Simply Fashionating

Welcome to A Fashionating Life. Encouraging women in their 40s and beyond to feel empowered by fashion in their everyday lives. Inspiring women to embrace their personal style and see clothes as a powerful tool in the story they tell the world. A Fashionating Life explores the intersection of real-life and editorial inspiration for real women with plenty of life experience, confidence, and style. 

 

Our Story

A FASHIONATING START

Born in New York but raised in Southern California, Ellen developed her own sartorial point of view by digging for treasures in the thrift and vintage stores of Melrose, downtown, and other parts of LA. She wore many of these finds with her mother’s 60’s and 70’s pieces, and accessorized with her Nana’s antique jewelry. Her passion for creating unique looks was further fueled when she saw Pretty in Pink, a movie she fell in love with when she was just 12 years old.

Meanwhile, 1600 miles away in a tiny rural east Texas town, the same film gave Jennifer validation of her own creative and curated look, reimagining some of her mother’s vintage clothing, with a mix of handmade items, discount finds and classic preppy pieces off the rack.  Before that, she corralled her elementary school girlfriends into starting their own “fashion house” and held regular design meetings on the playground to share their original creations.

Neither could have been farther geographically from NYC’s heart of fashion, or each other, but both studied trends and styles from afar, poring over fashion magazines – each of them the only one of their peers with subscriptions to Vogue and Elle, not Teen Beat – and dreaming of one day having a closet full of designer creations, developing their own signature looks, and sharing their passion with other like-minded souls.

A FASHIONATING STORY

Ellen studied marketing at a fashion school in LA. Her career included working in merchandising for a popular activewear company, repping a popular shoe line, and overseeing the launch of a line of watches by a well-known clothing designer. It was an exciting time for Ellen as she was living her dream of a life that revolved around fashion.

Jennifer’s life took a political turn as she embarked on a 15 year tenure at the Texas State Capitol.  All the while, fashion played a big part in her life as she built a career wardrobe set apart from the cookie-cutter styles that frequented the corridors.  In order to feed her fashionable yearnings, Jennifer began selling a private label out of New York at quarterly trunk shows to fashion-loving friends and colleagues desperate for an “outside the box” work look.

A love of the arts brought these two sartorial souls together.  And after years of shopping together and for the other, the pair decided to launch a style blog.

A FASHIONATING LIFE

….isn’t a shopping site. Its creators aren’t outfitted by designers or personal shoppers. They don’t have stylists and they aren’t ladies who lunch.  They are are working moms of boys who believe in form AND function, style AND substance, and in the power of a fabulous shoe. They have means but love a good deal and believe budget trends compliment couture classics.  They have an affinity for the secondary market, whether that is designer consignment discoveries or vintage finds. They believe fashion is art and should always find a loving home. And they believe style is an investment and an extension of one’s personal brand.

While the two of them have their own unique and individual styles – Jennifer is classic with a modern twist and Ellen is modern with a classic touch – the two friends and collaborators unite around the need for a fashion point of view for women in their 40s with well-established careers, who may or may not have children, who believe that design rules based only on a women’s age should be ignored.

Regardless of lifestyle and budget, A Fashionating Life is about wearing clothing as self-expression and living life stylishly, no matter where it takes you.

A Little More About Us

Royal Influence

Royal Influence

Like practically every other fashionable woman on the planet, I love Kate Middleton’s style and try and copy it as much as possible. And while I don’t have her waistline, budget or overall lifestyle, I find ways to inject her style into mine. When I saw her coming off...