Bloggers

The battle of the glossy blogs



Back when the internet first started (let’s say circa 1998* for the sake of argument), Vogue was quick off the mark with its flashy website Vogue.com. It had news, it had runway pics, it had everything. But fast forward a few years and the other glossies are catching up. In 2009 it’s all about the now, now, now and that means blogs and Twitter.

This round of fashion weeks has seen a flurry of activity in the blogosphere with a race to see which fashion glossy can be the quickest, most prolific and most irreverent with their posts.
GRAZIA has the most experience having launched its blog Graziadaily.co.uk in September. Granted, it is a site in itself and has its own (albeit tiny) team while the others are kept going by the magazine staff.
Pluses: Ten posts a day, lots of info and lots of heads-ups on future trends. Plus a Twitter as well! Most on-the-ball.
Minuses: Posts aren’t timed or dated which means it’s tricky to keep track of.

TEN MAGAZINE is lots of fun though slightly clique-y in its ‘we’re here, you’re not’ tone and self-obsessed photos of the team.

Pluses: Daily updates, behind-the-scenes peeks at fashion show fittings
Minuses: Slapdash presentation – some of the runway snaps really are crappy (I know mine aren’t much better but I’m not front row)

LOVE is the most insidery of them all and boy do we know it. Every other pic is a shot of Fran, Katie or the other one mugging for the camera with Roberto, Jeremy or Alber in a headlock. (But I like it really…)

Pluses: The Love crew are the most scene-y of all fashionistas so you get the best view of every show/party/re-see/launch.
Minuses: What happened to the comment facility? A blog without comments is a waste of time, no?

The nice thing about this leaping on the blog bandwagon is it gives a less formal insight into the world of fashion magazines. As the Brits are known for their humour, blogging lends itself particularly well to the antics of our fashion editors – yes we do play dress-up with the samples, we’d be mad not to!

*Obviously I know the internet started before then, but I mean in relevant fashion terms…

UPDATE: Link for Ten Magazine’s blog added courtesy of Helen LG!



Scott Schuman is in town!



I received a tip-off yesterday from my mole-at-The-Times that Scott Schuman (AKA The Sartorialist) would be staking out the Osman Yousefzada show. I promptly forgot until I found myself haring along Exhibition Road in the fuzzy rain having just sprinted from the Cooperative Designs show a few blocks away. OMG there he was! He graciously let me take a photo although I could see he didn’t really want me to so the result was a tad stony-faced. “How’s it going Scott, are you getting good stuff?” “Yeah, trying to…” was the reply. Oh dear, street photos and London drizzle do not a good combination make. Let’s hope the sun makes an appearance!



Punk Perfect Awful



If I have to choose between a kissy-kissy, champagne-and-red-carpet, fashion week soiree and a scuzzy East London beer-fest, the scuzzy option wins every time. London does ‘gritty’ much more convincingly than posh somehow. Matt Irwin’s private view for his Punk Perfect Awful exhibition was just that – messy, gritty, noisy and silly (Like, hello, what was Geri Halliwell doing there?!). Fashion-wise, it was a complete fur-fest, accompanied by short skirts, fancy tights plus a smattering of distressed, nay, distraught denim. Excellent!












Oh, and I had a lovely chat with nail artist Sophy Robson about the second coming of the long nail. Yep, talons are back! Check her blog here


Matt Irwin in da house




One of my favorite photographers, Matt Irwin is having an exhibition opening on Friday and by Googling it I just found out he has a blog as well. And it’s not one of those irksome vanity blogs with only a couple of posts a month, it’s full of Vogue shoot outtakes, music snippets (New Order – woo hoo!) and random commentary. (Actually, February’s content is a bit sparse – must have been a jetsetty month – but January is chock-full.)