Fashion Mags vs Fashion Blogs: Do fashion blogs pose a threat to fashion magazines?

we heart it

I had been musing over my next Fashion Mags vs Fashion Blogs post for a little while, as I didn’t want to just write for the sake of it. I knew eventually something would happen to inspire me. And so it has:

Last week, Franca Sozzani – the editor of Vogue Italia – chose to publish her views on fashion blogs and their bloggers on her blog.

The opening paragraph hints a little at an underlying jealousy that some bloggers are being treated the same – or better, even – than established editors of established publications:

“Why are they so credited? Why do they sit in front row? Why does the Chamber of Italian Fashion thinks so highly of them, so much as to provide them with a driver during the shows as it’s happened during menswear?”

Perhaps this sentiment is justified, after all Sozzani herself, like many editors, has been at the helm of her magazine, Vogue Italia for over 20 years while many of these bloggers have been writing their blogs for little over 20 months.

But if this was Sozzani’s point the post on her blog she quickly loses it again.

Whilst dismissing bloggers as “a trend and like it happens with all trends in fashion, it gets blown up out of proportion and creates many followers”. But unlike other trends in fashion, this trend seemingly comes with a threat to journalists.

However the tone of the post changes at the halfway point – from comments like, “ they are so worried about what to wear to get noticed that my eyes only see a crowd in the end” and “There (sic) comments are naïf (sic) and enthusiastic. They don’t hold a real importance in the business.” Sozzani goes on to acknowledge that, in spite of this, “it’s an interesting phenomenon because it changes the approach to fashion”.

Indeed, fashion magazines have to change their approach to fashion and to the way in which they “report” it and comment on it. In a column in the Telegraph just over two years ago, Kate Finnegan pointed out, “Grazia, the weekly fashion title, which has thrived on our fixation with celebrity style, now has a page called Stylehunter, featuring stylish young women photographed while out shopping or on their lunch breaks”. Grazia’s fashion news director, Melanie Rickey admitted that the Stylehunter feature came about because, “We were totally influenced by Facehunter”.

Franca Sozzani concedes in her post that bloggers “change the approach to fashion” and bring “a new point of view and not just rely on journalists “who have been doing this for thirty years!” Not being biased at times helps to see what people who work in this industry miss.”

And so it is. I believe that bloggers can bring a lot of the fashion table: many of us do not have any formal fashion training except for the years and years spent shopping and dressing and standing in front of our bedroom mirrors. But we are the people for whom women like Franca Sozzani write their magazines and the women who have lived it and dreamed it.

Fashion magazines and blogs are perfectly capable of co-existing alongside each other; they just need to learn how to respect the other medium and to use it to complement their own.

What do you think of the debate? Is there a place for both fashion magazines and fashion blogs? Do fashion blogs pose a threat to fashion magazines, do you think?

Further reading:
The report from a the Royal Academy of Art’s Storytellers of Fashion discussion
Franca Sozzani’s blog post
Kate Finnegan’s column for the Daily Telegraph

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Fashion Mags vs Fashion Blogs: advertising

Source

This post follows a post I wrote last week questioning how out of touch fashion magazines are with their readership and championing fashion blogs. This week I turn my attention to advertising. There has been and continues to be much discussion in the “blogosphere” regarding the influence of advertising and sponsorship on the content of blogs.

Leia of Leia’s Delights took the opportunity last weekend to explain her decision to have adverts on her blog. But really, I’m not sure why everyone is so concerned. Flick through any fashion magazine and almost 50% of the content is advertisements. That is before you even begin to take into account “sponsored” articles and editorials. Most of us have at one time or another been “sold” a piece of clothing or a product through a magazine and not really given too much thought to the processes that led us to make said purchase. a fashion blog – more often than not – is far more transparent than a magazine, i.e. most fashion blogs add a “sponsored post” disclaimer to relevant posts.

I decided to do a little research – I know it has been done many times before: Picking up this month’s Vogue (February 2011) I counted the pages in the magazine and then those pages which were advertisements. Of the 215 glossy pages, 115 were advertisements. Over 50% of the magazine is advertising (53% to be precise). Put in another way, for every page of content there is more than one page of advertising.

There aren’t many – if any – blogs on my blog roll that have filled their sites with anything like this amount of advertising. So why is there such an issue surrounding bloggers who accept advertising on their blog. Indeed there seems to be almost a moral high ground from which those bloggers who don’t have advertising look down from. Now, if you have made a personal decision not to have advertising on your blog, that is up to you and that is great for you. But many bloggers spend hours making a success of their blogs: researching posts, taking outfit photos, shopping (!!), writing and designing their blogs. It seems only natural that these bloggers should be given a little reward for their hard work.

However, this does come with a caveat, for both bloggers and companies. While adverts are fine and a legitimate income for bloggers, sponsored posts are a slightly different issue. Sponsored posts can be a great way for extra income or a complementary outfit but when the content is repeated across a whole community of blogs the content gets lost as readers turn off from the products they are seeing. It is time for companies and brands to consider innovative and more imaginative ways of promoting their products on blogs.

What are your thoughts on the subject of advertising on fashion blogs? Should bloggers remain impartial? Is that possible with advertising? What do you think about sponsored posts?

MORE Cash Than Dash

After reading Veshoevius’s fantastic post, I got to thinking about the differences between fashion blogs and fashion magazines, like Vogue.

Now, I must confess, I’m a complete fashion mag addict – I have a subscription to Grazia, Elle and Vogue.

There are a few reasons for my addiction:

♥ they feed my daydreams with pretty clothes that I know I will never be able to afford but dream that one day I might!

♥ they hire some of the most amazing fashion photographers of our time;

♥ the styling provides inspiration;

♥ more often than not there is at least one interesting editorial, or interview.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to see designer clothes and to later see the influence of said clothes on what I find on the high street but it can get a little disheartening when page after page is filled with “must buy” clothes/accessories/shoes that I just can’t afford.

In April 2009 Vogue reintroduced their “More Dash Than Cash” feature. I was hooked immediately. Finally a spread each month in one of my favourite magazines featuring clothes that I could actually afford and wear. Indeed Vogue claimed, the “series … shows you don’t need to spend a fortune to look great – canny shopping and a big helping of clever styling tips will do the trick”. Brilliant. Or so it was. Nearly two years on and it seems that you need considerably More Cash Than Dash” than you once did. Apparently the recession hasn’t come to those in Vogue Towers! This month the average price of each of the eight outfits featured was £550!! Each outfit (bar one) has at least one piece costing over £200! How many pieces in your wardrobe cost that? In my ‘budget’ wardrobe, precisely no pieces cost that sort of money. Since when is a £299 maxi skirt a budget piece or a £350 sleeveless trench? And don’t even get me started on £295 leather leg-warmers!! (I’m sure Geneva over at A Pair And A Spare would be able to come up with a fabulously frugal DIY for these!)

Vogue is not the only fashion magazine on the newsagents’ shelves that has lost touch with its readership, it has merely been taken as an example here.

This is where my love for fashion blogs comes in. For the most part, those fashion blogs that I read on a regular basis are written by women on a similar budget to me. Therefore, I can – if I so want – afford to go out and buy the clothes I see without breaking the bank.

In addition, while the styling and photography in fashion magazines is often stunning and innovative, it is also often unrealistic and impractical for every day life; case in point, this month’s “First Class Accessories” shoot in Vogue which features many a sky high heeled model lounging in the airport before take off. Not many of us mere mortals have the luxury of flying first class – most of us have to struggle to haul our own bags up to the Economy check-in ourselves – leaving us (or at least, me) looking rather dishevelled! The styling on fashion blogs – although often colourful and quirky – is far more tailored to the life-style most of us lead, i.e. running out to work and home again to make the beds and cook the dinner!

Whilst fashion magazines try to be all things to all people, fashion blogs have the luxury of being able to be more selective with their content, or indeed, more diverse. I, personally, came to fashion blogs through my love of street style – I love Grazia’s Style Hunter spread each week but with only four or five shots I found myself craving more and found my way onto blogs like The Sartorialist and What Katie Wore in an attempt to fulfil my cravings for more and more creative and stylish outfit inspiration. Of course, like any addict, after discovering the medium of blogs I quickly moved on to other blogs who posted OOTD (Outfit Of The Day) photos alongside other topics of interest – i.e. baking, shopping, bargains – and suddenly all of my internet based leisure time was taken up with gorging on these blogs. Leia of Leia’s Delights recently pointed out that what she likes most about the blogs that she reads is the personal interaction with the bloggers, whether it be via email, comments or twitter. So right.

What do you think? Are fashion magazines out of touch with their readers? Do they serve a different purpose to fashion bloggers?