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College Fashionista gives NU student spotlight to shine

Wed, Nov 23rd 2016 05:00 pm

By Vanessa Arieno

Niagara University sophomore Grace Billiski shares how College Fashionista is helping her career for the future. Every college student understands the difficulty that is attached to planning their career and finding internships along the way. For those who are interested in the fashion world and enjoy blogging, then College Fashionista has an opportunity for you.

"The most beneficial part of being involved with College Fashionista is knowing I am getting my name out there if I ever wanted to get involved with fashion journalism. I can write it on my resume as an internship and it's a lot of fun," Billiski says.

Billiski is a marketing major at Niagara University hoping to find her career in the fashion world in advertising or merchandising one day. Having her first internship at only 19 years old, Billiski is excited to be a "Style Guru" and share her love for fashion with those who desire to listen.

"College Fashionista is a street-style blog where people of all ages in college can write about what they see or they can write about their own style," Billiski says.

 

Photos by Grace Billiski

 

College Fashionista is about college fashion and the newest trends students are wearing across the country. What better way to share the newest college trends than by working with real college students?

Billiski says enjoys finding new peers each month who have a bold fashion style. This helps build stronger relationships with the students across campus.

"College Fashionista is helping me to connect with other people that do what I want to do," Billiski says.

What's great for Billiski about this internship is all the benefits she gains. Billiski wants to get involved with fashion marketing in her future as a career, so this opportunity is great exposure for what she can expect when that time comes. Additionally, this internship challenges Billiski to stay on top of deadlines. The work gets reviewed before it is published, which requires a lot of time and effort in checking her grammar and perfecting the post before she requests for publication.

"Basically, the internship consists of one blog post every month. Each intern has to express a student's voice in their style of fashion," Billiski says.

After only a single afternoon spent with Billiski, I got an inside scoop of how an internship with College Fashionista works, and a first-hand experience of the amount of time and effort put in to each blog post.

Billiski has successfully written four blog posts leading up to her sophomore year. Each post represents a different and unique style of herself or a peer:

Billiski's biography post, where she introduces herself.

"Stripe Up Your Life," where she refers to the Sonia by Sonia Rykiel 2016 resort collection.

"Tying It All Together," discussing the new summer fashion trend of scarves and fringe bags.

You'll read about her Concert style and what her go-to pieces are.

Once the fall semester began, Billiski wrote about the casual denim style back on campus.

"Patch Perfect" was her most recent post. Billiski enthusiastically talked about the popular new trend of knee-high boots and layering pieces, including DIY projects.

At such a young age, a college student from Western New York may not have as much experience in fashion and blogging as someone living in a vivacious city. After hearing about the internship through a girl she went to high school with, Billiski says she was excited to have found an opportunity to get her foot in the door of her possible career.

"All you do is go on http://www.collegefashionista.com and click 'apply to be a style guru' at the bottom of the page. You explain the type of photography and writing experience you have, your social media handles, and how you heard of company," Billiski says.

After a couple months of patiently waiting if she was accepted to be a "Style Guru," College Fashionista reached out to share Billiski's acceptance into the internship. The company stressed the fact this opportunity could last her entire college career, as long as Billiski remained interested.

Immediately after receiving an email from the company, Billiski was on cloud 9. College Fashionista sent an internship package through the mail, as well with writing and photography requirements. For a while, the company would communicate with its "Style Gurus" through email, but have now adapted to an app, Slack, that sends each "Guru" updates and important information.

This opportunity not only opened the door for four or more years of experience for Billiski, but it also opened the door for possible connections with future employers, and an all-around exciting hobby.

"Sometimes it's hard to find people, but it's more like you see someone on the street and you write about them. So, in the end, they inspire you," Billiski says.

Billiski's goal is to inspire her readers. To express other students' unique style and the latest trends on campus, she uses her skills of photography and writing in the hopes of delivering an engaging way for other students to be able to follow each other's style.

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