Did blogs change the fashion industry?
Sad but true, blogging is considered something of a retro curiosity. Now that everything 2000s is trending, we’re seeing quite a few nostalgic deep dives into the early days of fashion blogs, aka the grass roots movement that upended the publishing industry.
Vogue US has a podcast here, which uncovers the anonymous online identity years, the democratisation of fashion shows and early Fashion Week street style (throw back to that time Tommy Ton’s team mobbed my friend at LFW for a photo of a hole in his sleeve!).
But you can also go back to this live discussion between myself and then Vogue UK creative director Robin Derrick, which took place at the Apple Store in Covent Garden. Robin tweeted me in November 2010, asking me to co-host the event which would take place in February 2011 to mark the launch of the Vogue iPad app. I remember the Vogue PR team telling me it would be recorded for a podcast and having no idea what that was. I was also terrified, as I was still a Gossip Girl-style anony-blogger up until that point and this was going to be my coming out party!
I relistened to the podcast a few weeks ago and found it fascinating how right Robin was with all his predictions. One question that has seemingly been edited out of the Q&A at the end was from Lyst founder Chris Morton, challenging Robin on whether blogs were ‘going to eat you for lunch’. I guess Vogue didn’t much like that question, although I recall Robin answered it pretty well. Anyway, Vogue is still here and so are blogs, so it looks like there’s still room for us all.
WORDS: Disneyrollergirl / Navaz Batliwalla
IMAGE:Matthew Brookes /Vogue
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10 November, 2021 @ 8:45 am
Everything we need in the twenty-first century is available at the touch, swipe, or click of a button. When applications like Instagram and Pinterest exist, giving users an unending depiction of the bags and shoes of their dreams, flipping through a magazine to see the current trends seems like an old-fashioned concept. Fashion bloggers and influencers are publishing left, right, and centre, as online fashion journalism (particularly blogging) appears to be the ‘new-in’ thing at the moment. Are these fashion influencers altering the fashion industry’s meaning..? Yes they are