We recently connected with Ellen Mason and have shared our conversation below.
Ellen, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
Technically, I run two businesses: A Fashionating Life, a fashion blog whose hook is 50 plus fashion, but whose mission it is to empower women regardless of age, body type, if they are mom (or not), a career woman (or not), or any other label used to make a woman feel invisible in an age where we cannot get away from online personas. As Vice President of THE EDIT ADVISORY, our hook is as a Fashion Trend Forecasting & Marketing Innovation company, but whose mission it is to make the fashion industry more accessable and more sustainable.
My partner and I saw a way to help elevate the level of “influencers” or as we call them, the modern fashion content creator. More and more, the fashion industry relies on influencers to sell their clothing or accessories, and more and more, these fashion entrepreneurs are being called upon to act as if they are their own fashion magazine, complete with editorial focus and insight. Yet most of them are not being given the tools to act as such. No longer can an influencer post at OOTD, link to it on LTK, and expect to get anywhere in an oversaturated market.
What The Edit Advisory wants to do is take the fashion trend forecasting and analysis that we perform for established brands and present it in a way that meets the needs of the modern fashion content creator. Everyone from the brand ASOS to the fashion bible VOGUE pay A LOT of money to work with exclusive companies trying to set the trends everyone will be wearing 3-5 years from now. They use that same info to tell you what you will want to wear in exactly next year, next summer, even next winter already.
This is exciting and vital information that can help an influencer position themselves as a true trendsetter, rather than waiting until next year for Anna W to tell us what we want to wear and then watch everyone from luxury brands to Walmart interpret it for their customer.
And thus CREATIVE by THE EDIT ADVISORY (TEA) was launched. CREATIVE is the first-ever, straight from the runway, online trend forecasting membership service created exclusively for the needs of the modern fashion entrepreneur: Fashion bloggers, IGers, TikTokers, stylists, small boutiques, and even indendent fashion brands. Anyone whose business is helped by having their finger on the pulse of the fashion industry – and whose business has an online and social media presense. Taking this information and putting it online in a dynamic membership community makes it accessible and affordable. It allows us to take the work we do for established brands and fashion houses, and rather than take the runways through to production, we take the runways and break down how to find items that speak to your personal style so that you can begin to show your followers now, rather than waiting until everyone else is linking to it. One low monthly membership price and our community already knows what will be in the stores in summer of 2023, as well as projections for next winter. All in one convenient location. One of our favorite taglines is, “spend less time researching trendsetting fashion content, and more time creating it.”
We see this as raising the profile of the modern fashion content creator as well as being their strategic partner. Influencers do NOT need another filter, preset, scheduling, discover compelling hashtag app. They need to be given access to the same tools and knowledge as established fashion industry insiders. and CREATIVE by TEA is the company to do it!
Ellen, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
As probably one of the most introverted people you will ever meet, I am the least likely influencer/entrepreneur around. Pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain was my motto. I worked in Communications with a large dose of PR and then social media marketing. My sweet spot is getting the cameras or the presses attention to look my way, only to shove someone else in front of it to do the speaking. For any woman who is reading this and wondering if they have what it takes to try whatever it is that speaks to their soul but have convinced themselves not to go for it. Please go for it. That is what both A Fashionating Life and THE EDIT ADVISORY are all about. Giving women – or people for that matter – a place to feel seen or supported regardless of what they are about to undertake. Want to wear a mini skirt but think you are too old? You are not. Don’t just wear it – rock it. Have an idea for a business but do not think you are “that person?” Do it anyway. And know that you are that person.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Where I am currently is one big pivot that began a little bit before the pandemic. The pandemic just threw that pivot a curveball……
I started in fashion but made a bit of a course adjustment 25 years ago to working in the music industry and arts nonprofits. After decades in that sector, I knew I had gone as far as I was going to, but I was burnt out and tired of knowing that if I took this skill set to the for-profit sector, I would be making 2-3 times as much. Add in the benefits, the floating PTO, the yoga classess and kombucha on tap that seem to come standard with every company here in Austin.
So I made the switch to corporate America, where I had the salary and the perks. But as it turns out. I do not like corporate America and it isn’t that fond of me. I went to work for tech/software companies in industries that I could not care less about and for me personally, I need to work somewhere I can feel passionate about. As one tech C-suite exec told me, “You need a mission and I am not talking the one from The Office.” Then the pandemic happend and I was laid off.
That is when the side hustle – my fashion blog – became my full-time gig. Besides the increase in pay, my plan in making the switch to corporate America was that I would have enough extra money and floating PTO, to launch the 50 plus fashion blog, side hustle. Best laid plans.
If corporate America had worked out, I would not have met my business partner at THE EDIT ADVISORY and be on my way to becoming the entrepreneur I had no idea I could be. And when you are in your late 40s/early 50s and you begin to question where have you been and what are you going to do with the time you have left, this pivot/curveball became just what my soul needed to truly feel excited about this chapter in my life.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
The best source of new clients for CREATIVE by TEA has been, well me. And my be, I mean by fashion blog. I hate to flat out quote, “not only am I president of the Hair Club for Men, but I am also a client,” but it is what it is.
Teaching a lot of influencers how to take things they see from Gucci during NY Fashion Week and use that for their fashion business when they mainly shop at Target or the thriftstore or Amazon, has been a bit of a curve. As a sustainable blogger myself, when I see that Gucci’s runways are all about crochet pieces, I think to myself, “great! I have some original pieces behind the designer inspiration that I have saved since the actual 70s,” or I know I can find it cheaper on the racks of thrift and vintage stores. I am easily able to show and not just tell how I use CREATIVE to inform my style without having to break the bank trying to afford the luxury version.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.theeditadvisory.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/a_fashionating_life
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/afashionatinglife
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellencanas/
- Other: www.instagram.com/the.edit.advisory www.afashionatinglife.com
Image Credits
Breezy Ritter Photography