A brush with Tumblr fame

Have you seen a well-dressed brunette posing for fashion shoots in random alleyways around Bloomington? 

It was probably IU alumna Jessica Quirk, Bloomington’s resident fashion blogger
extraordinaire.

Quirk runs WhatIWore.tumblr.com, a massively popular fashion blog that documents her daily outfits and style tips. With What I Wore getting about 1 million page views per month, Quirk has managed to turn what was initially a hobby into a profitable career.

After graduating from IU in 2005 with a degree in apparel merchandising, the Fort Wayne native moved to New York and began working in the fashion industry. Although she started blogging for fun, she eventually befriended many early adopters of Tumblr, including company founder David Karp.

Karp and others in the Tumblr community convinced Quirk to move away from Blogspot, her blogging platform at the time, and to start using Tumblr instead.

What I Wore was born.

“Tumblr meet-ups were the center of my social world in New York,” Quirk said. “I’m lucky because I hit [Tumblr] at the right time, well before it became a trendy thing to take pictures of your outfits, and I think that was part of my initial success.”

Although What I Wore began in 2007, it didn’t become Quirk’s career until summer 2009, when she was able to quit her day job so she could run the blog. This March, she said, marks the blog’s fifth anniversary. As opposed to everyday users of Tumblr who covet likes, followers and reblogs, Quirk said she can no longer keep track of all the notifications from her blog.

“I know I get about a thousand new followers a day on Tumblr and many more likes and reblogs and retweets and things on top of that, but I really don’t keep close track of those social media numbers unless I’m trying to put together a sales pitch for advertisers or partners for my blog,” Quirk said.

Monetizing a personal blog is like a “dark art,” she said. She said her profits mostly come from a mixture of advertising, affiliate links and sponsored posts.

“No one wants to talk about it, but all the career bloggers have to do it,” Quirk said. “There are no real standards because it’s not a huge field, so people are pretty secretive with their business practices.”

Because her blog has become a business, Quirk said she can no longer approach it as just a hobby. She still enjoys what she does, but some of the more glamorous aspects of being a high-profile fashion bloggers, such as attending Fashion Week, are just a part of her work.

Quirk described her style as “the fashionable girl next door,” and said her relatable outfits are probably why she’s become so popular.

“I don’t have the best outfits, and I’m not trying to be the most stylish person around,” she said. “Fashion Week is great, but I’m not a blogger wearing stuff straight off the runway, so it’s not the highlight of my year. I shop at Target just as much as I shop at Nieman Marcus.”

Quirk said she’s more than comfortable blogging from Bloomington.

“It’s definitely different from New York,” she said. “But it’s such a cool, creative town that I don’t feel odd doing what I do. And it’s cheap enough that my husband and I can live really well here, more so than we could in New York.”

And when it comes to collegiate style, Quirk said she’s not overly influenced by what she sees on campus.

“When I was a student at IU, I didn’t realize how much of Bloomington I wasn’t experiencing, and now I don’t really interact with students or campus that often,” she said.

Although she is sometimes mistaken for an IU undergraduate, Quirk said she cringes when she looks back on what she wore at IU.

“I guess my style tips to students would be to realize that your professors are actually leaders in their fields, and dress to impress,” Quirk said.

Specifically, she advises against gigantic hair bows, sloppy buns and the “purposefully undone” athletic look that many women on campus sport.

“[Those trends] just make you seem much less mature,” she said. “They don’t look good on anyone.”

For those looking for blog success or Tumblr fame, Quirk cautions that making a hobby into a full-time job can be a bumpy road. She advises using a good camera and posting original, high-quality content.

“And don’t expect to make a career of it right away or maybe at all,” Quirk said. “I worked hard, but I also got lucky and got in at the right time.”

And if none of these tips work out for the rest of us, it looks like we'll have to just stick to reblogging stupid cat pictures.