Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Vandiver Green.
Lauren, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I’m a fashion enthusiast, color addict, University of Texas graduate, and the creator and founder behind fashion, travel and lifestyle blog, Vandi Fair. I grew up in a small town just outside of Dallas, Sunnyvale, and I now call Far North Dallas home with my husband Cole (who is a real-life “Instagram husband”) and my two Labrador furbabies, Lucky and Lady.
Vandi Fair was a dream year in the making. Since my childhood days of playing dress up with my little sister (we literally called our playroom our “ dress up room” in our house and had a trunk full of my mom’s dresses & gowns), I’ve known that fashion was something I adored. Then in fourth grade, I was introduced to another of my passions: writing. A few years later, I learned there was a way to combine these two passions and make a career out of it, and I was sold! When I grew up, I was going to become an editor for a fashion magazine, and that was the plan I pursued right up through college at the University of Texas School of Journalism. It was an internship with an up and coming fashion brand called Kendra Scott that slightly altered my course. At the start of my junior year of college, I landed the marketing intern job where I wrote and created daily content for the brand’s blog and managed their social media accounts. I loved what I was doing so much that I came back for the next semester, and the next. Before I knew it, I was offered a part-time job at the beginning of my senior year with a contract on the table for a full-time position when I graduated.
It was at Kendra Scott that I was introduced to the world of fashion blogging. I became the point of contact when the brand did collaborations with fashion bloggers, and I even had the opportunity to attend the 2013 inaugural RewardStyle Conference in Dallas representing the Kendra Scott brand. I was so amazed by the incredible talent and success of all the bloggers-turned-entrepreneurs who attended the conference (and also had several fangirl moments), and a seed was planted. When I returned to the RewardStyle Conference the following year with the Kendra Scott team, a voice in my head was telling me I had to do this. It was actually in my hotel room at that conference that I decided on a blog name and bought the domain, and Vandi Fair (both a salute to the fashion magazines I’d dreamed of working for and my last name) officially came to fruition in the spring of 2014.
Flash forward to now, and Vandi Fair has become a business that’s been my full-time job for more than two years and has led to numerous collaboration opportunities with fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands such as Nordstrom, Express, Sephora, Chips Ahoy!, Hanes and more, and even incredible travel opportunities with companies like Disney and Princess Cruises. I still have to pinch myself to think that I’m able to live my dream of not only writing in fashion, but also owning and running my own business. I’m so appreciative and thankful for each and every one of the people who have followed my journey along the way and make my dream job a possibility every day!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Another challenge that I’ve gotten better at (but could still definitely work on!) is learning to not under-value myself and the art of saying “no”. I still get so excited and feel so incredibly grateful when a brand wants to work with me, but I used to take on every collaboration (as long as the brand was one I truly loved and identified with) that came my way, no matter how much they asked of me and regardless of whether I got anything in return for my work. It took me many sleepless nights and 7-day work weeks to realize that my work and time was valuable enough to be selective about the partnerships I chose. It was last year towards the end of the holidays when my husband had to sit me down and help me realize it was time to slow down. I’d been staying up past midnight, eating dinner at my computer, and working every weekend in November and December, and I realized I was missing out on life’s moments. That’s when I decided to make living in the moment, finding a work-life balance and learning to say ”no” some of my top goals for 2017, and while I haven’t been perfect, I definitely have a healthier work-life balance this year than I did in 2016. When you’re running your own small business it’s so easy to get completely consumed by it…there are never enough hours in the day to accomplish every little thing, and as difficult as it is, I’ve learned that it’s so important to accept that it’s okay to not get everything done.Which leads me to my next point…
Another challenge that I face today is not having the manpower or expertise to run every aspect of my small business. Believe it or not, Vandi Fair is a one-woman show (currently), so everything from filtering my inbox daily to creating, editing and posting content to even doing my own accounting (which this Journalism major-English minor was so not prepared for!) is my responsibility, which can be overwhelming at times. It’s been a long time coming, but 2018’s biggest goal is to hire someone who can help lighten that load.
Vandi Fair – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
When I started Vandi Fair, I wanted it to be my happy place. I wanted my site and social channels to genuinely reflect my personal style through fashion and all of the other things that make me happy and define me, from the bright color choices I make in fashion to my love for travel and Disney, to my obsession with my furbabies, and everything in-between. Positivity and kindness have always been so important to me and my hope is that people feel that energy and happiness throughout my site and social media when they stop by. The other thing that’s super important to me is having an approachable, genuine feel, in all of the content that I write. My English teachers would probably cringe, but I write my blog and social posts just as if I were talking to my sister or best girlfriends, because I want my followers to feel as though I’m just casually talking to them about life and girl stuff (which sometimes leads to paragraph-long captions….oops!). I, by no means, feel as though I’m some kind of fashion expert, I’m just a normal 27-year-old girl throwing things together from my closet and sharing my daily adventures. The fact that anyone out there feels like it relates to them or can in some way be inspiring is totally amazing and still gives me butterfly moments.
The ultra-saturated colors that you see throughout my content is a visual reflection of who I am while my writing-style is truly authentic to the way I talk to all of my girlfriends, and I always want to stay true to that, no matter where life may take this blogging adventure of mine. Sometimes that means walking away from collaborations with a huge earning potential because it just doesn’t feel like an organic fit (AKA it’s not something I would wear, purchase or do in real life). While my blog is an ever-evolving business and a way to support my family with a full-time income, the brand itself is still just little ole’ me, so staying true to myself is so incredibly important to me.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
As a blogger/small business owner, success is measured in many ways, but the moments when I feel most successful are when I get to hear directly from the people who follow me and make Vandi Fair possible. While blogging is my absolute passion and I feel so incredibly lucky to get to do it everyday, my decision to start Vandi Fair truly originated from something bigger I wanted for myself and my future. One of the things I’d always dreamed of is to have the ability to be a stay-at-home mother like mine was, but still pursue a career I was passionate about, and when I learned about the thousands of successful women who were doing just that in my years at Kendra Scott, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. But I can distinctly remember a moment very early on in my blogging career that truly moved me and shifted my perspective a bit. I was in line to ride the Tower of Terror at Disney World with my family when a little girl in the Fast Pass line called out my name and ran up to me to give me a hug. She later commented on one of my Instagram posts that she was so excited to meet me, and I remember just feeling so amazed that someone not only recognized me, but actually wanted to meet me. Sitting behind the screen and posting is one thing, but it was the first time someone in real life recognized me through my blog, and it shed a new light on what I was doing. When I get comments, emails or direct messages from followers about how my photos or posts inspire them or make them happy, it truly touches me. For me, that’s what it’s all about. If I can inspire someone or make someone’s day a little brighter, then it makes all the hours I put into this little blog of mine worth it.
The other thing that I personally feel defines success in the world of blogging and digital media is to always keep evolving. It’s so easy to get stuck in a routine, but the things that will allow your business to truly move forward (and ensure that you don’t get bored!) are innovation and new ideas. When I started Vandi Fair, all of my posts were fashion-related. Slowly but surely, additional verticals such as home, beauty and travel were added to my blog, creating a world of new content possibilities and new audiences to identify with.
For me, adding new categories to my blog and diving into fresh, new territory is SO exhilarating and helps me keep my creative juices flowing. Just a couple of weeks ago, I decided to create my first-ever blog-related video to share on YouTube, my blog and Instagram, and while I’d never done video-editing before, it was so much fun to experiment and learn. While my YouTube following is hardly there (working on it, Y’all!), I plan to continue my video series throughout my travel posts, and it’s something I’m really excited about pursuing!
Contact Info:
- Website: http://vandifair.com/
- Email: vandifair@gmail.com
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/vandifair
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/vandifair
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/vandifair
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5bHTxyKgZqC3_HtYcnJ3w/featured
Image Credit:
Angie Garcia Photography
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