ROMANTIC FASHIONISTA
Growing up in Mexico City, a young Monica Guerrero Abney found herself admiring her grandmother’s style.
Imelda Ley’s closet was small but filled with stylish pieces from the 1970s, and her vanity top was brimming with hair products and beauty creams.
Abney, now 28, remembers watching Ley and dreaming of her own ladylike style. She soon discovered a talent for fashion illustrating, sketching the images from old Vogue magazines.
Now a fashion blogger/illustrator and social media director, Abney has been profiled on the Coveteur lifestyle blog, LuckyMag.com and Cosmopolitan.com.
Until she was 9, Abney lived with her grandmother and grandfather, Juan Ley, a newspaper editor who was Chinese and changed his named from Lei to Ley, which means “law” in Spanish. She then moved to Houston to live with her parents.
Not being able to speak English wasn’t her only challenge in the new city. Abney was diagnosed as dyslexic in sixth grade.
“When I was a kid, I thought I was dumb because I couldn’t learn English well,” she said. “I was in sixth grade when a doctor explained that I saw everything backwards. When I realized I wasn’t dumb and that it was something I could overcome, it helped my self esteem tremendously.”
Abney graduated from James E. Taylor High School in Katy and earned a degree in biology and animal behavior from Schreiner University in Kerrville. Her goal was to become a veterinarian, but an internship in internal medicine at a local animal hospital was “too emotional.”
“I was so depressed after that experience because it was my one and only plan,” she said.
Abney got the idea to start a fashion blog after watching an E! Entertainment segment in 2009. The next year, she started her Classy & Fabulous blog (classandfab.com) and has since turned it into a full-time job.
Having a style blog has helped upgrade her own style. “Before, I was dressing to please others. I wasn’t thinking outside the box,” said Abney, who lives with husband Ryan Abney and a 7-year-old Schnauzer named Sicily. “Now, I just feel more free to wear things I like. I’m not afraid to stand out anymore.”