Meet Meghan McAllister!
Hometown: I was born in Ontario, Canada, actually. But I’ve lived in Ohio and North Carolina, as well.
Major/Minor: PR & Advertising (minor in Communication and Media Studies)
Dream Job: I want to be the PR girls for some big fashion company, maybe Marc Jacobs. Or the Senior VP of Communications. I know that those are really ambitious, but, it’s what I want.
Campus Involvement: Panhellenic Sorority Life, Campus Ambassador for WhatRUWearing, College Fashionista (http://www.collegefashionista.com/author/meghanmcallister/)
Why do you feel you’re a Campus Celebrity here at DePaul?
Well, I run a blog named Lincoln Park Minute. (http://www.lincolnparkminute.com/)
How did you come up with that title?
[Meghan McAllister] Actually, [redacted] (one of my sorority sisters) came up with it.
[Her Campus] But how did that process work?
[MM] I honestly am not sure. I was texting a bunch of people telling them that I wanted to start a fashion blog and had no idea what to call it. I’ve always had this fascination with New York City and “New York Minute” is a term that’s popular in our culture and it’s a movie, so I wanted to put a spin on it. So when I read Lincoln Park Minute, I thought New York Minute which is why I liked it.
I also liked that it wouldn’t limit me strictly to fashion. I wanted to talk about Chicago and Lincoln Park and what’s it’s like to live here and the restaurants I try. Naming it Lincoln Park Minute would give me that flexibility.
If you had the chance to change the name of LPM, what would you choose?
I want to say Chic and In Charge, but I also don’t want to say chic because it’s such a cliché. I do really like Lincoln Park Minute; it flows and it’s catchy.
What got you into blogging in the first place?
I’ve always loved writing and I love photography. I’ve loved them since I was like 12 and for the past like seven years I’ve completely neglected them both. So when you neglect something like that for a few weeks, even, not as extreme as years like I did, you miss it. I felt like I had that something missing in my life. I had been thinking about it for a couple months and I just decided that I needed to do it, so I did it.
Who takes all of these photos, anyway?
My boyfriend, Austin, agreed to take all of the photos for me when I told him that I wanted to do this. He’s been super great throughout it all.
Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it?
That’s a hard question. I don’t know. I think I like being between, I guess. I like editing my photos a lot, whether it’s on my phone or on my laptop; I love finding that final product and turning it into something unique and making photographs pieces of art.
A lot of fashion bloggers say that you shouldn’t edit your photos, but I’m not sure that I necessarily agree with that. I like putting filters on my photos, I think it’s fun. I like to at least change the temperature of my photos so that they don’t all look the same.
You have a few different types of entries on your blog: like your favorites of the month, showcasing your own style, your blogs. What kind is your favorite?
Definitely my features. I know a lot of cool people and I love sharing them with my readers. I have another one coming next month with Angelika Gale Designs; she has an Etsy shop, and that post will be coming next month. We went to high school together, but she was a grade above me. She’s studying fashion design at the Savannah School of Art and Design and she’s so sweet. One of the sweetest people I know. Her name being “Angel” is one of the most accurate things ever. I like also having collaborations with fellow bloggers. They’re really fun.
Lincoln Park Minute is still really young (still under three months old!) How do you feel about how young it is and the future it holds?
[MM] It is really young. I only started on January 15, 2015.
[HC] You have a lot of content up here for it being less than 3 months.
[MM] I try to upload content twice a week. Surprisingly, I’ve gotten a lot of views for how young it is. Which I am so happy and so grateful about. Everyone seems to love it. I see it growing, and collaborations with bloggers and more features and style posts, of my own or observations, and more photos of my own outfits. My outfits seem to get a lot of views, so I want to give readers what they want to read. I see beauty posts in the future: some make-up and some hair stuff. I don’t know. I’ll see what happens.