Women Supporting Women

One of the first fashion bloggers I started following way back in 2010 or '11, Arielle Charnas of Something Navy, is still going strong.  I've watched her go from single girl in the city with a trendy, girly style, to married with two kids and a more luxe, but still girly designer look.  She has over a million followers on Instagram, has a group of fun and interesting women working for her, and just released her first clothing line at Nordstrom this last Monday.

It's been really neat to see her evolution over the years.  She often mentions how grateful she is that what was once a fun hobby of hers (the blog), became a career and allowed her to fulfill her original dream of designing her own line.  I don't particularly like all of her style picks anymore, and her maintenance of the original blog platform has kindof gone to the wayside, but I still enjoy following her success and her family (especially two-year-old Ruby Lou) on Instagram and Instagram Stories.

As previously mentioned, the fifty piece Something Navy line came out at Nordstrom on Monday, with several of the items selling out within hours.  I wasn't a huge fan of any of the pieces they had shown on Instagram before the launch, but I thought it would be fun to go try some of them on in store.  

The line consisted of an accessory table and just two racks of clothing, so I picked out a variety of pieces and headed to the dressing rooms.  There weren't a lot of sizes left so I had to squeeze into a one-size-too-small pair of jeans, and tuck in the one-size-too-big shirt and sweater.  All in all though, I was very impressed with the quality and fit of everything.

The blush pink blazer jacket won this round, in my opinion, but was too expensive to justify a purchase, especially because light pink doesn't really go with my mainly dark and jewel-tone, deeper color wardrobe.  And even though they were a bit tight, I liked the fit and cut of the jeans.  I may have to order a pair online when her November or December lines launch.  Hopefully they'll come in black!

Something Navy was one of the blogs that inspired me to start writing my own blog, and it's been so neat to see Arielle turn into a high profile influencer.  I think one of the coolest parts is that she really was a trailblazer when it came to using Instagram as a blog platform, and she is still using it in new and different ways to define what an 'influencer' actually is.  She is definitely someone I look up to as inspiration, and it was fun to see her hard work and dedication come together into a line of her own.

(photos by e.hunt)