BN Style Blogger Series is a 10 part series dedicated to leading personal style bloggers in Africa or of African descent paving the path for emerging fashion and style talents from across the continent. As you keep up with us, you’ll realize that what these 10 bloggers have in common is their indelible imprint that they continue to leave on the global fashion and style industry.
We tasked them with sharing something profound about their lives and blogs before they were anything at all and even after they got this big. Because we didn’t want to dictate what they shared with you, we asked them to freestyle and go with their gut on any subject that they decide to write on. But ultimately inspire while at it. These are some of the realest and most honest insights that you’d ever get into the lives and thoughts of these super star personal style bloggers.
While on the surface of this series it might seem like we’re shining a light on already established African style and beauty bloggers, on the core of it though, we’re on the outlook for bloggers with a distinctive voice/style that is unmistakably theirs. And Alma Rex-Ezonfade falls within this circle of burgeoning bloggers with an already established and mastered aesthetic. Her style is sharply clean with a knack for pale pastel hues such as off whites, whites, greys and pinks. In this series, Alma goes beyond the glamour and beauty of her growing blog to talk about how it truly feels to be a young blogger working hard for recognition and—Instagram likes/follows, and while that might sound “silly” to you, she eloquently explains why it truly matter.
Enjoy!
******
Alma Rex-Ezonfade
Hello everyone, my name is
Alma Rex-Ezonfade and I run
thealmachronicle.com. I’ve been blogging for about a year and I can tell you that in that year, I’ve learnt some of the most vital lessons about life. My goal in life is to be a positive influence and a source of inspiration. Before I owned a blog, I was an avid reader of fashion & style magazines and a subscriber to many blogs. Making that transition from reader to writer, from admirer to photographer/consultant has taught me to not take the quote
“never judge a book by the cover” lightly.
Most people think style blogging is just about posing in front of a camera and looking good. In reality, that merely scratches the surface. In addition to being a model and face of your brand, you learn to be a writer, editor, photographer, social media manager, consultant & a creative. “It’s not just blogging”. Day in, day out is spent feeding and nurturing this passion of yours and constantly hoping that other people appreciate it the way you do. “We all have to start somewhere, and doing something is better than nothing at all. Start small so you don’t get discouraged and give up. Remember it is all about consistency” – Khloe Kardashian.
Yes, I quoted Khloe K.
My first year of blogging was terrible. I had just moved continents to start graduate school and I was still acclimatizing when I decided to take fashion seriously. So I had three balls in the air; a new country, rigorous education that tasked me emotionally and a medium of creative expression I hadn’t quite mastered. Let’s just say at
first, I wasn’t a very good juggler.
I became so overwhelmed, I found myself on my bedroom floor at 2am in the morning complaining to my friend about not getting recognized on Instagram.
Yes, I know it sounds silly but these are the things that keep bloggers up at night. We worry about cameras and good
lighting and angles. We worry about sentence construction in captions and if people get tired of helping us promote articles. It’s easy to fall into a cycle of external validation. Likes and comments can just as easily decimate your self confidence as it can validate your hard work. I’m learning to keep my focus entirely on creating and documenting fashion. I decided that my primary goal was to curate a site that I could be proud of.
Blogging makes me a better person. It has helped me discover my city and myself as an individual. I’m no longer just a pedestrian, I’m a photographer always on the lookout for beautiful locations. I see the beauty in its parks and walkways, its stores and cafes. I’ve learnt to appreciate that clothes are an investment and nothing is off limits to a woman with a critical eye. I’ve learnt to circumvent the ‘blogger in diaspora’ curse that makes a lot of other bloggers in other countries inaccessible to their primary Nigerian audience by acknowledging the differences between and showcasing the best of both cultures. This in turn has helped me see Nigeria in a way I never quite did before.
Fashion shows and collaborations with upcoming brands are definitely in the cards for me, but I’m not in a hurry to do anything. I want the Alma Chronicle to reflect my perspectives, and I’m still in the process of honing those perspectives through experience and education. I’ve seen bloggers scrub their entire blog history because they were too eager to get in on the ‘glamor’ and I don’t want that for me. I think these things will happen organically and on my terms, and I’ll be here for all of it.
I’ll say the same about money. I know the statistics; it takes a few years for blogs to break even. Every successful blogger had to go through the motions for a while before they began to draw revenue. So I’m not panicking (yet). Lol
I’m not saying it’s all roses and strawberries now, but it’s definitely less vinegar. The Alma Chronicle has a readership and a distinct aesthetic and I have my flat lay technique down to a science. I still worry every now and then about my numbers but I know now that it is something no blogger ever really gets over.
I can live with that.
———————————————————————————————————————
