There is a story behind how I got to wear this jacket and it has to do with being behind the technology curve. For the entire period I have been involved with using Instagram, I never took the time to sit down and really explore how all of the features actually worked.  Perhaps to not be so hard on myself, I did not have the time to sit down and really engage with the app aside from posting my pictures and mastering the finer art of tagging and hash tags.  Now there is a new feature called Stories and I am going to use the structure of this blog post to find out more about it.

First back to the jacket story. The talented designer of the garment I am wearing, YaJun Lin, is a recent grad at Parson s and through the direct message function of Instagram had invited me to be the model for her thesis collection. She did not like it when her professor asked what age group her collection was targeted for and so wanted to enlist me in helping to show that good design and style is ageless. Because I did not figure out how to accept direct messages, I missed the opportunity and when I did figure it out and saw her garments I wanted to cry. They are unique, inspired and constructed cleverly and with intelligence. Her clothes have such range they can be worn by someone like Bad Girl RiRi (and they have) and well… like me. The photographer she had chosen was brilliant, edgy and would clearly push me to do something new. So when I figured out direct messaging, I reached out to her as I was distressed and so disappointed that I had missed an opportunity that would surely push my creative limits. The good news is we did get to collaborate (hopefully coming soon) and in the meantime Calvin got to take some photos of this gorgeous jacket.

Stories for Instagram is a new feature that is really much like Snapchat which I attempted to use and gave up on as I felt it was overly complicated and the thought of building new followers on yet another platform was daunting. Since brands and folks such as myself like to curate their Instagram photos, Stories allows you to post less composed content like a picture of a bag you saw that took your breath away, a perfect cinnamon bun you were served for breakfast, or a quick video explaining why you choose the shade of lipstick you did.  The benefit of Stories in relation to what we have been talking about this week is that whatever you post through the Stories function disappears after 24 hours and does not clutter up your main Instagram page.

Stories from people you follow will appear at the top of your Instagram feed and you can choose to view them or not. The feature allows for photos and videos, the use of filters and the inclusion of text or drawings. There are no likes or public comments but you can send a direct message if you wish. The best part is that unlike Snapchat you do not have to develop a whole new set of followers. It also allows your followers to have the choice about how much content they want to view or not. Based on Monday’s comments, having this kind of choice and control is important to folks who have discriminating content palates. There is some potential here to think creatively about how to use this feature in a way that might enhance not detract from my curated feed.

Would love to hear your thoughts about how I might use Stories to fill in some gaps.

Accidental Icon Wears:

Sheer shirt: Ann Demeulemeester, Black denim jeans: Paige, Earrings: Monies