The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
In vogue: fashion bloggers
Fashion magazine Vogue draws flak over its criticism of bloggers, as the established media struggles to come to grips with an online onslaught
FOR CLOSE to 100 years, Vogue magazine, as The Guardian puts it, has been fashion’s ultimate arbiter. But its impregnable hold on haute couture may be loosening, with the challengecomingfromtheveryanti-thesisof chic — street style promoted by young, popular and successful fashion bloggers.
Whiletherehasbeenunderlyingfriction betweentheold-guardeditorsandthebloggers ever since then 13-year-old Tavi Gevinson,theauthoroftheblogstylerookie, and Bryanboy, a pseudonym for Philippine blogger Bryan Grey Yambao, made it to the coveted front row of fashion shows in 2010 (Bryan Boy was in fact, according to The New York Times, placed a mere two positions to the right of Anna Wintour, the high-priestess of fashion), the current row has blown into an all-out war.
It all began last Sunday, when vogue.com published a wrap-up of the Milan fashion week.muchofthepiece,however,wasspent on slamming fashion bloggers, who these days are regulars on the front rows of fashion shows. And some of the criticism was particularly pointed. “Note to bloggers who change head-to-toe paid-to-wear outfits every hour: please stop. Find another business. You are heralding the death of style,” wrote Sally Singer, the magazine’s creative digital director.
Sarah Mower, vogue.com chief critic, said that by “desperately trolling up and down outside shows” the bloggers were risking traffic accidents. Nicole Phelps, director of the magazine’s runway app, described the “thestreetstylemess”asdistressing.“it’snot just sad for the women who preen for the camerasinborrowedclothes,it’sdistressing, aswell,towatchsomanybrandsparticipate,” she wrote. Alessandra Codinha, vogue.com fashion news editor, added that looking for style in a row full of bloggers was “like going to a strip club looking for romance. Sure, it’s all kind of in the same ballpark, but it’s not even close to the real thing.”
Muchofthecriticismhascentredaround the practice of bloggers being paid to wear clothes in return for granting brands exposure on blogs and Instagram feeds. But the backlashhasbeenimmediatewiththevogue editors labelled as “jealous, catty and hypocritical” by young fashion bloggers and their fans, with many calling out the fashion bible for hypocritical standards with regards to creditingadvertisersinthemagazineandattending their shows as a priority.
Shea Marie, who has a million Instagram followers, described the editors as the type of people who have given the fashion world “thecold,unwelcomingandruthlessreputation”. “The only thing that is ‘pathetic’ here is this jealous, catty and hypocritical article you’vejustpublished...iwouldthinkaninstitution such as Vogue would respect young entrepreneurs instead of belittling them,” shesaid.notingthatchiaraferragni,aprominent blogger with 6.7 million followers on Instagram, was featured on the cover of Vogue Spain last year, she added: “It’s ironic how you make degrading comments about influencers and then put them on your international covers to boost sales.”
“Firstly let’s not pretend that editors and stylistsarenotbeholdentobrandsinoneway or another, getting salaries at publications that are stuffed full of credits that are tied to paid advertising but not explicitly stated as such. Secondly, bloggers who wear paid-for outfits or borrowed clothes are merely doing the more overt equivalent of that editorial-credit system. So it basically boils down to the same criticism I heard eight years ago. The fashion establishment don't want their circlesenlargedandfortheivorytowertoremain forever that. Towering and impenetrable,” British blogger Lau, known as Susie Bubble, responded in a series of tweets. She has 2,77,000 followers on Twitter, 3,02,000 on Instagram and attends, according to The Guardian, about 140 fashion shows a season. “It’s schoolyard bullying, plain and simple. How satisfying it must be to go for the easy target rather than going for other editors. I’d haveabountyformyheadifiname-checked all the editors who told me they only go to certain shows because they're advertisers. Andwhatabouteditorialsinheadtotoerunway looks? Celebrity covers because they're the face of the brand?” tweeted Bryan Boy.
Andfanswerequicktojoinin.“whys(sic) Vogue getting their knickers in a twist about bloggers wearing gifted clothes when literallythefirst20pagesofthemagazineisads?” one user tweeted.
The latest feud is part of the churn in the fashion industry, ever since the bloggers began leaving their imprints on the fashion shows.longtime,top-tierfashioncriticsand editors have been openly contemptuous of bloggers and their influence for years now.
Bloggers such as Susie Lau, Chiara Ferragniandsheamariehaveamassedhuge followings on social media and their style is copied by teenagers across the globe, while brands and labels have flocked to clothe them. And as The Guardian notes, “Fashion houses now often tear up invitations to the fashion editors and put the bloggers on the front row, final proof that authenticity is the new authority.”
It’s a far cry from the early days in 2004 when, according to racked.com, Patricia Handschiegel founded Stylediary.net, widely considered the first personal style blog. “The very first personal style blogs weren’t started as launch pads for fame (in the form of millions of followers) or fortune (lucrative endorsement deals). No, they began quite innocently as creative outlets,” racked.com says. But they began getting mainstream attention in 2009, when the Federal Trade Commission put forth new guidelines requiring bloggers to disclose if they receive free merchandise or monetary compensation from brands — providing confirmation that personal style blogging was no longer a hobby but an all-out industry. In the same year, Gevinson and Bryan Boy would get front row seats in fashion shows, prompting The New York Time's Eric Wilson to note that Gevinson’s presence had ruffled “feathers among the fashion elite.” “Fashion bloggers have ascended from the nosebleed seats to the front row with such alacrity that a long-held social code among editors, one that prizes position and experience above outward displays of ambition or enjoyment, has practically been obliterated,” he wrote then. He also noted that designers began adjusting to the new breed of online reporters more readily than magazines as “blogs are posting images and reviews of collections before the last model exits the runway, while magazine editors are still jockeying to feature those clothes in issues that will be published months later.”
Butthe Guardianwarnsthatthiscosiness to the business aspect of fashion could bring about the downfall of the online reporter. “If the bloggers are becoming enmeshed in the world of big business, they may have set the clock running on their claim to authenticity. Theirsuccessdependedontheirabilitytosell themselves as unique personalities acting autonomously... For a fleeting moment they democratised fashion. Now it looks very much as if they may be becoming another elite, new and young – but an elite just the same,” it writes. AGENCIES