It was so incredible to be featured in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s article last week by Sara Bauknecht, about three Pittsburghers at New York Fashion Week. To be recognized and supported by my hometown validates all that I do and all the sacrifices and hard work I’ve put forth to get here in my career, and motivates me to reach for the stars, no matter how unsound and impossible it may seem.
You can read it online at the Post-Gazette.com, or see below!
The Big Apple will get a bit busier when the who’s who of the fashion world descend on Lincoln Center Thursday for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, eight days of runway shows and presentations previewing the trends that will make a splash in stores next fall and winter. Meanwhile, hotel suites, galleries and rooftop terraces across the city will be transformed into makeshift showrooms for other New York Fashion Week festivities.
For many, the biannual affair is synonymous with VIP parties, runways and industry powerhouses such as Anna Wintour and Andre Leon Talley surveying the scene from the front row. But behind the glamour and glitterati are thousands of models, stylists, makeup artists, designers, writers and volunteers who make it all possible. Meet three of them from Pittsburgh:
Fashion Week or not, beauty and style are always on Julia DiNardo’s agenda.
When the 30-year-old Highland Park native isn’t working as a freelance writer (she’s contributed to media outlets such as Redbook, GQ, BeautyHigh.com and AOL StyleList, among others), she’s refining stories for her Fashion Pulse Daily blog or prepping for the course on style and society she teaches at New York University’s Gallatin School. She’s also the creator of Neighbor Teaze, a line of T-shirts with slogans and graphics inspired by Pittsburgh neighborhoods.
During Fashion Week, her workload intensifies. Now based in the Astoria neighborhood, she covers about 60 shows for her blog and a handful of other beauty sites. Backstage interviews with stylists also dot her days.
“It’s just a matter of splitting my time, hopefully successfully, between being backstage and coming around to the front of the house to see the shows and the looks as they come down the runway,” she says.
Ms. DiNardo is a seasoned pro at balancing the long days of shows and the late nights of writing, having covered Fashion Week for almost a decade. Plus, she’s passionate about what she does.
“I always knew I wanted to do something in fashion,” she says. “Sometimes I forget, being here and going to a lot of events, how amazing and special it is.”
When she needs a hand, she taps friends in the industry or current or former students to write a piece.
“I’m glad I can offer them that opportunity,” she says. “I think that the blogging community seems to have a strong cohesion. … Sharing tips and information about how to better things isn’t considered as much of a trade secret. It’s ‘I don’t mind helping you. Let me help you,’ which has been a breath of fresh air.”
She’s watched Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week relocate from its midtown home at Bryant Park to Lincoln Center and start to treat online media more like print’s equal by providing more resources on-site for digital journalists.
“It makes me feel things are definitely starting to move in a more online-friendly format,” she says.
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