fl@me or fr@me: 40+style

'it sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.' 

persuasion, jane austen

for the entire week, the focus has been on history, what was in the past hence in my selection of blog for this week's 'flame or frame', i decided to seek out a blog that is related to notions of age and i found...

in a nutshell (by me, the nutshell), this blog is by sylvia, a lady who is forty-six years old. now, i state her age because she warmly embraces is and really, it's splashed all over the pages that she is proud to be over forty. by comparison, i don't think i will reveal my age anytime soon. we shall peg my age at twenty-one since i am a proud member of Club 21 (i have the membership card!). blog-wise, she attempts to churn out a post a day. weekend posts are a bonus. 

the big question is, as always, 'fl@me or fr@me'? you got to read till the end of the post.

form: 

when you first visit the page, one is drawn to multiple directions. i'm not certain if i should jump up in glee. let me explain why. when i first saw the link to the blog, the expectation i had was that it was going to be the fashion journey of someone after the age of forty thus i was looking forward to a fair amount of personal accounts with references to her sense of fashion.

however, what greeted me was more a web directory of services. the front page directs me immediately to forums, online stops, other bloggers. at that first instant, as a reader, it lost the personal touch for me. although the most prominent portion of the blog was still devoted to the daily posts, the temptation to move to a different sub-section proved too great.

other than that, one big grouse that i have is the fact that i cannot read a post in its entirety. so if you are actually interested in reading the complete post, you have to load it in a different tab or window. 

couple of possibilities why the structure is such... 

a) the post is long and read only if you are interested

b) page views... (and i am truly playing devil's advocate here) an extra click is an extra view. from the numbers point-of-view, this is sheer brilliance especially if you have a regular readership. translated, if i have a hundred readers daily, the recorded page view would be two hundred because the reader would have to visit my main page and then click on the post to read it in full.

hence, i'm not a fan of the form and the structure.

content:

a) i like the concept and the backstory. i truly do. it is inspiring that she identifies a specific group of women and seeks to empower them through fashion. 

i like how the different featured ladies find support through their passion for fashion. my mother had breast cancer and for the longest time, she lost confidence in herself as a women after surgery and it showed in her dressing. it was without form and colour. if this blog existed twenty years ago, my mother would have found strength and confidence in reading this blog. a blogger that writes not just for himself or herself always gets my respect. 

b) 40+style is relevant and practical. while there is coverage of high fashion, most of the content has to do with day-to-day living. it's like your good friend chatting with you over the phone and telling you about her day. 

c) blogging alliance. the blog has not just become a platform for sylvia's voice but it has been an avenue for women over forty to connect and support one another. not only are you directed to other blogs but there are the occasional guest posts and photos submitted by readers, pretty much like oprah winfrey if you ask me. 

therefore, the spirit behind the content is charming. think of it as ready-to-wear fashion.

conclusion:

in selecting this blog, i am fully aware of the readership base (one million views is not a joking matter!) but i guess i need to be true to my personal taste. you are free to disagree and i respect the difference in opinion. so here goes...

i would fl@me 40+style because i think the writer has so much more to offer in terms of her content. if i were to be on sylvia's marketing team, there would be no problems getting advertisers for her blog or getting her invites to events. however, there seems to be a distance before her life and her works. for a writer who chooses to use her life as a scaffold, sylvia seems to distance herself from her works. at points, the posts even feel a little cold thus a little fire might just warm the blog up and getting the energy going again.

one of her early posts

i miss the excitement that i got when i first saw sylvia jump in her metallic outfit. i'm not sure about you but i kinda wish she'll skip again.

fash'on... BAM!