Autodidact and fashion-obsessee Victoria Hui has turned The Lust Listt into a touchstone for Toronto lifestyle. Chronicling her adoration for garbs, glosses and globe-trotting with a perpetual air of coolness, Victoria sets the blogging bar high. Balancing a hectic schedule of writing, gramming and content creating, she masters both admin and innovation to project her street-style chic on a hungry audience of 81k+.

The photography is clear-cut and clean. Every outfit is set upon a carefully-chosen location that fades effortlessly into the background as attention is garnered immediately towards Victoria’s look. From blogging sidekicks to morning rituals, she had us calling into Canada to find out more…

How do you edit your Instagram photos? We’re itching to know…
When it comes to editing my photos, I love the look of the A4 filter on VSCO but the flexibility and finesse of editing on the computer. I’ve grown up teaching myself how to use the Adobe Suite with about 10 years of experience on it, so all of my photos are edited using Photoshop and Lightroom!

We’ve been poring over your recent travel snaps. What are your tips for finding a stellar shooting location when abroad?
Thanks to Instagram, I’ve met and made so many friends from around the world. Whether it be from their personal recommendations, or searching for locations on the app – I love to look through other people’s content to get an idea of cool places to shoot. I’m also constantly thinking of interesting ways to shoot a destination, so my mind is always setting up an ideal frame for a photo whether it is a popular shoot destination or not!

Is blogging a full-time commitment for you? If so, how did you manage the leap from from a conventional ‘job’ to doing this on your own?
Blogging full-time is definitely a commitment for me. I was ‘writing my thoughts‘ online long before blogging was considered a real thing. I still remember the days that my friends would make fun of me for wanting to talk to people online. I was always asked if creepers read my stuff – but it’s okay because I’ve loved doing it for as long as I can remember and it’s definitely a dream for blogging to have become a job for me!

But I still do work the ‘conventional job‘ during the day as well. My blog life just happens to mesh so well into my day job that it cohesively works together and allows me to do both at the same time. During the day, I work as a digital marketer for the company #paid (it connects creators with brands), where I utilise my expertise as a blogger to help propel forward the company and the industry itself. During the day, I work tirelessly to ensure that bloggers are working ethically with brands, and that brands are taking bloggers seriously and respecting their expertise when it comes to speaking to a consumer. Then I go home in the evenings to work on my blog – I call it my 5-9!

We’ve noticed you’re rightly devoted to ‘coffee first, always’. What else helps you kickstart a day of content creation?
Absolutely coffee first! I am not ashamed to say that I’m a coffee addict, haha. But to get my day going when it comes to content creation is really playing with my products. I shoot a lot of fashion, so I truly love trying different pieces on and mix-and-matching them together to create the perfect outfit. I’m also not the best morning person, so taking my dog out for a walk really helps to wake me up when I’m breathing in the fresh air.

How do you incorporate touches of colour into an otherwise monochrome, minimalist grid?
I’ve actually been playing around with the monochrome/minimalist aesthetic recently to include more colour in my photos. After using the monochrome theme for so long, I found it boring to look at my own feed so I’ve recently been wearing more colours, prints, and interesting backgrounds. I would say when it comes to playing with colour, I really love patterns since it does the colour incorporation less aggressively than a sudden pop of a statement bag.

Who is your best blogging sidekick?
Most definitely my boyfriend, Peter. He also has his own blog too (@thedunklistt). He’s been my number 1 since we first met and before my blog got to where it is today. He really believed in me even when I was doing this for fun and wasn’t making an income out of it. He’s definitely one of the more patient Instagram husbands and is almost always willing to go 100% to help me get the shot that I have envisioned!

What camera equipment do you use to achieve the quintessential, soft glow of your photographs?
My camera gear has really changed throughout the years, and I definitely would not recommend that any new blogger go out and instantly purchase my set-up because it’s quite pricey. I currently shoot with a Canon 5D Mark IV on a Sigma 35mm f1.4 lens. However when I first started, I used a Nikon D3100 and a kit lens. After much use, I realised that I wanted to upgrade to a full-frame camera body so that I could capture more within the frame. I then moved up to a Nikon D600. It took quite a while for me to pinpoint exactly what I wanted in my photos to realise that the next step was to invest in some new lenses. I tinkered around with an 85mm, and a 50mm till I settled on the 50mm f1.4. It was then afterwards that I realised that I wasn’t happy with the colour profile of Nikon cameras and switched over to Canon.

My journey with my equipment was definitely something of a discovery since I learned what I liked/didn’t like with each piece of equipment and slowly upgraded whenever I felt that I had outgrown what I was able to produce with my current piece of equipment. I fully believe that this is the best way to really appreciate your equipment and to not over invest before understanding if what you have is really worthwhile for you to spend your money on.

You have both an Instagram account and a blog – that’s a lot of notifications. How do you make the time to show both platforms love?
I post with a regular cadence on Instagram (usually twice a day), and 2-3 times a week on the blog. When it comes to creating content, I try my best to create more content ahead of time so that my work is ready to go and I don’t have to rush to publish something that isn’t perfect. When it comes to showing both platforms love, I try my best to reply back to each and every single comment that is left on my blog. The same can’t be said on Instagram since there are too many comments to get back to. But I do like each and every single one and reply back to any questions that are posed. My DMs are also always a spot that I like to connect with my followers as well. Provided that someone hasn’t let me a spammy message, I always make sure to answer all of my DMs!

When it comes to photography, are you an autodidact, or did you receive some tips along the way?
Definitely an autodidact! Although my dad is very much into landscape photographer… but shooting landscape versus lifestyle content is very different – so beyond explaining to me how a camera works, I’m mostly self-taught when it comes to learning what I know now! I’m always on the lookout to learn new things though, and the next techniques that I want to master are backlighting and how to properly bracket the exposure levels on a photo.

How would you describe your style and who would you say influenced it?
Such a hard question! I never knew how to reply back to this especially when asked this years ago. My go-to response is that my style is always evolving. If I like something that I see, I’ll incorporate it into my personal style. I don’t necessarily follow all of the trends though (i.e. wavy eyebrows, what?) because I know that they aren’t inherently me, but I’m always open to experimenting and trying something new. I really hate restrictions so I don’t like pinning my style down and saying that I’m a minimalist or monochrome. I do find that the majority of my clothing revolves around natural tones though. I was most recently described to have a ‘romantic’ style – in the sense that I love playing around with rich textures, patterns, and layering!

All images via: @thelustlistt | Interview by Genevieve Phelan

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