Another highlight... shooting with Edson Carlos!
I've never really done a "year in review" article on TLA before. I don't know why; I just think it never occurred to me beyond our regular "Best of the Year" posts. But a lot of amazing things happened with the site last year, and I thought it'd be cool to recap them here... if for no other reason than to have a place to look back on it all someday. So without further ado, here's my 2013 in review!
- I got married! I know, I know... not exactly a professional event, but my marriage was probably the biggest thing that happened to me in 2013. I don't really talk about my personal life on the blog, but I feel so incredibly grateful to have found a life partner who, among other things, supports what I'm doing with The Lingerie Addict. Self-employment and entrepreneurship is hard enough on its own; if the people closest to you don't believe in what you're doing, then it becomes that much harder. Even though Nick doesn't read my site, he's probably the biggest fan of what I do here.
- TLA got a brand new look! After years of the same blog template, Jason of I Fell Into a Whale, Kelly of Kelly's Portfolio, and I all got together and gave the site a major redesign. I'm talking a complete overhaul... both in terms of what you see and in what's happening behind the scenes. Jason took care of the vast majority of technical and design details while Kelly designed by brand new custom made logo. I'm really happy with the new look of the site; I feel like it fits who I am now as opposed to who I was three years ago.
- I was quoted on CNN! This is probably TLA's biggest media mention to date, and I am still over the moon about it. After working on this site for more than five years, it was incredibly gratifying to get recognized as an authority on lingerie by a news site everyone's heard of. I remember calling my parents completely ecstatic about the news. Even if I had to stop doing The Lingerie Addict tomorrow, I can always say that I was quoted on CNN. The site also had a couple of other major media mentions including Forbes, Fox News, Racked, and Salon.
- We welcomed Krista to the team! If you're new to the lingerie blogging, you may not recognize Krista's name, but she used to write for The Lingerie Post which was the BIG lingerie blog when I first became interested in the subject. Krista was incredibly welcoming to me as a newbie blogger, and she gave me my first couple of "big breaks" by linking to a few of my articles from The Lingerie Post. Krista has forgotten more about lingerie than I will ever know, and I am incredibly excited that we have access to her knowledge base and expertise on The Lingerie Addict.
- I spoke at BlogHer! And Blogalicious and The Underfashion Club. Conference and convention speaking was something pretty new for TLA last year, and I got my feet wet by speaking at one of the largest blogging conferences in America (if not the world). I also had the opportunity to talk Blogging and Social Media at The Underfashion Club (you can find the video of that here) and to discuss hiring people for your blog at Blogalicious. Hopefully, I get the opportunity to do more speaking in 2014 as well.
There were lots of other things too, like attending my first ever LingerieFW, meeting a number of favorite bloggers (including The Lingerie Lesbian, That Je Ne Sais Quoi, Sweet Nothings, and Vintage Vandalizm) in person, touring the headquarters for Hanky Panky and Natori and meeting the founders of both of those brands (OMG... I love female entrepreneurs), and really letting go of some my own fears and hang-ups about the site. I feel more excited than ever before about The Lingerie Addict. I've had the entire holiday break to brew up some great ideas, and I really can't wait to share them all with you in 2014!
What were some lingerie highlights for you last year? They don't need to be about this site, of course, but I'm wondering what stood out to you about the world of lingerie in 2013.