unpaid, according to Kearns, style posts that receive a lot of exposure through the “RAD” system (similar to “likes” on Facebook) can gain national exposure.

“[Style Gurus] gain a lot of really great experience in photography, writing and promotion,” Kearns said. “There have been Style Gurus who have been contacted by companies that offer them the chance to represent their products, all because of a post on social media. It’s all about how you market your article, and a lot of Style Gurus have been very successful.”