Meet Trailblazer Carolina Hellal Jaramillo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carolina Hellal Jaramillo.

Carolina, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
It’s a long story, but here it is! I was born and raised in Cúcuta, Colombia and moved to Denver, CO when I was 18 years old. While I decided what to study at college, I took a few art classes at CCD and after two years of I made the decision to study fashion design and moved to Fort Collins to attend CSU for Fashion design and visual merchandising. After one semester, I decided to move back to Bogotá, Colombia and go to fashion school there for personal reasons.

It took me three years to graduate and right after that, I moved back to Denver and worked as a visual merchandiser for a junior’s clothing retailer. After almost two years of working in retail as a visual merchandiser and traveling the country opening stores with the expansion team, I decided to open my blog “Chic Talk”, at the time I was reading a few fashion blogs and felt extremely inspired by those bloggers and decided to start my own. About a year after opening my blog, I had to quit my job as a visual merchandiser because the company I was working for signed up for bankruptcy and due to that unexpected and drastic change I decided to invest more time creating content for my blog and started to post weekly.

At the time, my now husband, Mauricio, moved from Colombia to Denver and we got married. My mom and my stepdad initially helped me with taking my photos but then my husband started to help me too. It took us a long time to figure out how to use our camera, but with the years, he’s gotten better and better, so much, he is the official photographer behind all the content I publish. I also started to be very consistent with posting and collaborations started to happen. It’s been almost six years since that, and blogging has become my full-time job. It’s been an incredible experience, so far I’ve had the opportunity to work with companies I’ve been a huge fan of for years and meet incredible people. Now that I’m a mom, my blog and social media platforms have evolved into a more life styled creative space and I’m really looking forward continue working with them and hopefully grow the blog into a bigger business in the near future.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road. I’ve definitely had my ups and downs and I think what’s kept me going is the fact that creating content is my biggest passion. My blog is my creative outlet and finding the direction I wanted to take and creating my brand has been one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done but it’s also being very rewarding. One advice I always give is to find out what you want to blog about first. Whatever that topic is, make sure it’s something you are extremely passionate about and once you define that, make sure to be as consistent with publishing content as possible because it’s key to grow an audience. Also, don’t try to do everything yourself. Find help and so you can focus on creating content which is the most important part of the process.

Please tell us more about what you do, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
I’m a fashion and lifestyle blogger. I created my blog with the intention to put fashion and style advice out there but I never thought in a million years that was going to become my full-time job. With the years, my blog has become a space that highlights my personal style, but I also share about beauty, my personal life, my adventures a mom, trips and a little bit of my love for interior design. My biggest goal is to inspire women to live their lives in a stylish way and empower them to feel amazing with who they are.

Finding a mentor and building a network are often cited in studies as a major factor impacting one’s success. Do you have any advice or lessons to share regarding finding a mentor or networking in general?
Networking is extremely helpful but I also recommend a lot to surround yourself with people who also love doing what you do. So, you can always have someone to talk to when you need advice and or just to ask questions in general. Two of my best friends are also bloggers and we’ve traveled together, done fashion weeks together, they are always there for me!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.chictalkch
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chictalkch/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chictalkch
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/carolinaHellal
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/CHICTALK/

Image Credit:
All photos are taken by my husband Mauricio Jaramillo Mutis

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