A quote by Oscar Wilde, “You can never be overdressed or overeducated,” is the first thing readers see when they visit Allie Gillette’s (COM ’15) blog “All Dressed Up; Everywhere to Go.” After starting her blog in August, Gillette blogs about everything from museum exhibits at the MFA to DIY door decorating and of course, fashion.
“It covers all things trendy: music, fashion and everything awesome in life,” Gillette says with a laugh. “Everything that I like and everything that makes me happy and I hope other people will get inspiration from what I’m doing.”
Gillette explained with a bright smile that she had always wanted to start a blog, but wasn’t too sure what to write about.
“I was like, well instead of thinking about it I should just do it and start writing about whatever I want. And like for me I’m really interested in the fashion and retail industry, so it’s a really good way to show that I’m interested in the industry,” Gillette said.
She was nervous to tell people like her parents about the blog at first but her mom and dad actually helped her come up with the name.
“Well at first I was going to do ‘All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go’ and then I told my parents about it and they told me ‘you can’t do that because you’re supposed to be like young and doing a lot of things, it should be everywhere to go.’ I didn’t even think of that,” Gillette exclaimed.
For new collegiettes who want to start their own blog, Gillette suggests just starting to write to find your voice, even if it means not telling anyone at first. She notes the real challenge is tracking one’s readership.
“I think the greatest challenge is getting followers or trying to figure out if the people that are reading it are just visiting once or if they’re actually coming back. There’s not really a good way that I know of to check that.”
Gillette explains she is still working to improve and that she still gets nervous when she writes!
“I still am [nervous] because it’s all kinda new. Like I don’t want them to be like ‘oh this is the typical fashion blog’ but I mean I’m really trying to show my own personality and not just ‘these are the trends’ but ‘this is what I like about the trends.’”
Moving forward, Gillette hopes to constantly improve her blog and her skills.
“I definitely want to expand my followers to more than just people that I know, to other people who just happen to stumble across it and like it,” Gillette said. “I also hope that my writing improves and like the way it looks because right now I think it’s very basic, which there’s nothing wrong with that but I want to learn more about how to make it prettier and just better writing quality.”
On campus, Gillette is also involved with the Dance Theatre Group and is on the PR team for Her Campus Boston University (go HCBU!). In the classroom, Gillette has been able to apply the skills she is learning through her COM classes to improving her blog.
“CM 331 (COM CM 331 Writing for Communication) is definitely helping me a lot because we are talking about like how to get the most views and like what to link within your blog to get people to visit it and how to promote it,” Gillette said. “So right now we are looking at big blogs like big websites but it definitely is helpful to me too because I want to get more followers so that helps.”
Although breaking into the fashion and retail industry is part of the reason she started the blog, Gillette finds it therapeutic.
“I’m always thinking of things throughout the week,” Gillette said. “Typically I write the most on the weekends just because I have more time. I also do a lot of writing on Thursday nights just because I don’t have class on Fridays so I stay up till three in the morning writing, but it’s relaxing to me.”