Dylana Suarez, UCLA alumna and creator of the blog “˜Color Me Nana,’ shares her foray into the world of fashion
Recent UCLA alumna Dylana Suarez is a fashion blogger for her site, “Color Me Nana,” on which she writes about her style and current trends.
By Teresa Jue
May 8, 2011 11:19 p.m.
Dylana Suarez started her blog, “Color Me Nana,” during a bored summer session at UCLA.
What started as an outlet for the UCLA alumna to share runway reviews, trends and fashion editorials became a documentation of her own personal style. Influenced by other fashion bloggers on the Internet, such as Rumi Neely of “Fashion Toast,” Suarez started sharing pictures of her easy West Coast-inflected style, incorporating high fashion mixed with vintage and mainstream fashion.
“Whenever I just have time and when I’m with my sister or out with friends, if I feel like what I’m wearing is cute, I’ll be like “˜Let’s take a picture.’ You just have fun with it,” Suarez said.
However, Suarez couldn’t predict that this fun pastime photographing her outfits would be a hit among the fashion crowds. With more than a thousand fans on Facebook and even more page views on a daily basis, “Color Me Nana” soon led to fashion opportunities in real life. Suarez worked with the brand Volcom as a social media coordinator and the European retail brand H&M on an L.A.-themed photo shoot as both stylist and model, showcasing H&M’s collaboration with the shoe brand Swedish Hasbeens.
It was after photographing her sister for the clothing brand Free People that the company decided to offer Suarez a job at their Philadelphia headquarters as an assistant web stylist.
“It’s great because she’s getting all these opportunities and working with all of these brands. It’s inspiring and a lot of the young crowds, even as young as 14, 15, want to do what she does and it’s a really positive thing for her and them,” said frequent collaborator and sister Natalie Suarez, herself a popular fashion blogger of the site “Natalie Off Duty.”
Despite her passion and immersion in the world of fashion, working in the field wasn’t always Dylana Suarez’s intended career. After transferring from College of the Canyons in 2007 with an associate’s degree in biological sciences, the blogger came to UCLA as a pre-medical student.
“I was going to go down the medical school route and after my first quarter, I figured out I didn’t want to do that. I wasn’t totally sure I wanted to work in fashion but I knew I loved it and it would probably have been part of my life no matter what,” Suarez said.
Suarez switched to the American literature and culture major to pursue her passion of writing and interned at Teen magazine, where she worked in the fashion department.
“Being here at UCLA definitely broadened my horizons, allowed me to delve into things, pursue writing more, intern at Teen magazine and opened my eyes to the creative things that I liked to do,” Suarez said.
Her former roommate and fellow alumna Jenny Marie Saenz noticed that writing and blogging were ways for Suarez to break out of her shell.
“Before she created her blog, she was very shy. I think through her blog she was really able to blossom and just really come out and express herself artistically, even as a writer. I had her in classes and she would even tutor me sometimes. It’s what she loves to do,” Saenz said.
And while the Internet is inundated by fashion blogs, it doesn’t bother Suarez. If anything, the blogger said she is encouraged by the universal nature of the medium and plans to continue her own blog as she settles in Philadelphia for her new career.
“Now it seems like everyone has a blog, but I think it’s cool because it allows girls to connect with other girls like themselves. It’s much more real this way,” Suarez said. “I definitely see blogging as something I’ll do for a long time.”