On brands, video blogging and he-tail

Last Wednesday I was very lucky to be invited to a super-special event organised by Arcadia. The company that owns Burton, Topman, Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Miss Sefridge and Wallis hosted a dinner to bring together fashion bloggers, online fashion press and print media to show that all are equally important when it comes to working with its brands.

What an inspired initiative and I think everyone got something out of it, whether it was just putting faces to names of fellow bloggers (hello 00o00), engaging with press and Arcadia PRs, or understanding each other’s media. I also loved that we were gifted with Flip cameras, a great way of highlighting the fact that with blogging and social media, video (I’m sorry, I refuse to say ‘vlogging’) is the next stage in the journey. And there were tech support peeps from Flip on hand to show us how to edit and upload the videos. (Yes, it may be simple but it’s still helpful to have a demo.) Other PRs please note, bloggers love having tech experts at blog events!

Aside from hearing some top-secret Arcadia plans involving hi-tech consumer interaction, I also learnt that the UK menswear blog sector is booming. We all know Style Salvage but there are lots of other good menswear blogs and male bloggers emerging. Just in time for the menswear retail (he-tail?) revolution – welcome MrPorter.com, from the Netaporter stable…

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