this is not: the bob loblaw law blog

In the last of this series exploring the effect of the internet on the high fashion industry, I will cover a topic of particular interest to me (and the marketing divisions of companies worldwide)- Social Media: Blogs.

In the beginning, there was a blog. Or two. Or three. The internet was a place where a girl living in rural Kansas could connect and discuss her avid interest in the 1987 Fall collection by Yves St Laurent (see here if you really are interested) with other similarly interested persons around the globe. There were message boards, forums and then there were blogs. By 2005 and 2006, fashion bloggers- usually young women posting about their everyday outfits, commentary on the recent collections shown in Paris or Milan, and fashion trend spotting, were quickly gaining momentum in the form of increased readership and attention. As an industry, fashion is very trend driven and companies and professionals in the industry found the blogs to be a particularly salient mode of keeping abreast of the trends, knowing what the consumers liked and didn’t like and even using the blogs and the bloggers themselves as inspiration. 

social media: blogs

Despite their relative newness (Chanel has been around as a fashion house since 1909), blogs and the bloggers that wrote them grew to have surprising influence over the high fashion industry. Blogs that specialized in photography specifically shots snapped in the middle of the street of well-dressed random strangers, rose to prominence and featured in online versions of magazines worldwide. The pioneer of this movement was blogger Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist who managed to garner widespread industry respect for his work, photography work contracts shooting ad campaigns for brands like DKNY, and in 2009 published an anthology of his street-style photos. There have been similar instances of fashion bloggers receiving modeling contracts or stints as guest designers for a particular brand due to the popularity and aesthetic of their blog.

Another instance where bloggers exerted considerable influence on the fashion industry is that of Tavi Gevinson and the high fashion brand Rodarte. The founders and designers of the Rodarte brand itself, two sisters from Pasadena, CA, were discovered to be massive fans of a fashion blog written by the now 13-year old Gevinson who is the proprietor of the blog Style Rookie. The Rodarte sisters allowed released a collaboration collection with the American chain Target in 2009 and Tavi has been cited as an influence on the design of the collection itself; the blogger was also allowed backstage access to the unveiling presentation of the collection (if you don’t want to feel eons older than you presently are, don’t click here). 

Along similar lines, the fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana seated fashion bloggers front row at their Spring 2010 runway show, a previously unheard of instance in the fashion industry. 

(International Herald Tribune's Suzy Menkes; Vanity Fair's Michael Roberts; BryanBoy; 

Vogue's Sally Singer, Anna Wintour and Hamish Bowles; and Tommy Ton)

 

The industry is extremely hierarchical and old-fashioned in a way, so for new upstarts like bloggers BryanBoy and Tommy Ton to be seated between powerful fashion editors, reporters and A-list celebrities was a major shift and nod to the influence social media held on the staid fashion industry. 

In June 2009, the American FTC ruled that bloggers must disclose whenever an item they featured was gifted to them for free or when they had been paid to write a particular piece. This was previously standard practice at fashion magazine.

Blogs are not just a source of new ideas, but also a media force to be reckoned with as fans, critics, and advertising mediums. The wave of fashion blogs and their continuing influence on the industry shows the narrowing gap between professionals and amateurs, and the brand and its customers.