If you ever want to know about fashion, beauty, style, what’s hot and what’s not, Phoebe Montague, editor of Melbourne-based fashion blog Lady Melbourne is the go-to girl. Determined to become a fashion journalist at 18,  she pursued a degree in fine arts then later a postgraduate degree in journalism before creating Lady Melbourne.

Known for her fashion commentary and a lady about town style philosophy, her blog will leave you swapping your Jennifer Aniston inspired do (that’s so 90’s!) with pretty chignons. Phoebe is all style, grace, charisma and good taste.

We can’t believe how accomplished this young lady is. Here is just a list of her recent accomplishments.

• Organised Australia’s first ever Australia wide fashion blogging forum, ‘Fashionopolis‘ that attracted bloggers Australia wide, 2012.
• Guest speaker, Melbourne Writers Festival 2012
• Guest speaker, L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival March 2010 at the ‘Fashion, Blogging and the Internet’ forum.
• VIP guest blogger, Asia Fashion Exchange and Singapore Fashion Week 2010
• Winner ‘Best Fashion Blog’ Asia Pacific Region at the Nuff Nang blog awards 2009.

We couldn’t wait to chat with Phoebe to find out more about the lady behind Lady Melbourne.

Tell us a about the Lady Melbourne blog? What’s the philosophy behind it?
There’s no philosophy per se, in that I never started out with one. As it’s evolved over the years I’ve tried to grow the blog so that it promotes an intelligent, humorous and alternative point of view for fashion and beauty, but it never ceases to amaze me what people get out of reading it. Some people simply want to look at photos of a gal in a dress, others want to read opinion pieces and book reviews.

How did it all get started?
Not to sound glib(!), but starting a blog is one of the easiest things you can do. Now that I teach people about blogging and social media I say over and over, starting it isn’t the hard part, maintaining it is what it’s all about.

There was no plan, there was no long-term view, I simply registered on Blogger for a blogpspot.com address and started to churn out content. From the beginning I loved it, and I posted regularly even though it was just my mum and my best friend reading it.

I blogged like it was nobody’s business even when literally, nobody was reading it!

What does a typical day look like?
Up with my boyfriend at 6.30 as that’s when he rises to go to work. Read the paper online, read through twitter, Instagram and Facebook for what’s been happening overnight, usually from international people I follow.

At about 8am I answer emails for an hour or so, reply to requests, look after my advertisers, plan content and of course I’m constantly updating my social media platforms.

I break around lunchtime and am usually out in the afternoon meeting with designers, visiting stores, collection showing, attending events and basically gathering content for the blog. I like to use only natural light in my photos so I usually end up photographing in the afternoon.

Then in the evening it’s either back to my emails, which usually sit at around 100 a day, and create blog content until midnight. If I’m not doing that, I’m out at a party or an event.

That said, there really is no typical day as I also travel a lot, and fashion week whether it’s here, interstate or overseas is a whole other schedule entirely.