While trends and styles come in ephemeral waves, fashion blog Sailing the Sea of Style always has up-to-date trends that flow with the ever-changing fashion tides. Convent of the Sacred Heart freshman Sloane Kratzman spontaneously created a blog and never imagined it would become another big name in the fashion community.
At a young age, Sloane constantly tried on her mother’s clothes and stole her fashion magazines to read the editorials. Although nothing specifically inspired her, Sloane decided that she would take her interest in fashion and design to the next level, while including her love for sailing as well. Her blog consists mainly of photographs of sailing scenery, fashion clothes, videos and monthly playlists.
Since its launch in August 2012, Sloane estimates that 45,000 different people view her blog monthly. She currently has 3,900 followers on Instagram, along with 1,500 page views per day.
Sailing the Sea of Style has had great success, but Sloane agrees that the upkeep of the blog is a handful. She dedicates three to eight hours during the week in order to post four or five times.
“The time writing, editing and shooting photos, meetings, emails, planning, adds up quite fast,” Sloane said.
However, posting also depends on her schoolwork, sailing regattas, and whether Sloane finds trends and concepts that interest her.
Sloane also relies on a small team to ensure quality articles and photos. Photographer Ms. Alexandra Gibbs and graphic designer Ms. Emily Malan contribute to Sloane’s blog along with several other agencies.
“I work with rewardStyle which focuses on affiliate marketing and commission. FohrCard is where most of my collaborations go through. And I’m also signed with Mode Media as I write for their website,” Sloane said.
Along with lots of dedicated time and a devoted team, inspiration for each blog post is crucial and originates from many different sources. Sloane’s main muses include street style fashion, Tumblr, movies, music, and her readers.
“I always make sure to interact with my readers to find out what they want to read about and include that in my choices,” Sloane said.
The fashion blog world is rapidly growing and Sloane has taken advantage of being a part of it. Due to her success, she has built many friendships with mentors who serve to advise the budding blogger.
“I’ve also built relationships with some bigger bloggers (Danielle of weworewhat.com and Blair of atlantic-pacific.blogspot.com) who act as mentors to me and are very helpful,” Sloane said.
“I’m not sure what I would like to do in the future but I like to think my blog is a stepping stone to get there,” Sloane said.
-Cori Gabaldon, Staff Writer