Meet Sarah Conley

Do you know Sarah Conley? Well, you should. Her fashion blog StyleIt Online brings smart commentary on style, beauty, celebrities and the industry, while she concurrently works as the Coutorture Community Relations Associate and writes the Coutorture Education Annex. During her "downtime" she serves as the Bushwick Street Style photographer for BushwickBK.com. Suffice it to say, Sarah Conley is one busy fashionista.

And here we are in fashion week... (Well, I would be if I lived somewhere that had a fashion week, but I'm still feeling the hectic pressure here in California.) What is Sarah Conley doing this fashion week? She's doing a documentary. No, this isn't the kind you'll see at Sundance or Telluride or anything (but who knows?) this is a web documentary and it's all about Sarah's experiences at the tents. Why? Because she is one unique perspective that will really give some interesting insight...

If I say "fashion week", you'd probably counter by talking about the cost of things and where they're made, the style, the divas, the parties, the celebrities, the models...the modelizers. You'd probably bring up issues of models being too thin, too white, or too young, while you might make mention of Ms. Anna Wintour and her standard of "thinness" being akin to "chic".  Then, you might mastermind your way to get one of the teensy little samples through personal connections, influence, favors, or at a Barney's sale in eight months or so... Let's face it, along with all the glamour, there is a whole mess of baggage inherent in every fashion week.

Okay, so what if you were going to fashion week and facing down all of this baggage while being 6'2", a size 26, with a size 12 shoe? What would your experience be like? This is what Sarah is going to show us this week with her project entitled "On The Plus Side: A Fuller Figured Fashion Week Experience". In fact, her first installment talks about her inspiration for this project and the many incredible sponsors she has lined up to help her out this week. Keep checking back in with her StyleIt Online website for daily mini-documentaries on the subject, culminating in a final installment on September 12. This will be one fashion week experience you won't want to miss!

On a personal note, I began corresponding with Sarah Conley many moons ago when she first started with the Coutorture network. She was always there to answer questions with patience and humor. She has always worked passionately to unite the Coutorture network and has helped Julie Fredrickson to attain her vision of a dynamic fashion-blogging network. It was not until a few months ago that I got to meet Sarah in person at a network gathering here in San Francisco... Sarah's humor, warmth and confidence were the things I first noticed about her - her smile, her welcome, her wonderful laughter. A person for whom the adage "beauty comes from within" is spot-on. It gets me fired up that somehow Sarah would be taken less-seriously in the fashion world because her appearance doesn't line up with Anna Wintour's decree. There is so much more to Sarah, and to so many women, than this fashion-world notion of what constitutes "beauty".

I am so happy to support Sarah and the "On the Plus Side" project!