Fashion. Social Media. Tech. Among the most fascinating questions today is to ask how these three huge industries interact and what will our fashion-media-tech future look like? Alumna Yarina Yao (MA Fashion Journalism) is exploring this subject on her award-winning website Tech Loves Style. Together with 23K followers on Instagram she is getting an influencer inside the segment. Fashion School Daily checked in using Yao to discover how she has managed to turn her passion into a fulltime job.


Yarina Yao, MA Fashion Journalism alumna in Los Angeles

How did it begin? Yao's blogging and social media career started with her MA Fashion Journalism final review endeavor at the Academy which aspired"to lead the unordered development of the tech and luxury fashion/beauty industry into the right direction". The consequent Tech Loves Style, with its provocative tagline"Excuse me, who said we are nerds?" Won the Best Digital Magazine Award and $5,000 Weebly Fashion Journalism Scholarship in 2016.

However, Yao's tech origin was the day she got her Apple Watch. Intrigued by how far it might do, Yao saw a true possibility from the crossover of both worlds. "I just really love the combination of fashion and technology", she says,"because tech makes style so much more fun than regular #OOTD".
The style journalism program at the Academy equipped Yao with powerful reporting skills and the Social Media Center courses taught her how to use social media effectively as a research and promotion tool. Yao claims she, "...didn't even know about YouTube before enrolling (it is not available in China); shocking, but true." Now she produces strong editorial content by going to the hottest technology fashion/beauty events, mingling with insiders and pros, and analyzing the market trends. She attributes her success to the best mentor of 'hard work'. In reality, on average it takes her approximately 10 hours every day and most weekends to balance the roles of a blogger, marketer, photographer, and stylist, all-in-one. Add to the brainstorming time -- it's a lot yet that's the way she has been able to achieve the status of"micro influencer" so quickly.
Yarina Yao at Palm Springs by Photographer Giann Enid
Every day Yao writes about tech discoveries and ideas that appeared too"futuristic" twenty five decades back. That future is here as we're surrounded with pocket sized machines, blot boards, and even those self-lacing shoes !
Yao believes that technology is the future of style. Although trending, the luxury and technology businesses are still largely disconnected due to differences in their consumer cultures. It is Yao's aim to help bridge that gap. Within five decades, she states she would love to"develop [her] blog into an company that showcases [her] opinion, and launches fashion tech startups, too".