Six million euros annual turnovers! 4.1 million Instagram followers. In only five years, the Italian law student Chiara Ferragni built a fashion empire with her blog The Blonde Salad and made herself a star. What a Career Girl!
Different from other It-Girls, Chiara’s success isn’t built on family wealth, her success is built on discipline and having a clear goal in sight. Chiara earns 30% of the six million annual turnovers of her blog, advertisement and cooperations. The other 70% she makes with her own shoe collection, that is constantly growing. Just last week Chiara visited Cologne, Germany to open another Pop-up store.
She turned her blog into a business by always staying true to herself. If Chiara likes a picture she will post it, even though everybody else says it horrible. This is what makes her so unique and loves by her fans. Before she made her own website she uploaded her looks on Flickr and Lookbook.nu and got a lot of positive feedback on there. That was the time she decided to open up her own website in 2009 and turn it into a business. Most bloggers didn’t intend to start their blogs as a business, but Chiara did, she tried to be as professional as possible right from the beginning – another reason why she made it so far in just five years.
In her opinion, her team was and is one of the most important reasons why she is so successful. First her team consisted of close friends only. Her ex-boyfriend is the co-founder and always gave her the best advice. After he finished University he started to work for Chiara. After that, they employed one of Chiara’s best friends. At a certain point, they started employing people who were their friends. A year ago the blonde salad team consisted of 8 people, now they already have 14 and are currently all together on vacation in Mykonos. And all of them are under 30!
Her success leads her to LA more and more often and she actually bought a house there. Her new boyfriend, the photographer Andrew Arthur, lives there as well. Chiara continues to stick to her European chic style obviously adjusting it to the LA casual.
“The blonde salad is much more than a blog today, it is a real source of inspiration.”
You can see that just by clicking on the website and I couldn’t agree more with it. Personally Chiara inspired me to pursue my dreams and do what I love which is writing and fashion blogging. And look I am doing both. Thank you, Chiara, for inspiring so many girls all around the world!
By Benita Ilgenstein
Photos: Theblondesalad.com