Fashion Blogging

“The web, for luxury brands, is not the future but the present.”
Domenico Dolce, Dolce & Gabbana

What is fashion blogging?

Sportsgirl do it, so do fashion journalists. But what is fashion blogging exactly?

To quote the great Wikipedia fashion blogs started popping up in 2002, but many did exist before then that have since gone to pasture. With so many different fashion blogs, Wikipedia categorized in a number of ways:

• By Writer’s Expertise:
  Where the blog could be penned by insiders, outsiders or aspiring insiders.

  More commonly fashion bloggers are becoming insiders themselves, but with journalists launching their own fashion blogs and fashion designers contributing to major commercial blogs, this method of categorizing blogs may not be the most ideal.

• By Ownership:
  Where fashion blogs can be categorized by who owns it, an individual who blogs in their spare time as a hobby, an individual who tries to monetize it through advertising dollars or if it’s own by a company (a media outlet or blog publisher like Glam and Sugar, or a brand/retailer like BlueFly and LuisaViaRoma) and bloggers are paid a salary to blog.

• By Theme:
  Where fashion blogs can be categorized by their particular topics they choose to blog about. Some fashion blogs look at news, fashion trends, what celebrities are wearing, particular items (i.e. shoes, handbags, and denim), street style and personal style. Meanwhile personal blogs which sometimes write about fashion come under the category of personal blog due to its more personable nature and the fact that it doesn’t focus on fashion specifically.

What is a bloggers influence in the blogosphere?

“Bloggers [are] in our top 5 marketing categories and contribute about 5% of sales”
Natalie Massenet, Net-A-Porter.com founder at the International Herald Tribune Techno Luxury Conference in Berlin, November 2009.

According to Drapers, Net-a-Porter’s 2008 sales are about US$134m/£81.5m – that’s $6.7 million of sales generated from bloggers, measured through affiliate programs.

Throw in the thousands of other blogs who plug Net-a-Porter’s items without going through affiliate programs; we guesstimate that the percentage may grow to 10% – 20%.

Let is tell you a story of how a young Filipino blogger came to have a Marc Jacobs handbag named after him…

His name is BryanBoy and he was a long time Marc Jacobs fan, garnering quite a following in the blogosphere with his passion for fashion shining through his cheeky and camp commentary. With an audience of hundreds of thousand, he slowly and surely started infiltrating the fashion industry with many industry insiders showing their love through fan signs (where people would create signs and have their photo taken holding it up).

After seeing pictures from the Marc Jacobs Fall 2008/09 show in February 2008, he wrote about how much he loved a particular ostrich skin handbag and little did he know, the designer himself heard of the post and named it after him.

The bag is now known as the Marc Jacobs BB.

“I’m literally on cloud nine! This is what tru fashin dedicashin dreams are made of…” BryanBoy said at the time

“I give you a 10 for effort… Love your passion for fashion, after all, where would designers be without enthusiasm like yours?’  Marc Jacobs reportedly told BryanBoy at the time.

The following season – Spring/Summer 2009 in September 2008 – Marc Jacobs flew BryanBoy (both pictured together, above) out to New York to sit front row at his show with the likes of Victoria Beckham. Never before had a blogger sat front row at one of the ‘big four’ fashion weeks.

And the rest they say is history!  Bryan Boy has since been invited to attend Rosemount Australian Fashion Week, Melbourne Spring Fashion Week and Air New Zealand Fashion Week (just to name a few), sat front row at many more international fashion shows along with the likes of Susanna Lau of Style Bubble, Tommy Ton of Jak & Jil and Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist.

While we’re not advising Australian designers and brands to start naming items after Australian fashion bloggers (or flying them around the world), this is just one example of how to create buzz for your brand online and show that you are social media friendly.

The appeal of fashion blogs are that they are written by a real person and not a marketing professional writing for a particular brand. They give honest opinions and reporting of trends and fashions and in most cases are not paid directly for endorsing products.  With the Federal Trade Commission in America now ruling that bloggers must fully disclose freebies if they blog about products and designer brands, it will bring a higher level of accountability and trust in a blogger-reader/consumer relationship than ever.

“The vast majority of bloggers do not create their blogs to be a channel for plugging products and brands. Their blogs are about their lives and their interests and therefore, PRs must be sensitive in how they approach bloggers and what with. However, when a brand is a good fit for a blog, a mention can be incredibly influential.”
- Darcie O’Malley, Zing

Of course with the good there is the ugly.

There are speed bumps you should watch out for, the main one is the blagging bloggers who use their blogs to score some freebies and who exercise no critical judgment. So it is up to you to judge whether or not you should liaise with certain bloggers depending on their writing skills, reach and popularity.

With the advent of social media, people are getting more of their information online and fashion bloggers are taking their seats front row at fashion shows next to the likes of Suzy Menkes and Anna Wintour. And if you don’t reply to a blogger, much like a journalist, they will get the story anyway and may write it in a more negative light due to a perceived snub.

How to approach and work with bloggers

It’s sufficed to say that not all bloggers have journalist or PR backgrounds. Some do, while others are stylists, photographers or just love fashion. With such different backgrounds you may experience different results, depending on whom and how you approach them.

• Start the conversation: get in touch via an email, phone call or a press release in the mail. Some bloggers won’t reach out if they don’t know who to get in touch with.
• Bloggers aren’t out to ‘get you’ so include them when you’re looking to talk to the media, invite them to your launches or include them in your mail outs.
• Honesty is the best policy – it’s a two way street. If you can tell the blogger the truth, they should do the same for you. Even if the write up is not as positive as you would like, it is getting talked about. In return a blogger should be open about what they’re writing and if asked, give you the number of visitors they attract to their blogs. Be wary of those who may not reveal their stats when asked or insist it is not about numbers. After all who is reading the blog then?
• Bloggers have a following that is more accessible than a magazine on a newsstand. Their readers are constant seeking out new information on your brands or new initiates you are running (i.e. Barbie Loves Mimco, Australian’s Next Top Model, Big W’s Gossip Girl line, Australian designer collaborations).
• Finally as a New York based fashion blogger recently said: If you are looking for sales, make sure to provide [bloggers] the detailed product info, pricing and availability, if SEO optimization is your top goal – make sure you use the right keywords in your pitch, if publicity buzz is what makes you satisfied – give them juicy stories, and if you simply want love – give them the reasons to love you.

It’s as simple as that.

Read about more fashion blogger experiences with brands all around the world on our iBlogFashion.com.

More information about Fashion Blogging can be found in Issue 1 of iBlogFashion.