Stylist Live 2016: A Festival of Inspiration and Creativity
If you live in the UK, you probably have come across a free women’s lifestyle magazine Stylist. From fashion and beauty to career and travel, Stylist covers all the important questions a girl may have. Every week I get a free copy at my underground station and it makes such a good companion on a busy journey to work.
I heard about annual Stylist Live festival before but this year I decided to check it out myself. Plus, a four-day program of 150+ talks and workshops on everything from how to mix tea and apply a perfect make-up to how to create a perfect winter wardrobe or launch your own business looked really interesting and exciting!
With a standard ticket (£25) that guarantees you seat for a catwalk show and one talk in hand, I headed to the festival on Sunday afternoon.
The Stylist Catwalk
Supported by the dazzling Swarovski brand, the Stylist catwalk showcased 5 key trends of the AW16 season: Spice World, The Navy Coat, Sportswear, Velvet Goldmine and Intergalactic.
What I really loved about it is that most of the clothes were from the high-street fashion brands (each guest received a list of clothes/prices used for each look), making each outfit easy to replicate and totally affordable. Great fashion styling and editing by the Stylist fashion team, coupled with gorgeous models and bold soundtrack, produced a really impressive show. Check out a catwalk video I put together.
Travel Blogging Talk
After a fun and fashionably invigorating show, I headed to the talk by a travel blogger Bonnie Rakhit. Bonnie being a former fashion editor for a number of UK publications, has become over the year a successful travel blogger and has been invited to share her tips and suggestions on how to succeed in the competitive blogging environment.
Being a travel blogger myself, it was reassuring to hear some of the tips that I am already using or something I am planning to do to drive traffic to my blog and start monetizing on it. However, what left me slightly disappointed is that Bonnie already had journalistic background (alas she is good at writing), access to exotic and luxurious destinations, and professional connections through her work, which can in large be attributed to the success and visibility of her blog. What would be really useful is for someone to present on how to start a travel blog from scratch, without any previous experience or much funding. But all in all, it was a good session and fellow bloggers asked some really good questions on how to narrow down a blog USP and how to stay authentic in sponsored posts.
What else to see/do
The rest of my time at the Stylist Live festival I spent browsing through numerous pop-up shops and beauty stations, while sipping my complimentary Chambord Black Raspberry Liqueur.
There is definitely something for everyone: pampering and relaxing stations by beauty giants, such as Clarins, Lancome, Elemis and Urban Decay; craft and gifts by notonthehighstreet.com; and lots of jewelry, footwear, accessories and clothing brands to check out.
I have to say it was a perfect way to spend Sunday afternoon and I will definitely attend another Stylist Live festival next year. And who knows, I might even be speaking at it?!
