spruced by marlene

Remember how I said the other day that I had some big news and that it took some serious self-control on my part to not just blurt it out? Well, I don’t have to hold back any longer. Things moved along a lot quicker than I had anticipated and so I’m allowed to tell you today that Spruced is now a partner site of German Vogue. Pardon me, VOGUE. If caps were ever needed for anything it’s for that name.

Network, uh-huh. So what does that mean?

Firstly, it means that there’s been a lot of vogueing around to this Madonna song. There’s also been giddiness every time I thought about what was going to happen – heavens, it’s VOGUE! – and some late night shifts, especially from the saintly programmer who helped me get the blog ready for today.

A little while ago, VOGUE asked me if I’d be interested in joining a new blog network they’re building. The official launch isn’t until next week, when Spruced will be linked from their website. As you can see, their logo is already up on my site, mainly for boring technical reasons. However, the sheer fact that it is up there isn’t boring to me at all. It’s ridiculously exciting, even more so because my lovely friend and talended photographer Sandra Semburg has also joined the network. There will be other blogs added along the way, but I already feel like I’m in the best possible company.

When James and I started this blog together three years ago, it wasn’t with the intention of turning it into a business. From the very first post, it was our little corner of the internet, a personal space for us to share our stories and lives, and occasionally showcase some of my work and James’s designs. It remained that way when I started writing the blog by myself at the beginning of this year. And it will remain that way in the future. The reason I write Spruced at 2am, on weekends and when I should really be writing other things is not because I have to do it. I want to do it. It’s just too much fun not to. What I write about, and what I photograph, is my choice. I am, for comparison’s sake, Spruced’s editor-in-chief. So when I’ve recommended something to you in the past, be it a label, a product, a shop, it was because I genuinely love it. And that’s exactly what I’ll keep doing here – sharing the love.

I thought a lot about the pros and cons of what it will mean for Spruced not just to have the VOGUE logo on my site, but also to start running ads. Will it make my blog look more commercial? Yes, probably. Will I have to give up my independence? No, definitely not. I believe that if VOGUE didn’t already like what I do here, they wouldn’t have asked me in the first place. Will this become part of my business? In a way. Spruced has never felt like work to me. But I still considered it my job to make it as great and entertaining as possible, professional, even if it was just my hobby. And I’d be lying if I said that being invited by a reputable magazine didn’t feel like a wonderful validation of those efforts. In the end, I decided that, if I were to take a new step with Spruced, I could have worse partners by my side. The ads will allow me to devote more time to keep making this a good place to come and hang out.

Because the biggest validation have always been you. New readers and old readers, strangers, friends, who keep returning, who send funny and smart and moving emails, who ask questions, write comments, open up discussions and who share in this little project of mine. So even as this project grows, I hope you’ll still come along and, especially today, share my excitement that Spruced has just gotten, for a lack of a better word: spruced.

And it might not be very vogue to say this, but… VOGUE – holy crap!