Style at the State of Style Summit

Who: StyleCaster, together with 92YTribeca, hosted the 2nd State of Style Summit yesterday, followed by a cocktail party at the Above Allen bar.

Summit speakers and party attendees included Joe Zee, E! Scouted's Julia Samersova, Mary Alice Stephenson, Nate Berkus, Derek Blasberg, Lucky Magazine's Brandon Holley, DKNY's Aliza Licht, Robert Verdi, Bobbie Thomas, Electric Room & Rose Bar owner Nur Khan, Patrick McMullan, BlackBook Editor in Chief Adam Brent Houghtaling, and many more.

Of course, the whole StyleCaster team was there, including Editor in Chief Laurel Pinson and founders Ari Goldberg and David Goldberg, as well as the brilliant brains behind 92Y, Sol Adler, Henry Timms and team.

When: Thursday, October 11th, 2012. 9 am - 8:30 pm.

What: "What does style mean to you? What makes someone with a Twitter handle into an expert…or -dare we say it- an 'influencer?' If Patrick McMullan took your picture and nobody was there to tweet it, did it really happen?"

The style industry’s top leaders answered all of these questions and more at StyleCaster’s State of Style Summit.

Fresh off the plane from Paris and en route to LA, Joe Zee kicked off the day by explaining the value of digital in his every day life (Did you know his dentist follows him on Twitter?) and the importance of new media to the evolution of the style space. His candid conversation with Mary Alice Stephenson and Julia Samersova came to the conclusion that, "Video blogging is the next big thing. But, at the end of the day, you've got to be real," and "Social media is not a high school popularity contest. It's NOT about numbers, it's about what you do w it." (Mary Alice Stephenson)

Next up was an insightful - and pretty hilarious - dialogue between buds Nate Berkus and Derek Blasberg. "Because there are so many experts now, I'm held to a much higher level on honesty, thoughtfulness & research," said Nate.

Throughout the day, social media moguls like @DKNY herself, Aliza Licht, and BuzzFeed's Jon Steinberg duked out the effectiveness of aggregation in making clickable content into a conversation.

Entrepreneurs like Pose's Alisa Gould and StyleOwner's Joel Weingarten and e-commerce execs Stacey Santo (Rue La La) and Katherine Bahamonde (C Wonder) concluded that curation is key. "The brands that are going to win are the brands that have a point of view," said Joel.

And then we did yoga in heels (thanks to our friends over at Pure :)

And Electric Room's Nur Khan, DJ Mick Boogie, and BlackBook's new EIC Adam Brent Houghtailing hopped on stage with the one-and-only Patrick McMullan to share how the definition of 'cool' has evolved with new media. ""If you have a good night it doesn't matter if you don't have a picture of it," said Patrick.

Just after Robert Verdi told it like it is, everyone headed over to Thompson LES’ Above Allen to mix, mingle and celebrate. Why? Because it was 5pm. And why not. :)