about
Erin Weinger is a journalist and entrepreneur who grew up in Chicago (Sox fan, not Cubs) and has been living in Los Angeles since 2007.
She originally moved to the West Coast to fulfill a lifelong fantasy of being “discovered” while roaming the aisles of Ralph’s in the middle of the night, which just happens to be one of her many past times (others include late night trips to CVS to buy sugar free Red Vines and yelling obscenities at the loud, rude people who live a building over and their equally as unruly toddler).
While waiting for fame and fortune to arrive, Weinger responded to a Craigslist ad seeking a fashion week assistant at the Tara Subkoff-helmed fashion label Imitation of Christ. And though she did see an Olsen twin at the runway show’s after party, there was no fame or fortune to be found. In fact, Subkoff still owes her $73.50 for a bolt of faux suede fabric and a mini Oreo cheesecake from the Coffee Bean.
Next up was an editorial internship at Angeleno, where Weinger learned many valuable pieces of both life and career advice. She now softly chants “If you’re not pissing someone off, you’re not doing your job” before filing every story she writes (thanks, Gary).
By September of 2007 and no longer satisfied with mere open bars and gift bags (or being poor and living with her parents), Weinger decided it was time to find a salaried job. So she used airline miles and her new-found press credentials as a way to get to New York Fashion Week. While at the airport catching an early morning flight, the half-sleeping Weinger spotted Los Angeles Times fashion critic Booth Moore, who she then proceeded to harass with incessant questions about the legendary style writer’s career path. Moore, suffering from a nasty head cold, seemed thrilled.
But Weinger must have done something right, as Moore hired her as a staff writer at the Image section of the newspaper, where she spent the next ten months writing about fashion, style and shopping (in addition to gossiping at the cafeteria salad bar and devising ways to save the paper and the media industry in general).
But Weinger was one of the 75 caught in a round of lay offs in November of 2008. And it was while sulking and eating a frozen dinner that she decided her job was much too much fun to stop doing just yet.
That spring, during a lovely lunch date with fellow newly freelance journalists Emili Vesilind and Andrew Harmon, someone said, “Why don’t we start our own thing?”
And the very next day, Style Section L.A. was officially born. (Did we mention that Weinger had been dabbling in entrepreneurship since third grade, when she founded an animal non-profit?)
Since launching her business in September of 2009, Weinger has been lucky enough to experience some way cool things — including writing cover stories for two national magazines (Entrepreneur and Antenna), speaking on various media and trend panels and being chosen as one of 30 correspondents to cover last February’s MAGIC apparel trade show as part of the Teen Vogue bloggers lounge.
In addition, Weinger is also a co-founder of Pretty Genius, a vintage clothing business started in January, 2011.
She is still broke and often acts like an intern (or, lets be honest, a ten year old). But dreams of media moguldom, book jackets with her name and a sweet Spanish-style, modern art-filled casa in the hills of Los Feliz are always alive and well.
And if all that fails, Weinger still holds hope that she may one day in fact be discovered at Ralph’s.
