Cate Edwards and Jessica Flint were working as editorial assistants at Vanity Fair when one night over drinks they came up with Urbanista Online Press (urbanistaonlinepress.blogspot.com).
They call it an online Rolodex, a file of recommended resources for young women starting careers in New York. Need to get those $200 Chloe jeans hemmed? Whom can you call when the boss asks to messenger some Champagne to an important client? Urbanista provides these answers and lots more.
An Urbanista DC site may be on the way. Both Edwards, 25, and Flint, 24, have DC connections: Edwards is a daughter of presidential hopeful John Edwards; Flint lived in DC and interned at The Washingtonian in 2003. Edwards spent every summer during college in DC and will be here again this summer to intern at NPR.
“DC is one of my all-time favorite towns,” Edwards says. “It’s a perfect blend of history, culture, and politics with youth, style, and edge.”
Edwards and Flint see Urbanista as more than a list of places to get shoes reheeled. “A lot of people have branded us as a shopping blog, but we’re really trying to branch that out to include good places to volunteer, cool cultural opportunities,” says Flint.
The site started a year ago with Edwards and Flint polling their friends for recommendations. Now they have investors, have hired a Web designer, and are looking to expand Urbanista to other cities. They say DC is at the top of the list, along with Boston, where Edwards is now living as a first-year student at Harvard Law.
