I have been blogging for 8 years now, far longer than I ever imagined when I first started! During this time of Covid-19-induced reflection, I decided it would be fun to look back at how my style journey has evolved over time.

How did it all start? Well, I published my first blog post on a February afternoon in 2012. I had just gotten married, completed my PhD, and moved to New York City. Indeed, a new phase of my life was beginning and I was truly excited to explore new neighborhoods, try new restaurants, and have my "big city" experience. It was also during this time that I discovered fashion bloggers online, such as Extra Petite, Brooklyn Blonde, Atlantic-Pacific (all of which have endured and flourished to this day!) and started to get inspired by their ways of styling and dressing. I have always enjoyed fashion but these bloggers opened up a new world of fashion where a regular, 'non-celeb' person could style like a boss and post about it - it make fashion approachable to me!

And so began my blogging journey on all things related to lifestyle, central to which was documenting my own personal style journey. Over the next seven days, I will be putting up a daily blog post sharing some pictures from my blog archives about my fashion choices and styling lessons I learned along the way - one for every year starting from 2012!

And here goes my first one!

2012: The year of discovery!

A year of discovery on so many fronts - I discovered blogging and also joined Instagram! I discovered a new way of styling myself for the new phase of life I had embarked on. And lastly, I discovered fashion accessories and styling pieces to add to my wardrobe. 

Having just come out of grad school and starting my first job, I wanted to upgrade from my casual grad student attire to something more professional and put-together. I also started following fashion bloggers (an emerging concept at the time!) to get ideas on how to elevate outfits for work and social meet-ups. Also, anyone who has visited NYC knows that it’s one of the fashion capitals of the world! Just walking along the streets of Manhattan gave me so much fashion inspo!

Here's a look at some old pictures from back then - mind you, the blog and Instagram world were still a brand new concept and I was barely just figuring out how to take good "blog-worthy" pictures. It was a combination of using my Canon digital camera or iPhone pics transformed with hazy Instagram filters at the time. Haha!

This was a dress I had bought online and I loved its three-tone colors. I remember having worn it numerous times for all sorts of parties and get-togethers.

I clearly remember this day - my husband and I had visited Governor's Island (an island accessible by boat from Manhattan) for a food and arts festival. I had worn this white lace dress purchased several months ago from Dress Barn . This is a store normally meant for more matronly looks but this dress had caught my eye. I had just discovered how belts could drum up an outfit so I took a stab at it - I paired the dress with a thin gold belt and this reddish-brown bag for a pop of color.

This is the outfit I wore for a New York Fashion Week event that was open to us common folks. I was so excited to get the opportunity to attend a real runway show in NYC! I had purchased this blazer from H&M just for this event. This was probably my first ever purchase of a blazer and discovered how much I love them for dressing up even a casual outfit! I own so many blazers now. And guess what? I still own and wear this blazer to this day - just goes to show, fast fashion is only fast if you cycle through it quickly. But if you rewear and restyle it for a long time to come, you have done your part for fashion sustainability.

So indeed, 2012 was the year of discovering the as-yet untapped social media world, new wardrobe pieces of fashion and fashion accessories (belts and blazers), and my own style mantra. :)

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post!