Blogiversary Day: Looking Back at Five Years of Shorty Stories!

Yes, we’re five years old today! You can find our very first post here. Many of our earliest posts were image-free, since the site was more of a rant about petite issues blog than one that was style-related. I wish I can get a screen capture of what the blog looked like when it first launched, but Way Back, for some reason, doesn’t archive blogspot-designated URLs. The earliest we have of the blog was from our circa 2009 template. Anything earlier than that was from our non-blog, beta site, which launched in 2006.

I’ve had a great time writing running Shorty Stories over the past five years and have seen the petite blogging community grow so much. I really hope to do more in the future. When I first launched the site on Blogger, I think there were three other petite-focused blogs that I could find (Serafina, Some Small Sense and Petite Fashionista). Out of those sites, only Petite Fashionista still exists, albeit with a different owner as of late last year. Fast forward to 2012 (and with a move to WordPress plus a redesigned logo), and there are now many more. Some, like Extra Petite and Alterations Needed, have even had spots on mainstream press.

IFRAME Embed for Youtube

Since launching, I have also found many petite-friendly and petite-exclusive brands and designers (read our first interview with Allison Izu here), covered petite-related events (see our series of Petite Fashionista Presents interviews and coverage) participated in Petite Fashion Challenges and even started the Petites at Fashion Week series. Though some are now gone (the first petite-exclusive brand I heard about was called Tamiece (video interview above, which I found out about Googling on a lazy afternoon), there are always new ones popping up. I just hope that eventually, more than one petite-focused designer will make a name for herself (or himself) and get the kind of press she (or he) deserves – beyond the petite blogosphere. Though it is getting better, we aren’t there yet – we aren’t even close to the kind of attention that plus size issues get. But only time will tell.

Enter my half-decade blogiversary giveaway! Ends April 30!

About Cynthia Cheng Mintz

Cynthia Cheng Mintz is the founder and webitor-in-chief of this site and the petite-focused site, Shorty Stories. She has also written for other publications including the Toronto Star and has blogged for The Huffington Post. Her first novel, Aspirations, was published in 2007. Outside of writing, Cynthia researches and advises philanthropic ideas for family funds and foundations and also volunteers.