My friend Alina sent me the following Facebook message late Saturday night, “Vanessa Hong will be at Nordstrom Sunday.”  It took me a second to realize she meant the Instagram Blogger, “The Haute Pursuit”.  I checked the Nordstrom Event page and cleared my schedule for the afternoon.
Vanessa travels the world and frequently posts photos from LA, NYC, Paris and Beijing but she grew up in Vancouver and graduated from UBC.  As of Tuesday morning (12.15) her Nordstrom selfie on Instagram received 7,123 likes.  Her followers are increasing daily but at the moment she has 489,000 Instagram followers.
Her site is filled with eye catching, fashion photos that possess artistic and minimalistic qualities.  Most of her shots are arranged but some are serendipitous.  Her images can be VERY sensual but everything is confident and classy.
With respects to her faux fur collection, this is her first venture into fashion design.  Her coats are incredibly soft and provide a pop of color.  They cover a broad spectrum of colors and have playful names like: Marigold, Emerald, Olive, Tweety (as in Tweet Bird yellow), Baby Blue, Cookie (as in Cookie Monster azure blue) and Baby Pink.  
She started with the desire to make something for herself and the retail aspect evolved from there.
She’s involved in every aspect of design and she’s actually traveled to the manufacturing plant in China.
Her coats are produced in small lots to ensure the quality remains high.  For example the coat’s lining is hand stitched.
Her coats have an oversized appearance but they are NOT designed for big bulky sweaters.  According to Vanessa, her friends kept warm during a chilly NY Fashion Week while wearing lightweight skirts and blouses.
Her collection was inspired by 1990’s Hip Hop icons such as Hype Williams, Missy Elliott and Lil Kim.
Her coats and stoles will be featured the Nordstrom Pop In Shop till January 2nd.  I speculate her coats will move to another Nordstrom department but they can always be purchased on her www.thehautepursuit.com website.
Well, this marks the end of another year and I would like to thank everyone for their support.  Enjoy the holidays and I look forward to 2016.  Sincerely, R!c

Visit R!c's website: www.SidewalkRunway.com or follow him on instagram.com/sidewalkrunway_com  or Twitter @RunwaySidewalk

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