Helping us celebrate a month of Children in Fashion (and a love of her amazing blog, AdornGirl), full-time mother and blogger extradinaire, Ashanti Jason found time for a quick chat with SPICE, dishing on her super cute kids’ style and being featured for Vogue’s Online Fashion Week.
Read all about that plus her pick of top children’s brands, below;
SPICE: Hi Ashanti! We’re so pleased to introduce you and your blog to our readers. For those that aren’t familiar with you, what’s your ethnic background, where are you based and what do you blog about, in a nutshell?
Ashanti Jason: I am afro Caribbean; my grandparents were born and raised in Jamaica, then moved to London in the 60’s and my mother was born just four years later. I currently live in South East London.
My blog consists of fashion news, London Fashion Week, emerging designer interviews, beauty and lifestyle features.
AdornGirl is great place to get lost in online. When was it founded and how would you describe your daily grind in 3 words?
Editing, tweeting, photographing… It was founded in March 2010.
Is blogging a full time career for you or do you do something outside of blogging?
I am a full time mother, so that is my day to day job. Work opportunities come from blogging, such as writing and brand collaborations.
We’re celebrating Children in Fashion here at SPICE this month and noted that you are mother to 4 very cute children – what ages are they and how do you balance life as a blogger with your duties as a mamma?
My eldest daughter is 9, my son is 7 and my twin girls are 2. The schedule calls for a lot of late nights as my blog life starts when the kids go to bed; I multitask by editing pictures, uploading to the site, planning posts for the week and catching up with emails.
When I drop the twins to nursery in the afternoon, I add the copy to my blog posts on my Surface 2 – this hybrid laptop tablet allows me to quickly write and edit posts that were uploaded from the night before, and allows for quick changes between tabs to update my social media.
I also wouldn’t be able to go to any event or designer appointment if my younger sister didn’t step in to watch the kids on the occasional evening.
You feature a lot of children’s-related things via your Mini Adorn Kid posts – how do you come across the cool kids content you’re sharing? And do you seek a thumbs up from your little ones before posting?
Social media such as Twitter and Pinterest are great tools for keeping up to date with great kids brands and discovering new ones. Brands’ PRs also get into touch with me directly.
I tend to show the kids when the features are live on the site – it always makes them smile.
What are some of your favourite brands out there at the moment for children’s style?
Jacques and Sienna is a great jewellery line for children, which is stocked at Selfridges and Harrods. For those that have the budget, there’s also brands like Scotch and Soda kids and Stella McCartney. For affordable kids style there’s Next, H&M, George at Asda and Bluezoo at Debenhams, which have great style that makes even me jealous.
What was your most recent kiddie purchase?
My son needed a new jacket so brought a great two tone jacket from George at Asda.
Can you name-drop some of the people, publications and brands you’ve worked with or that your blog’s been featured in so far?
In the four years I have been running the blog I have been featured on Grazia.com, part of The Apartment’s diary, Company Magazine, Motilo and I’ve been interviewed for Amazon as part of the Vogue Online Fashion Week. My Fashion Week catwalk photography has been used for Coggles and Volt Magazine too.
Collaborations have been quite diverse, from Filofax, Triumph and Lavazza to St Ives and Elemis. I am currently part of the Microsoft Loop as one of a few select insiders to use the latest Microsoft gadgets, including the aforementioned Surface 2 Nokia Lumia 1020 and Windows 8 tablet.
Sounds like you’re very busy! But how into fashion are you – scale of 10? And how into style are your children?
For me, 8; I love personal style and fashion. It is not a perfect 10 just because I don’t like to follow trends and feel sometimes there is not much originality, when the ‘it’ look has been declared.
The kids are figuring out their style. My son knows he doesn’t like pink and will refuse to wear anything to him that looks remotely girly. Mini Adorngirl loves to look pretty and tends to mix and match styles and prints.
What would you say is signature to your look and the way you style your children? Do they have their own fashion personalities already, or is there something they can’t leave the house without?
This question is especially relevant to the twins – they are identical and it is very hard to tell them apart, so I make a conscious effort to dress them differently. One loves her dresses and pink and will not leave the house without her pink bobble hat, while the other is not so fussy. As long as I have them both in a lot of colour I am happy – this is the time to have them in crazy, cutesy prints.
I just like to be comfortable and I base my outfit starting with what accessories I plan to wear.
Children’s Day is coming up at the end of the month – what will you and your family be doing?
Spending quality time together. If the weather permits a trip to the park, that is something we all love to do.
It’s May already but what will the rest of 2014 hold for you and your blog?
Continuing to develop original content, lots more Mini AdornGirl editorial style posts and travel.
And lastly, what is the most pressing item on your to-do list?
Quality time with the kids; with their daily grind of school and all my day to day errands, I need to get that quality one to one time with each of them.
You can get in touch with Ashanti via Twitter and Instagram at @Adorngirl, or visit her blog at Adorngirl.com.
Image source: Ashanti Jason
