Meet Kathleen Duffin, the fourth year blogger behind Made in the 1990s

Kathleen Duffin, fourth year fashion student, is the fashionista behind personal style blog Made in the 1990s, a mix of fashion, lifestyle and beauty.

With the likes of  Hannah Louise F and Inthefrow, Manchester is home to a handful of fashion mavens absolutely killing it in the fashion world.

We caught up with the Made in the 1990s blogger to ask her a few questions about juggling a degree with blogging, her thoughts on Manchester fashion and advice for other aspiring bloggers.

Kathleen studies Fashion and Textile Retailing and tells us the real reason she started her blog as a way to get some more fashion related experience onto her CV – to get out of the classic “needing experience to get work experience” dilemma.

Despite blogging taking up a lot of her time, Kathleen loves going out and getting dressed up. While WHP isn’t really her thing, she thinks the Northern Quarter is fab, and the likes of Albert Schloss and The Alchemist with Sankeys and Juicy as her guilty pleasures.

She describes her style as pretty casual on the most part, but isn’t shy from smartening it up every once in a while, whether that’s with a long camel coat or heels. A lot of her style inspiration comes from other fashion bloggers like Samantha Maria and Amy at The Little Magpie.

“Blogs are such an amazing source of inspiration, along with street style on Tumblr, that’s great too.”

As far as the fashion in Manchester goes, Kathleen loves the variety of street style Manchester has to offer and it’s definitely inspired her in more ways than none. “I never used to wear trainers outside of the gym until I moved to Manchester…, crazy right?”

But on the whole, she’s a high street girl through and through, not so much into the whole vintage/charity shop chic “Manchester” vibe.

Her favourite part about blogging is being able to create a space on the internet that is exactly how she imagines it.

“Having people engage with your content is really rewarding and attracting attention from brands is also very exciting but it’s not easy.”

She tells us the blogging world can be really challenging to work in sometimes. There’s so many hugely successful bloggers out there, and the blogging world in general is really saturated nowadays and so with it comes a huge amount of pressure.

“It’s sometimes tough to keep ploughing through when you feel like such a small fish in a huge pond.”

When asked about how she manages her blog and uni work, Kathleen explains how important it is to stay organised. Especially towards the end of each semester with deadlines, sometimes blogging has to be pushed to the back burner.

“Blogging consistently is great, but getting that essay submitted on time is just that little bit more important.”

Kathleen was asked by ASOS head office to become a part of #AccessAllASOS, getting her exclusive access to ASOS’s latest collections and an inside look on collaboration opportunities with various brands and competitions.

Above is a framed personalised cover sent as a little thank-you to select bloggers from the team over at ASOS.

As for advice for fellow bloggers, she tells us how important it is to work hard if you want to achieve your goals.

“Don’t underestimate blogging! It’s a lot of work, but it’s also really rewarding. Just give it a go! What’s the worst that could happen?”

Her plans for 2016 are to continue to grow her following – “however slowly that might be”, and ideally collaborate with more brands that she loves, as that’s definitely one of the best bits about blogging in her eyes.

After graduating at the end of this summer, Kathleen hopes to stay in Manchester for a while, starting her career as a Fashion Buyer. She has no doubt that blogging will continue alongside that so watch this space.

For more on Kathleen, check out Madeinthe1990s