Fashion blog offers advice to the couture-challenged

A Spokane woman has translated her passion for fashion into a popular online outlet for discussing everyday style.

Rebecca Mielke bills The Space Between My Peers as “a conversation about what to wear” arising “from the bottom of the fashion food chain.” She adds this motto from Greek philosopher Epictetus: “Know first who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly.”

At 43, Mielke has a good idea of who she is and how to dress. From analyzing photos submitted for her “fashion lab” segments to explaining concepts such as length-balancing and uniform templates, she helps readers hone their own style sense as well.

A stay-at-home mom with a slender figure, “gray (hair) masquerading as arctic blonde,” strong Christian faith and the desire to look good on a budget, Mielke draws 5,000 unique visitors a month by delivering common-sense couture advice with casual authority.

Although the site has brought in less than $100 in more than a year and a half, its wealth of fans have taught Mielke “there’s a whole other social world out there at our fingertips,” as she put it in a recent e-mail. “I have developed genuine friendships with people all over the world by reading and commenting on each other’s blogs.”

I’m not much of a clothes horse, but I get the feeling down-to-earth fashion blogs such as Mielke’s fill a niche the glossy magazines don’t by offering practical tips normal women can relate to – no bare-it-all supermodels need apply.

“Maybe that’s where the 4,925 visitors who don’t comment come in,” Mielke said. “I think the regulars come for the conversation.”

It’s true. Beyond the pointers for lengthening legs and highlighting faces, readers let their hair down and discuss everything from parenting to sky-high gas prices. The comments section has the easy vibe of a cyber-coffee klatsch.

But the chat often turns to clothing that’s classy, functional and – hopefully – bargain-priced. (Mielke’s a thrift-store habitué.) “Teen Style Tuesday” segments hand the aesthetic down to the next generation.

In fact, the blog’s name grew in part out of Mielke’s concern that modest teens can inadvertently lengthen the distance between themselves and their peers by dressing too conservatively.

She then concluded people of any age can transform frump into flair without sacrificing their values. “I’m not saying it’s a virtue to dress fashionably,” she wrote. “But it isn’t a sin, either.”

Mielke leavens most entries with wry humor. She recently declared “permits should be required for anyone wishing to put their hair up in a claw clip” and described “how to wear brown and red without looking like a blood clot” (hint: mix in some white).

“Long ago I had a career in retail fashion,” she admitted. But Mielke didn’t write much before launching the site in late 2005 and knew next to nothing about blogging.

“I had only read like three blog posts ever,” she said. “But I was getting tired of boring my friends with the endless analytical details of what to wear and why. I had to find someone else to bore.”

If Mielke’s out to be boring, she’ll have to try a lot harder.

Flipping back

The soap-opera saga of failed real-estate flipper Casey Serin has kicked into high gear. After the IAmFacingForeclosure.com blogger flaked out on doing an interview for last week’s column, he e-mailed to say he’d vacated California for a reader’s house in Australia.

This latest impulsive act, which left his wife back home with a drained bank account, spurred critics to wage an all-out war that included reposting Serin’s blog entries to siphon away traffic.

All of which left many readers wondering what any of it had to do with real estate – even as they continued to hang on every word.