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ABOUT FASHIONTRIBES EDITRIX LESLEY SCOTT
Fashion & lifestyle expert Lesley Scott is the New York City-based editor of the Fashiontribes blog, a premier fashion & lifestyle blog. Not only did Technorati.com recently rank Fashiontribes as one of the Top 20 Lifestyle blogs, but it is frequently voted one of the Top 10 fashion blogs.
Always on the cutting edge of new media, Lesley was one of the first bloggers to live-podcast New York Fashion Week and cover the runway shows as an officially-accredited member of the press. An influential and respected member of the lifestyle blogging community, her expertise is regularly sought after by top New York public relations firms including Kaplow Communications and Marina Maher Communications, and she has appeared in Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, Women’s Wear Daily & USA Today.
Prior to Fashiontribes, Lesley covered New York style & trends as the Senior Editor for Coolhunt, a global trendspotting firm. Her byline as a Lifestyle Expert appeared regularly in countless international magazines about fashion, beauty, streetfashion, lifestyle, and pop culture - including Marie Claire in Asia, Jessica, 25 Ans, GQ Taiwan, and Elle Girl Korea.
After her mom, Mary Jo - and best buddy & travel partner to myriad fun destinations including Easter Island, the Inca Trail & Machu Pichu, Kazakstan, Romania, Nepal, Morocco, the Baltics, Tanzania, Patagonia, Tasmania, Indonesia (pictured) & Burma - died suddenly of breast cancer, she started Fashiontribes.com in her honor. (For a fun first-person reminiscence, CLICK HERE.) First came the 5 e-zines-in-1 launched, each customized by fashion personality or "tribe", followed by the Fashiontribes Daily blog.
Not surprisingly, one of Lesley's pet causes is Breast Cancer Awareness & Research...which means October is mixed bag: fab when it comes to awareness & raising funds, but a heartbreaking daily reminder as well.
She can be reached at Lesley AT Fashiontribes DOT com.
How I started Fashiontribes
by Lesley Scott
An extended stint as the NYC-based Senior Editor for the trendspotting firm Coolhunt included penning regular fashion, beauty and style pieces for various international publications including Marie Claire Asia, GQ Taiwan, Elle Girl Korea & Japan's prestigious 25 Ans. One of my trendspotting duties included snapping photos of stylish people in the streets of New York & interviewing them about their personal style. Editing the photos each month, it quickly became clear that the way people dressed spoke volumes
about their life. Anyone in head-to-toe leather, pink hair & multiple piercings might live in the same geographic location as a Chanel-clad socialite with the season’s $2500 "it" bag and a social calender packed with luncheons and benefits – but they "live" in completely different cities…from the restaurants & clubs they frequent (21 Club vs. CBGBs; Schiller’s vs. Le Bernardin), to the neighborhoods where they shop (Greenpoint vs. the Upper West Side), to the types of drinks they enjoy (Pabst Blue Ribbon vs. a dry martini). Over the months, the photos seemed to organize themselves into five general categories, which I dubbed the fashion "tribes". And with each month that passed, I would excitedly note that my tribe concept was being validated even more strongly.
At the same time, in the course of covering the runway collections and looking at the myriad fashion show photos from New York, London, Milan & Paris, I was struck by the fact that the newsstands were overflowing with magazine after magazine catering only to a single tribe, but there were actually plenty of runway looks sure to please the rest of the tribes. Why would the extreme ladylike looks that all the main magazines were promoting interest a punk-influenced, leather-wearing, music-loving hipster inhabitant of Williamsburg? The other tribes began abandoning one-size-fits all print in search of relevant content, and not surprisingly, a tidal wave of red ink continues to wash over the newsstand. 
So I started Fashiontribes.com as a way to find & filter the latest fashion news through the various tribe lenses, giving each tribe the fashion, beauty & lifestyle news they would most likely find interesting. Admirable, yes – and even critically-acclaimed – however also extremely costly, and I quickly ran out of money (however, with my advanced degree in shopping, this probably shouldn't have been surprising). In order to continue publishing in some form, I started the Fashiontribes blog. By consistently doing my best to post well-written, high quality content that reflected my taste, experience & voice – rather than ill-disguised advertiser plugs or puff pieces designed to appease illiterate publishers with no respect for the written word (or the truth for that matter) – the Fashiontribes blog ended up eclipsing the original e-zines!
One of the most fascinating aspects of being a part of the blogosphere is watching it develop into a unique form of publishing. Rather than simply replicating print online, blogs have begun to transform into a distinct format built around a frequent publishing schedule with reader comments and trackbacks referenced from other blogs as a key part of the process. Yes, readers are violently opinionated about what you post – from fawning compliments to outright disgust – however they are engaged, feel heard, know your voice and trust it, and are fiercely loyal.
For a writer, few things are as rewarding.
(images: Williamsburg hipster - dobi.nu; Nan Kempner - bigshinything.com; Beyonce - Teen Vogue; illustration - sassybean.com)
