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Fashion. Social Media. Tech. These three buzz words dominate pop culture. Among the most fascinating questions now is to ask these three huge industries interact and what will our fashion-media-tech future look like? Alumna Yarina Yao (MA Fashion Journalism) is researching this subject on her award-winning blog Tech Loves Style. With 23K followers on Instagram she is getting an influencer within the segment. Fashion School Daily assessed in with Yao to find out how she’s managed to turn her passion into a fulltime job.

Yarina Yao, MA Fashion Journalism alumna at Los Angeles

How did it start? Yao’s blogging and social media career really started with her MA Fashion Journalism final review project at the Academy that aspired"to lead the unordered development of the tech and luxury fashion/beauty industry into the right direction". The resulting Tech Loves Style, using its provocative tagline"Excuse me, who said we are nerds?"

However, Yao’s tech origin was the day she obtained her Apple Watch. Intrigued by how far it could do, Yao watched a true possibility in the crossover of the two worlds. "I just really love the combination of fashion and technology", she says,"because tech makes style so much more fun than regular #OOTD".

The fashion journalism program at the Academy equipped Yao with strong reporting skills and the Social Media Center courses taught her how to use social media efficiently as a research and promotion tool. Yao claims she, "…didn’t even know about YouTube before enrolling (it is not available in China); shocking, but true." Now she produces strong editorial articles by going to the hottest tech fashion/beauty occasions, mingling with insiders and pros, and analyzing the market tendencies. She attributes her success to the greatest mentor of all,’hard work’. In fact, on average it takes her about 10 hours per day and many weekends to balance the functions of a blogger, writer, photographer, and stylist, all-in-one. Add to the brainstorming period — it is a lot yet that is the way she has been able to achieve the status of"micro influencer" so fast.

Yarina Yao at Palm Springs by Photographer Giann Enid

Every day Yao writes about

technology breakthroughs and ideas that seemed too"futuristic" twenty five decades back. That future is here as we’re surrounded with pocket sized machines, hover boards, as well as those self-lacing sneakers!

Yao believes that technology is the future of fashion. Although trending, the luxury and technology businesses are still largely disconnected because of differences in their consumer cultures. It’s Yao’s goal to help bridge that gap.