Unless your last gig involved headlining an international stadium tour, appearing in a movie that might win you an Oscar, or starring in a campaign fated for every screen, billboard, and flier for the next season, your chances of appearing on the cover of your favorite magazine are slim. Well, not so fast. If the trio of cover stars on Lucky's February issue is any indication, there are different ways to skin a cat. Forget about breaking the Internet; these ladies are the Internet.
Chiara Ferragni of The Blonde Salad, Nicole Warne of Gary Pepper Girl, and Zanita Whittington of Zanita.com.au are the first bloggers to land the cover of a major U.S. fashion magazine. Just a few years ago, style bloggers and glossies held two warring ends of the industry (and a few years prior to that, bloggers didn't even exist), but these days, their roles are becoming more symbiotic. Like Lucky says within the article, "[Ferragni], Warne, and Whittington have turned what began as side projects into full-fledged business."
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These women have been able to score the same kinds of prestige, access, power, and perks that used to come only after a decade of toiling at the bottom of a masthead. Like most enviable careers of this ilk, theirs are borne out of what they used to do in their spare time. Says Warne about the birth of her site (that was first a vintage shop), "I'd go to my local thrift shops, markets, and garage sales and handpick each time. It was my hobby — my time to myself."
Not quite models, not quite critics, and not quite celebrities, these women have somehow taken the best aspects of each job and created roles that best suit them. In a smaller way, that's the kind of define-it-for-yourself approach we like to take with style — an especially tidy parallel given that Lucky, a shopping magazine, is just as successful for its old-guard infrastructure as its new-guard direction. Editor-in-chief Eva Chen, you'll recall, is just as big a social media darling as Ferragni, Warne, and Whittington are. So, let's not break the Internet at all; it's churning out some pretty inspiring leaders for us.