This week I am participating in perhaps my biggest public event yet: a panel discussion and Fashion Show sponsored by Saks Fifth Avenue and Eileen Fisher at Saks Fifth Avenue here in New York City. The leather leggings shown above and given to me by Eileen Fisher will be the signature I will style my outfit around for the event. Most exciting is that my partner in crime for all the festivities is fellow blogger, Leandra Medine AKA Man Repeller. I have long been a fan of her intellect, wit and  writing so when I met her it was a little like a teenager having a girl crush.

A few years ago, I was attracted to Man Repeller because it was clear that although this was a site about fashion there was some real intellect in the mix and an unashamed attitude about being very smart, very funny and a little nerdy. I would frequently, in the course of catching up on posts, have several belly laughs. Leandra is what is what my mother would call a “smart ass”, a sobriquet also given to me. This is a site where you can put Susan Sontag in the search terms and up comes an article about what she says about love. It is also a site where you can find out what young, intellectual and socially engaged women are up to and what they think about careers, love, culture, politics and of course many wonderful examples of asserting yourself when it comes to fashion.

Reading Man Repeller was what made me long for some space for women who were at my stage of life who were also smart, funny, ironic and personally stylish and who wanted to think and talk about fashion and culture and so influenced me to think about starting a blog.  Thanks Leandra for providing me with inspiration yesterday and today and perhaps even more astounding… getting me to crack a smile on camera.