(Adriana Ovalle/The Daily Campus)
Smiles were all around and cameras flashed as the trendy SMU students flocked to CUSP at Neiman Marcus NorthPark Thursday night.
The SMUStyle blog hosted a fall trends event at Neiman Marcus’ contemporary department to toast its website redesign.
Five SMU student bloggers dressed mannequins in trendy outfits influenced by their personal style. Attendees enjoyed sugar cookies glittered with the blog’s name and bumpin’ beats provided by DJ Zoo. Partygoers posed with props courtesy of Pic Flips.
The blog’s simple black and white template will soon be replaced with a more professional design according to co-founder Christina Geyer.
The website is set to launch in early October.
“We wanted to streamline our process and really make it function in a way that was convenient and accessible, not only for our bloggers, but for our campus editor.” Geyer said.
SMUStyle was founded in 2009 by SMU alums, Christina Geyer and Sarah Bray. Geyer is now the assistant editor of Paper City and Bray is the social media coordinator at Neiman Marcus. According to Geyer, the blog was started as a personal creative outlet.
In May 2011, the SMUStyle team expanded with the addition of senior Meg Jones as campus editor. Currently, the blog has approximately 15 bloggers. Geyer said the blog has more than doubled its traffic within the last year.
“Its gone through so many phases.” Geyer said. “The final step of us branding the site is the redesign, which has been a long time coming.”
Geyer is inspired by how many freshmen are interested and are writing for the blog. The influx of underclassmen contributing bloggers guarantees another four years of SMU Style.
“SMUStyle is more of a tool than anything else.” Geyer said. “For all those girls and guys that want to have careers in the magazine business, multimedia, its hard to find really solid experience.”
One of those first-years is Alex Small, who since joining the blog add interviews with Tyra Banks and Jan Strimple to her resume.
”Being a blogger for SMU Style is one of the best opportunities for students interested in a career in fashion.” Small said. “SMU Style is a great avenue for me.”
The blog maintains posts on upcoming fashion events in Dallas, trends and looks for less, and reviews of local restaurants. Its “Spotted” section features stylish students snapped across campus.
SMU Style isn’t just a blog for its fashion-focused writers.
“I’ve definitely Google searched it a lot,” SMU Senior Eme Torlai said.
Geyer is pleased with the blog’s quick success.
“It’s all coming to fruition, what we wanted for the past three years.” Geyer said.
The co-founder hopes to continue to not only be present on campus, but in Dallas. Expanding to other college campuses is also in the blog’s future.
To see what all the buzz is about visit SMUStyle.com.
Video shot and edited by Summer Dashe, sdashe@smu.edu
(Sidney Hollingsworth/The Daily Campus)
(Sidney Hollingsworth/The Daily Campus)
(Sidney Hollingsworth/The Daily Campus)
