Last Friday I was invited by Emily of Tipsy Toes Shoes to speak to her second year fashion students at RMIT about fashion blogging – the good bits, the bad, and the ugly. Emily actually asked me about a month ago if I would be interested, but as life does, time flew and all of a sudden, I needed to pull together a presentation and work out something intelligent to say.

It was suggested I might like to talk for 30 – 45 minutes. All I could think of was how hard having to speak for 5 – 10 mins at uni was and wondering how the hell I was going to entertain a room full of 19 and 20 year olds for nearly an hour. And a ‘room full’ in uni terms? 120 people.

I wrote my presentation – lots of imagery and bullet points, all the words in the notes section, and had a few friends read over it. Whether they were being nice or honest, it passed the test and by Thursday night I was feeling okay about the presentation.

As much as I might have wished that some natural disaster (that didn’t kill anymore) might have hit overnight and prevented me from crossing the city, Em was there to pick me up right on time at 8am and then we were on our way.

I kicked off just after 9am and, surprisingly, managed to present for 45 minutes. As far as I could tell, all the students (who all had Macbooks which automatically made me assume they were on facebook and twitter) paid attention for the whole time and even looked up links when I posted them on the presentation.

Following the presentation, I was thrilled to receive tweets from students thanking me for coming and that it was a great talk. If I can inspire just one person to get creative or follow their passion, then my work here is done.

Thanks to Emily and RMIT (and the students!) for having me in. I’m also available for christenings and ruby wedding anniversaries.