Adulting chronically online sharing what I wear | Part 1 of 4

Fashion ego blogger since 2010 (1 & 2), published author since 2022 (3), now trying to be a substacker (3).

It’s been almost 15 years of me sharing curated overly posed photos of my outfits online. It all started when I was 18 years old and started to feel the urge to share my love of fashion, call it avant garde or lack of female friendships but after reading in my trusty magazines that something called blogs was the new ‘it’ thing I jumped right into it.

It amazed me the wide range of people out there in the world sharing their looks, talking about what the where wearing and why they made those choices so freely and approachable. Fashion back then was out of reach from us mortals, only a lucky few were allowed to call themselves fashionistas, and everything was aloof: trends, designers, jobs in the fashion industry, events, etc. Even more for me, living in a small town in Mexico, reading blogs hidden under the stairs of my house.

The blogspot.com era

Few months later I opened my first blog (in blogspot ofc) at first I named it ‘Here, is nowhere’ and then for a year it became ‘It’s like a tank top’. Please, PLEASE, tell me someone gets the reference, PLEASE. This space became my safe place, a outlet for sharing one of my passions, explore my love for writing and to practice my english (I’ve always try to make my posts bilingual). Quickly it grew as an essential part of my life. After learning about branding at Uni my blog became ‘Green’s life diary’, as my artistic name is Luisa Verdee, (Verde is green in spanish —cute play on words right?) it became my identity.

Fun fact: All the entries from the first 5 months of blogging are named after a Gossip Girl episode that somehow made sense with my outfit or whatever was happening in my life.

I will never forget one of the OG readers of my first blog, she was a librarian in NYC and her sole existence opened the whole world for me. She was there, living in my dream city reading about my life in university and my obsession with the YSL Arty Ovale ring.

With Green’s life diary everything became a little more serious for me. I would post -almost- everyday and as I had access to better equipment my photos got better too. I was one of the very few girls who had a blog in 2010-2012 and that got me some bad times too. People mocked me, criticizing my lack of fashion knowledge and even my writing, telling me I was wasting my time, dreaming too high or making a fool of myself. It was the 2010’s, being a mean was totes ok. Even my mom prohibited my little hobby a few times, good thing I’ve been always a rebel.

Writing from the Ego

Ego bloggers they called us, we shared our personal style and fashion dreams with bokeh pictures in our blogs and lookbook.nu. I became legal reading The Blond Salad, Stylescrapbook, Fake Leather, Bryanboy, Kayture, Chic Muse, Style Rookie, and many more (be aware of the lack of diversity in my list, we’ll talk about that later). They were my company for all those years, I got to dream about traveling like them, making friends with other creatives like them and owning beautiful fashion pieces -like them. It also became one of my goals to collaborate with local fashion designers, I used to imagine myself going to red carpet events stating their name so we both get recognition, you know, use my platform to uplift other creatives, and I still dream on doing that.

It was right between 2012-2014 when I fell in love with creating a community, having a voice and with the Proenza Schouler PS11 Mini (that I actually purchased a few weeks ago in 2nd Street while living in NYC, but that my friends is jumping ahead twelve years). My thirst of fashion, traveling and writing just grew and grew with the day, as a new world was opening to my fave bloggers they were opening it to me too. By this time it was a little bit more normal or known by the masses to have a blog or a fan page on facebook, by that time the people who made fun of me now saw me as an example, someone who was ahead of the times and even asked for tips, of course I was like “b*tch, bye”, I’m nice, but not that nice. This is not a morality fable.

Constantly plugged in

Being online for all those years and being an advocate for myself help me build an amazing network in my hometown, I was on the popular spectrum of the social ladder and I loved it. In addition I made good friends, got some gigs as a photographer, volunteered for the first big fashion show at my city and got paid by some brands for adding their banner in my blog or for writing sponsored posts. It was becoming something and I was just 20, I know it doesn’t sounds so amusing now, but believe me, at 2013 this was kinda revolutionary.

It started as a little hobby, a way to know people who loved fashion as much as I did and 5 years into it there was no way of going back. Until the craziest six months of my life: I got accepted by a university in Chile for a semester abroad, went out of my country for the first time, meet the love of my life in an airport and got to travel all over south america all while I was in my early twenties.

I went on a hiatus for a year, but in that twelve months I changed and grew so much I didn’t felt connected with Green’s Life Diary anymore so I created Golden Strokes which is my brand to this day. And that is where part two will start, so, see you there!

L, xo