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Last Friday, a colossal crowd of top bloggers and fashion influencers flocked to Beverly Hills' SLS Hotel to catch the third West Coast installment of Lucky's two-day fashion and beauty blog conference, Lucky FABB. Although the event certainly provided sound career advice and prime networking opps like similar seminars, what set this conference apart were the refreshingly candid revelations provided by the roster's star speakers. Here, a few memorable takeaways from House of Harlow 1960's Nicole Richie, Nasty Gal's Sophia Amoruso and more.
One standout moment was when Lucky editor-in-chief (and Instagram star) Eva Chen sat down with Richie, who charmed the crowd with her lavender-hued hair, badass Givenchy blazer and overall chill demeanor. "My daughter picked this hair color," Richie revealed. "I'm very popular at her school now. Everyone thinks I'm a character from Frozen."
After discussing how she balances being a mom and running a successful fashion line ("You can't expect to do 100%, 100% of the time. There are deadlines that I miss and opportunities that I have to pass up), Richie offered some comic relief with this nugget of prepubescent embarrassment: "I had a full-on unibrow when I was 11 and really wanted to wax my eyebrows. My mom wouldn't let me, so one day I took a razor with no mirror... and it was awful. I told my mom, 'I was in the shower and they just fell off!'"
Something else we didn't know about Richie: she has a total green thumb. "I just started building an edible garden this year," she gushed. "I'm so excited to talk about this, guys, because my friends are sick of hearing about it. Let's see... so far, I have two apple trees, orange trees, blueberry trees, broccoli, kale, lemon trees, sage, oregano and more. I just convinced my husband to let my get hens, which are coming in a few weeks." Cleverly driving the conversation back to style, Chen asked Richie was she wears while gardening: "I love wearing vintage peasant dresses, but it's really cold in the morning so I usually end up in a North Face jacket, my husband's hat and colorful sweatpants. And I stand by fanny packs 100%—they're dope, you guys! I have two vintage Chanel ones."
Another headliner that attendees were clearly in the house for was Nasty Gal's fascinating founder and CEO, Sophia Amoruso. Fangirls frantically reached for their phones when the Shoe Cult-wearing entrepreneur took the stage, racing to be one of the first to Tweet the encounter. After the pandemonium settled down, Chen asked Amoruso to discuss her journey to discuss, similar to what she shared at SXSW. "At 18, I was deadset on smashing capitalism," she confessed. "I stole a lot because I thought Wal-Mart was ruining the world and I was Robin Hood."
Amoruso also revealed that her favorite people to follow on Instagram are rapstar Snoop Dogg ("he posts funny stuff; it's not just weed") and Girls creator Lena Dunham ("I like the pictures she posts of her dogs"). Offering a blink-and-you-missed-it update on Nasty Gal's upcoming storefront debut, she said that "no leases have been signed yet, but the first two stores will be in LA. I'm hoping to open the first one by the end of this year."
Given that the name of Amoruso's debut book is called #GIRLBOSS, Chen couldn't resist asking her about the recent #BanBossy campaign famously backed by Beyoncé. "In the PSA, Beyoncé says 'I'm not bossy but I'm a boss.' Why is putting a 'Y' at the end considered not okay?" Amoruso explained. "Words are malleable. For one person to tell us what a word means is kind of crazy. Being decisive is a good thing. It's all about TCB: Taking Care of Business." Chen nodded in agreement.
Lucky FABB also featured mini breakout sessions, including a "Next Level Personal Style" workshop with international model Karolina Kurkova and LA blogger Aimee Song of Song of Style. Kurkova's tips on developing your own look included "Be comfortable with what you wear and don't let the trend wear you" and "Pretty can come in many forms and shapes." On the subject of cruel commenters, Song kept it real with one simple line: "Let your haters be your motivators."
· Lucky FABB Fashion and Beauty Blog Conference [Lucky]
· Lucky FABB's LA Speakers: Sophia Amoruso, Nicole Richie, More [Racked LA]
· Nasty Gal's Unlikely Rise, Straight From Founder Sophia Amoruso [Racked Nat'l]