Parkinson's Law

 

One online entrepreneur isn’t afraid to expose her flaws to her legion of online fans.

Words: Lorna Thornber

In a recent post on her award-wining fashion and beauty blog, Styling You, the Queensland entrepreneur and mother of three Nikki Parkinson is quick to point out that unlike the models she spends a great deal of time watching sashay down runways, she doesn’t resemble a teenage boy at the tail end of a major growth spurt. Far from being a string bean, she likens her size 14 frame dressed in a new Country Road maxi dress to a couple of strung-together pork sausages. In her view, the thin rope belt is to blame in this instance, by emphasising hips more than capable of standing out on their own. She’s characteristically quick to improvise, substituting the rope for a loosely-tied plaited, leather belt she bought two years ago.

Bravely, she posts photos of herself in the dress with the Country Road model – an ethereally-beautiful, lithe young blonde. In my opinion, they look equally stunning. It’s photographic evidence, in fact, of the veracity of her theory that you don’t have to fit a certain mould to look fashionable – you just need to know how to make the look work for you. Teaming the vibrant, horizontally-striped dress with a tailored denim jacket, strappy heels, a tan scarf and a few favourite jewellery items, Nikki looks casually chic: trendy but not try-hard! Her readers overwhelmingly agree.
This response from a woman named Stephanie is typical – “Just yesterday I talked myself out of trying on that dress because the model was so skinny. I assumed I’d look terrible in it. Thanks to your post I’ll be trying it on tomorrow and hopefully treating myself to a long-overdue pressie.”

Nikki’s refreshingly realistic take on the often surreal realms of fashion and beauty has earned her kudos with readers, industry insiders and fellow bloggers alike. The three-year-old blog attracts more than 35,000 unique visitors each month – enough online traffic to generate significant advertising revenue (particularly since she joined an online agency specialising in blogs) and makes checking the mailbox a daily highlight. She is inundated with product samples from fashion and beauty brands keen to see her endorse them on a blog they know women enjoy and trust.  

Nikki’s star status in the increasingly competitive fashion blogosphere was confirmed in May, when Styling You was named Best Blog in Australia at the Sydney Writers Centre’s high-profile annual awards. She also took out the ‘Best Blog Post’ accolade at the 2011 Jasmine Awards, often referred to as the Oscars of beauty journalism.
“As a former print journalist, this was a real honour. It was amazing to be recognised by industry peers who probably wouldn’t have noticed me otherwise.”
Not bad for a woman who discovered blogs existed just three years ago.
As a self-described girly-girl growing up in regional Queensland, Nikki recalls feeling woefully deprived. As well as living miles away from any decent shops, her politically-correct mother refused in give in to her desperate pleas for a Barbie doll, let alone any of the customised outfits she coveted. But her mother’s insistence upon presenting her with only gender-neutral gifts made her crave all things ultra-feminine all the more. Fashion and beauty became obsessions.

After graduating from university with a degree in Journalism, she flirted briefly with PR before taking on a role as a reporter with a regional newspaper. When the opportunity arose to edit the fashion section, she grabbed it. Later, as the editor of the paper’s Saturday magazine, she found her calling styling fashion and beauty shoots.
“It was then I realised that maybe, just maybe, I could style real people for a living.”
Enjoying some much needed timeout at a Gold Coast retreat, she decided she was ready to say goodbye to her 20-year journalism career and concentrate on realising her dream of running her own styling consultancy.
Setting up an office in a corner of her Sunshine Coast living room, she got straight to work,  quietly confident busy women would be prepared to invest in a service that enables them to look and feel fabulous in any given situation, whether they’re running a meeting or running after their kids in the playground. 
“Most women don’t have time to trawl through magazines and websites for the latest fashions, let alone decipher the million and one – often conflicting – messages they’re bombarded with. I make their lives easier by helping them find stylish pieces that suit their personalities and lifestyles.”

When her web designer suggested she start a blog to market the business she concedes she drew a blank. Googling the word ‘blog’ later on, she realised it would be a perfect forum for building relationships with clients and offering friendly advice on a subject she still obsesses over.
So, after a day of sifting through clients’ wardrobes and taking them on shopping sprees, she taps away at her computer well into the wee hours.

Technically-challenged to begin with, she’s now a self-styled new media expert. While Styling You is relatively simple in design, it boasts the latest and greatest in blogging technology, including an online TV show. A well-functioning social media addict, she updates the blog and its accompanying Facebook page and Twitter feed regularly throughout the day – every day. Highly-regarded within the Australian blogging community, Nikki has developed a side business as a ‘social media consultant’ and speaks regularly at relevant events nationwide. When she caught up with Her (via Skype appropriately) she had just returned from the inaugural Blogopholis conference in Melbourne where she had addressed more than 300 established and aspiring bloggers.
But she’s quick to point out technical wizardry only gets you so far.
“It doesn’t mean squat if you’re not producing content people actually want to read. Even in a global online forum, people want to connect with others. They want to know who they’re talking to and why they should take your advice. This is why it’s so important for bloggers to write in their own voice.”
Nikki says her blog really took off when she began reading other people’s, particularly those from places with more established blogging cultures, such as the United States, Europe and Asia. Analysing her favourites, she decided she needed to reveal more of herself in her posts – even if it meant exposing the odd bit of not-so-firm flesh from time-to-time.

The site’s popularity soared and Nikki is now hopeful it will become her primary income source within the next few years. As much as she enjoys her real-world styling, writing about fashion and beauty is what makes her happiest, plus she genuinely enjoys life in the online fast lane, which these days has a major bypass through the blogosphere. That said, she attends as many relevant events as possible and flies to Sydney at least once a month to ensure she keeps up to date with the notoriously fickle industry. 

With a young family she enjoys the flexibility of being able to work whenever and wherever she chooses. Her mobile phone and iPad have become virtual extensions of herself, which she recognises as both a blessing and a curse.
“It means I get very little uninterrupted downtime. But I think the whole work/life balance thing is a myth. I try to do my best each day, but I don’t think I ever get it perfect. Having said that, blogging is something I enjoy so it doesn’t feel like a chore. And the blogging community is amazing. People are innovative and ambitious but happy to champion others’ successes. It’s certainly very different from a traditional business environment.”