Schmoozing in the City

It was only a year ago that we lost the entire summer so we could launch ChickAdvisor. Our developers worked around the clock with us, watching the gorgeous summer weather through the window of our small apartment. This year, less than 1 year after launch, we're working hard once again to do bring you some cool new stuff.

The 2nd episode of our street fashion podcast, Summer Trends, aired on Friday, and we've been working for some time on some top secret exciting new stuff.

Toronto members, we are planning an event this summer so we can finally meet in person!

We've also been busily attending a number of events around the city, networking and schmoozing to get the word out.

We recently attended the Poa Studio shopping party at Verity, which made us wish all shopping experiences could be that much fun! There was a fantastic dj, a fashion show, sushi and other munchies, and of course fruity cocktails to sip on while perusing Catherine's latest imports. Unfortunately we had to bail early as we had double booked ourselves at a 2nd event that night.

Those of you who have been following the misschickie blog may recall our stylist friend, Giselle from Argentina. A business contact of hers told us about an event that was billed as a night of dinner and networking with local Toronto entrepreneurs. It was taking place in the posh neighborhood of Rosedale, so we thought it would be a reasonably swanky affair. We bought our tickets online arrived well stocked with business cards and smiles, anxious to make valuable contacts in the fashion and beauty space.

What we encountered could best be described as something of a Stars Hollow Town Meeting ala Gilmore Girls.

Though the event began at 6:30 we only arrived shortly after 8pm, since we had been at the Poa party. When we entered the dusty blue hued lobby (our first red flag), we were greeted by two elderly gentlemen:

"How can we help you, ladies?"

"We're here for the entrepreneur event. We bought our tickets online. I'm Giselle and this is Ali."

"Well where is your receipt?"

"Oh. We didn't know we were supposed to print it off. Do you have us on your list?"

"No. How could we possibly have a list? If you registered on the internet, everything is on the internet!"

"Ok, but you can access that information online. You didn't print off a list of who bought tickets?"

"No. Like I said, it all happened on the internet so how could we access that??"

"Usually, an organizer will print off a list of people who have rsvp'd and paid online."

"Well now, I don't know about that! Anyway, I guess we'll just have to trust that you two paid."

We put on our "Hello, My Name Is..." name tags, and walked down the blue hallway to the room where the event was taking place. We could hear a man's voice droning in the background. We took a seat at the back of the room, several feet away from the buffet table with crackers, veggies and dip (the dinner). Turns out, the key note speaker was an Historian. While he discussed the gargoyles that used to be on top of various buildings in the city complete with slideshow, Giselle and I looked at each other confused, wondering if we were at the right event. There were about 15 people there, many of whom, were senior citizens. There was a plastic shelf in the corner where everyone left a stack of business cards and we were strongly encouraged several times that evening to do the same.

After 30 minutes of Q & A with the Historian about why certain streets were named whatever there names were, it was time to mingle and network.

We were enthusiastically greeted by a variety of very genuine locals: the insurance broker, a couple of real estate agents, a chiropractor and so on, but not a single person from the beauty or fashion industries or anything even remotely connected to what we were doing or anyone who understood the internet.

As we were trying to figure out how to leave without offending anyone, I was approached by an adorable East Asian gentleman in his 60s. "I saw your name tag from across the room, and so I had to come over and introduce myself. You see, Ali is actually a man's name..." He then invited me to join their chapter.

Giselle said something about going to the bathroom and I said I had to go too. We got in the car and laughed all the way home. Next time we'll be doing a little more research.