INTERVIEW WITH BLOGGER WHITE LIGHTNING

For a blog that started on a whim, White Lightning is pretty damn good. Elizabeth Spiridakis’s daily musings attracts a readership in its thousands and counts Kanye West as a fan. And it’s easy to see why. With fashion bloggers now in their millions (it feels that way), rarely are they ever this good. Or funny.

Maybe it’s owing to a career spent in print media that has helped or just the fact that even now her good, nerdy taste from her formative years echoes that of her taste now.

“But I love music first and foremost,” she explains. “I pasted Kim Gordon’s face onto my backpack. I loved Pavement, Guided by Voices, Mary Lou Lord, Hole…”

Her teenage years saw her with “dyed black hair parted down the middle” with “a patent leather backpack from Patricia Field on 8th Street”. Spiridakis has always lived and breathed the quirky side that fashion has to offer. “I used to worship Winona Ryder and Liv Tyler, xgirl tees and stickers from xgirl & Ben Davis tees from XLARGE from their stores on Lafayette.”

Her blog turned 2 years last August and through it has received some insane experiences. “Going to London to make a blogger zine for POP was incredible, as was attending some major fashion shenanigans during New York Fashion Week. Kanye West writing about White Lightning on his blog was also a pretty serious high.”

But where there are highs, there are also those pesky lows. But luckily for Spiridakis, the lows don’t come too often.

“I once got some of the nastiest comments ever (I surprisingly don’t get many) when I was gifted a pair of Chanel two-tone tights. But there aren’t too many, bloggin is LOVE.”

Now, a typical day would find Spiridakis having breakfast to Howard Stern before heading to her office to catch up on blogging and writing. Her current project is a zine on First Kisses.

“I love to talk about first kisses. Or First Heartbreak. I love firsts. Everyone has a story! Or a great funny sad sweet goofy detail that they remember. Marisa (co-ed on the project) and I often have great ideas about projects for ‘someday’. The zine is one that we loved so much we couldn’t not get it going.”

What’s next for Elizabeth Spiridakis? For the first time, she is coy.

“Oh, you mean “IN LIFE”? That is a big question. I have a few things in the works…”