I was reading blogs via blogrolls. Mrs Fashion, Style Bubble, Wendy Brandes Jewellery, Kingdom of Style , lots of Scandinavian ones including the one which caused an international search for a missing blogger, who's name escapes me now but she really was the one who set the pace along with Fashion Toast for the posing and alternative way to dress. Back then (rolls eyes) it really did feel quite subversive. Ignoring all the rules of publishing, a heady mix of graphics, home made photos, fashion fact, observation and personal information set the pace for a new force of fashion fun.
It was mainly fun, it was uplifting and I spent a lot of time reading French blogs and wistfully wishing I was 20 again. The youthful nature of the bloggers was a joy. I have to admit I miss Style Bubble pre Susie and Steve moving in together! It was the personal nature of fashion blogging that on the one hand can be a bit banal but on the other introduced you to a community. A community that made you know people before you met them. Meeting fellow bloggers was bizarre. At first it felt like stalking but then quickly it became a norm and lost the freaky feel!
Rebakah Roy (Stylist Stuff blog) & me at the Victor & Rolf exhibition, Barbican August 2008
Fashion blogging was the perfect antidote to the exclusive elite fashion in crowd. It was our party and the fashion elite weren't needed or invited. It was challenging the traditional norms of print, publishing and marketing. At first the fashion industry was needled. Badly so. I was at an industry event early in 2007 and someone who shall remain nameless was very disparaging about fashion bloggers. Of course I merely nodded my head and smiled inwardly. The fact is now most of the fashion industry from editorial, to retailers to designers etc. have all embraced or aped blogging. By 2008 there was a sharp reversal of views and the race was on to 'own the space'.
The fashion blogging rift was about to begin....suddenly instead of a mutual appreciation club, a level playing field of shared passion/interest the blogging elite were created. A combination of marketing and genuine content precipitated a fashion buy out or sell out! The marketing aspect was numbers driven, suddenly how many followers, readers you had became important! This could make or break your 'worth'.
The immediate winners were Fashion Toast, Bryan Boy, Style Bubble and Style Rookie. The immediate losers were all the housefraus the world over. Then in the middle a few others, mainly with insider credentials i.e. peeps who were already editorial staff in some format, started to be include in the mix of bright young things.
The important point in all of this is that anyway anyone can or wants to earn money is fine by me. This examination is not a criticism of how people earn their money. Gosh it is hard enough to make ends meet these days unless you fall into the top earning percentiles. What this is about is how blogging has become mainstream and subsumed into the establishment. Capitalism has become its driver, success based on the measure of rising to the top, increasing earning potential and generally accepting the accolade of the mainstream method.
I have no doubt that fashion blogging didn't set out to or intend to precipitate a revolution or question the notions of elitism or egalitarianism. Good grief it was all about the dresses, shoes and bags. The lovely
Wendy Brandes decided to make her blog all about marketing her jewellery business and rightly so. Blogging gave Wendy a platform to undertake affordable and good marketing directly to the right audience. But Wendy doesn't just use her blog to promote her jewellery, nope she interjects it with personal stuff, her views, Family Guy, and lots of history, oh and more Family Guy. This gives a taste of what blogging has done. It blended the journalistic approach to a subject and wove in the gung ho nature of the columnist to varying levels of success. Arguably fashion blogging finest achievement is the 'curation' of the ordinary. Ordinary women all over the world (the exceptions are stark, mainly most of Africa, and huge swathes of South America) have shared their most everyday wears. If I were a social historian or a fashion curator this is where my days would be spent, let the fashion magazine curate the obvious!
The fact that many bloggers are now absorbed in the mainstream of fashion magazines and retailing I suppose was inevitable. Many like Kingdom of Style have resisted and stayed the same. Bloggers like Susie Lau of Style Bubble and Navaz of Disneyrollergirl have both managed to stay part blogger/part industry, which they always were to some extent with their media backgrouds.
Susie really set the pace and her love of blogging pushed it further. She always wanted to work in a way that allowed her to blog full time and she has achieved this. Equally Navaz who is a wonderful fashion illustrator (I managed to capture her Oasis balloons in my short film) and has always have a clear covert-able aesthetic is still working freelance as she was before with increased success. Nothing ever stays the same but there is a part of me that laughs at the ridiculous nature of being sold via a magazine a top blogger who you used to read years ago but got really bored of. I understand I was an early adopter of blogging and it is only in the last year or so it has become mainstream but the fashion industry likes to cherry pick those they are comfortable with, they might already know them or somehow they are more acceptable than say a 50 something maverick living in LA like
Sister Wolf. Sister Wolf is less palatable due to her unforgiving nature of questioning fashion excess. Her notoriety in respect of biting critique often to the bone was highlighted with her views on materialism and excess by vilifying
Sea of ShoesThis is the stuff of life outside of the sanitised fashion magazine world where it is all kisses and luvvies. Jane of Sea of Shoes is doing as she pleases (I'll admit some of which I find hard to stomach but each to their own) and her mum Judy is a fabulous photographer of her daughter. Judy's blog
Atlantis Home was one of my first reads. I have mixed views on Judy's blog but on the whole I rather like her spunky American upbeat take. She was also extremely kind to Sister Wolf when she lost her son. They managed to find a friendship of sorts through email. And this is why blogging has not been wholly consumed by the fashion industry - the drama's still continue outside of the mainstream print!
The cache of blogger turned photographer, turned author turned whatever is still the holy grail for some but I find this mix of making up your profile as you go along a worrying trend. We all change jobs and careers. Some of us might have to do a day job whilst building up a business. There are no rules about who or what you should be but the worry for authentic blogging, for the beauty of there being no rules and doing just as you please is that many who achieve success through their blogs were already working in a freelance capacity as a journalist, a fashion PR or had undertaken intern work on a magazine. There is a lot of nepotism and stage managing of who is in, so to speak. A good example of someone who worked hard at her job and has honed her skills and has been focused on her ambition is Style Slicker. Kit has just worked and worked and worked. She is young, talented and focused. Equally I can't deny that after years of working within the news industry as a features writer Liberty London Girl through what was a very interesting and witty blog to start with about her dating in New York has become a myriad of offerings in the fashion press but when you work freelance I think you have to grab what you can, but...
... let's not pretend that those who are selected are better than anyone else because that would defeat the pleasure and nature of blogging. Surely it is more than the sum of being an extension of marketing or a fashion features or a business proposition. I like the honesty of
Looking Fab At Any Age (formally in your 40s) for being a shop window to accessible and good fashion for Forty somethings - and great if she can make some money out of it.
Coco's Tea Party is still my go to place for celebrity information, dressing and Ella's love of the fashion industry and all its trappings is a fabulous perspective.
Where would I be without the diverse reading of That's Not My Age, Faux Fuchsia, Mrs Bossa, Vintage Vixen, Fashion's Most Wanted, Fashion's Pearl's of Wisdom and My Style -Thrifting, Fashion and me, to name a few! I could extend the list to past, present and future but this post is long enough. I far prefer these blogs and they have saved me a fortune over the years in magazines and entertained me much more!
The point of this post is what next for fashion blogging? I still think a spirit of subversiveness prevails. I was reminded of this when reading Lisa Armstrong in The Daily Telegraph. Lisa Armstrong is my favourite fashion journalist. I only used to buy The Times on a Wednesday due to her. I'm thankful she's left the Murdoch stable and is now at The Telegraph. The Telegraph feels like a subversive paper these days, who knew that the Torygraph could be the main force of good and attack against the institute of Parliament and the current coalition! Lisa Armstrong is back to her biggest and best. Her disregard for following the pack (much like the wonderful Hadley Freeman) is evident and yet she still has the great ability to mix the good of fashion and dispense it fairly to us all. Lisa has given me hope for fashion bloggers to find a new way of forging the spirit of it's evolution. A spirit that stepped away from the mainstream, examined, challenged and questioned the predictable offering of the fashion magazine and mixed it up a bit.
The main challenge is to keep challenging, not to accept the accolade of 15 minutes of fame but to continue to forge new ways of talking about fashion, examining the fashion industry and how to find new hand to face poses! More importantly how can we stop models or celebrities as designers..if there is one campaign I'd like to start it would be this one!
And I'm sure you lot all have views on this. Do share and Pearl, don't ever stop using your brick wall as a back drop to your outfits! Keep recycling that brick wall!
And as for Mrs Fashion if you do happened to chance upon this - let us know what you think.
Wednesday - Bloggers & advertising/marketing - is it really worth it!
