Wendy's Lookbook Gets 25 Million Views On One YouTube Video

Over the past few years, blogging has become an extremely competitive industry to be in. Some of the top bloggers have made over $1 million/year through affiliate links such as rewardStyle and appearance fees in the tens of thousands. Sarah Boyd met with one of the first bloggers on the scene, she started on YouTube and has since branched into the fashion blogging space and has become one of the most in-demand bloggers to date, Wendy Nguyen of Wendy's Lookbook. She built her following, of over 500K on Youtube by creating well produced and engaging ‘how-to’ videos. Wendy’s video ’25 Ways To Wear A Scarf In 4.5 Minutes’ went viral and has been viewed over 25 million times. During New York Fashion Week at the Daily Front Row Media Lounge at the brand new Park Hyatt. Simply Stylist was hosting a cocktail hour for fashion and beauty influencers and got to sit down with Wendy.

NAME: Wendy Nguyen

OCCUPATION: Fashion Blogger

COMPANY NAME: Wendy’s Lookbook

EDUCATION: UC Berkeley, majored in Psychology

What was your inspiration to pursue your dreams?

I always felt that fashion was wearable art and a path for self-expression. Ever since I was a little girl, I loved reading fashion magazines. I devoured those images then (and still now), and felt so inspired. I wanted to be a part of that community and learning more about fashion. When I was working at the bank, I would read fashion forums during breaks and after work for hours. With some push and encouragement from my friends, I worked up the courage to quit my job and started a YouTube channel and blog. My goal then, and still now, is to share. To share beautiful designs, to share styling tips, to encourage women to experiment with fashion, and to be a part of a supportive community that fosters self-expression.

What are you wearing right now?

I’m wearing a Marissa Webb printed dress and booties.

What has been one of your biggest career challenges? How did you overcome it?

Scaling. My partner and I started the YouTube channel and blog and for a long time, it remained a two person team. But as the channel and blog grew, we quickly realized that we needed much more help to meet the demands of a growing business and our quality standards. Hiring and managing others was not something that was very intuitive to us, but we’ve been fortunate to receive great advice from many of our good friends who have scaled their businesses successfully. Scaling continues to be a challenge, but we’re focusing on hiring more team members and working with more talented individuals.

What is one of your greatest defining moments within the industry?

I actually have two.

The first was the response that we received from our stop motion short film, “Be Your Shoeself”. The film is about Flattie, a flat, that wants to be a heel and later learns to embrace her uniqueness. We later got messages and emails from teachers and parents using the film as a social-educational piece. They shared that their students and children were able to relate to the flat and felt a sense of empowerment. The support and response from the film gave us so much fuel to continue our path as content creators.

The second was my design collaboration with Tacori. It was a huge career milestone for me. For such an established brand like Tacori to take a chance on collaborating with a fashion blogger was truly an honor. The experience was incredible! From a sketch on paper to feeling the actual jewelry piece to seeing people’s reaction to the design was such a great learning experience.

What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

It was more or less indirect advice, but it really shaped my thinking. I watched an interview featuring Christopher Bailey and he shared that when he designs, he asks a very important question, “Who is my Burberry girl?”. That question, “Who’s my girl?” gave me a deeper understand of branding.