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#RStheCon Recap + What I Wore

May 1, 2017

By:

Erin Schrader

my dress [wearing in XS, if in between size down] // clutch // ankle strap heels [true to size]
A week or so ago I set off for Dallas, TX to join 200 other online “influencers” [such a trendy word] to attend #RStheCon, which in layman’s terms means the rewardStyle conference. To many of you this still means nothing. Lets back track the last year or so shall we? Actually, lets first jump back six years or so. I promise this is going somewhere…

Alright, 2011. I started my blog not having a clue what I was doing, which is still the case on most days around this joint [can somebody PLEASE just take care of all SEO, HTML and every other abbreviated word for me?!] I started Living In Yellow with two things in mind – it was going to be kept a secret and it was basically going to be one big ole online diary for me to see. Well, fast forward one week and I had blasted it all over Facebook, told every person I knew and considered taking out a TV commercial to spread the word [the last part is a joke, but I mean hey if it works…] For the first several years it was what I intended it to be, a big ole online diary [shared with the world] that covered the ins and outs of my life, from the good times to the bad, to the awkward times to the “hey this is really cool!” times and I loved it like that. Sure occasionally I’d post an outfit or my latest Old Navy steals, but the goal of my blog was to never be a place for all things fashion. This is mostly because I am of the belief that it is okay to walk into the grocery store at 2 pm un-showered and in your pajamas, which I am going to venture to say is a big no-no in fashion blogger terms.

 

Fast forward even further to 2016 and a few people here and there [all of which didn’t realize I did such a thing at the grocery store] were requesting more daily outfit photos. When deciding to give it a shot, I turned to Facebook to share my daily outfits with a simple mirror photo and the links to easily shop! I was curious to see if my 5,000 followers would take interest or not, as fashion wasn’t ever really my thing. It turns out they did [dumb luck really] and within the past year 195,000 more of you decided to take an interest as well. The coolest thing of all? It’s now a community of 200,000 women who yes, care about fashion, but care about a lot more than that. My favorite posts are where I get to connect with you all on deeper levels – struggles, real life happenings, and celebrations. It’s not a place of perfection, but a place to be real with one another while sharing great sales and cute handbags along the way. The best part for me in doing this? It’s the stories from busy moms who tell me how much time I’ve saved them because they aren’t able to go shopping on a regular basis, the women who never felt confident in what they wore and have now discovered a new wardrobe that they feel awesome in, or simply the ladies who also love dogs and were right by my side as we lost Maggie recently with encouraging words and endless support.
And this ridiculously long blog post intro leads me to the conference itself. Becca and I took off for Dallas without an expectation of what we were in for. Well, it turns out that we were in for was 200 of the most well dressed, long wavy hair, perfected makeup ladies [and a few gents minus the long wavy hair and makeup] on the planet. Girls from the good ole U.S. of A, China, Dubai, and everywhere in between. Did we feel absolutely out of place? Yes. But did we connect with a few other girls that we were able to have so much fun with? Yes! Large crowds of females can be intimidating, no doubt about that. Fortunately, there was always a smile to share with somebody around [and an extra glass of champagne to quickly chug to forget you were nervous]. However, by day three I think both Becca and I were ready to come home to be back in our comfort zone because let’s be real, pretending that you wear heels every day all day can start to be a little tiring.
 shirt [sold out] // jeans [true to size] // brown block heels [true to size]
top [true to size, wearing in small] // jeans [if in between, size up] // wedges [true to size] // bag
dress [true to size, wearing in small] // ankle strap heels [true to size] // purse
Audrey // Kilee // Becca // Lindsey
dress [wearing in 3/4] // clutch
becca’s dress [30% off w/code friend, true to size]
rewardStyle did a fabulous job of putting the conference on – every detail was attended to, the hotel the conference was held at [Hotel Crescent Court] was every bit of beautiful as it looks in the pictures, the parties were full of cocktails and the speakers, mostly RS staff members, aside from the women founders from Bumble who were incredibly inspiring and awesome, were all interesting to hear from! A few takeaways from classes I sat in on and just general observations from attending:
1. Having a platform, regardless of how big or small it is, is an enormous privilege and can be used for so much good if you allow it to. Becca and I sat and talked for awhile about ideas on how we can connect better with our audience, what we can do together to accomplish BIG things and what are the things that we are passionate about that we can weave into our content? We are ready for more real and less fluff.
2. It’s easy to paint the perfect picture online. The Instagram shots that I witnessed being taken during the conference were all sorts of #lifegoals, but how much connectedness is happening with those photos? I had to gut check myself often. If you are following somebody [this means even me] who makes you feel less than, unfollow. If you feel more jealously, comparison, inadequacy or unhappiness from following somebody, stop.
3. Whatever it is you are doing [whether it be career wise, parenting wise, etc], don’t be afraid to break the rules. Go against the grain, don’t just do something because everybody else in your industry or peers are doing it that way. Find out what works for you and then kill it like you’ve never killed it before. You are fully capable of writing your own rules, go write them your way.

So there we have it kids. A brief [extremely long] summary on my time in Dallas and everything you never wanted to know about my blog’s history. Come back tomorrow for a lesson on why cramps suck. JK, I think you know. Cheers!

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