By Rebecca Flannery, Arts & Life Editor
The balloons are filled and gold flamingos settled for the Buttoned Pop-Up Shop Friday at LL Sams Historic Lofts.
Buttoned, a fashion and lifestyle blog for Baylor students, has been profiling campus’s fashion-forward students and noting trends for the last year and a half. Now, to celebrate the blog’s growth in popularity, the creators and staff of Buttoned are throwing a party.
The first Buttoned Pop-Up Shop will be set up from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at LL Sams on South Second Street. The market will feature many of the students the blog has spotlighted since its creation as they sell unique and handmade goods along with live music and other attractions.
Pleasanton, Calif. senior Kayla Haykin was one of the first students of which Buttoned took notice. Now, as the website’s marketing and social media director, she said she has been able to highlight other students for their similar interest in arts and fashion.
“I feel like we’ve met a lot of cool people when we’ve featured them, and it kind of seemed like the obvious move for Buttoned to throw a party that would include them and promote them,” Haykin said. “I think one of the goals of Buttoned has always been to promote the students on campus.”
Buttoned began in spring 2014 with three freshmen who saw an opening for creative online features of Baylor students. The blog is entirely student-run, and has expanded from the original three to a staff of thirteen writers, photographers and marketing representatives.
The Pop-Up Shop represents the blog’s transition from fashion-only content to a broader lifestyle coverage. The vendors will present an array of goods, with flower arrangements from Bloomology, embroidery by Houston sophomore Mimi MacDougall, jewelry from vendors selling Dear Piper and 31 Bits, t-shirts from Curated Cotton and the handiwork of many other artists both on and off-campus.
“I think it’s a really good opportunity for students to see what people in their community are doing outside of school,” said Westlake Village, Calif. junior Hannah Kleinick, one of the creators of Buttoned.
In addition to the vendors Buttoned has gathered, the Pop-Up Shop will feature live music by China Spring sophomore Abby Baker and a DJ session by Ames, Iowa sophomore Carl Meese. A Buttoned photographer will be taking “Street Style” photographs of attendees, and Pokey-O’s will be serving their iconic ice cream sandwiches to paying customers.
Haykin said getting the blog off the ground and onto readers’ feeds has been a long and frequently difficult process, but the team hopes their work will pay off with Friday’s party.
“I’m honestly really excited to have Buttoned team members to interact with people who have actually read out stuff,” Haykin said. “I think it will be really fun to have people in one space and to have a tradition of this kind of event.”
