Coup de couture: bloggers vs. traditional media in fashion

Bloggers are taking over the front row at Fashion Week in London, The Times wrote on Tuesday. This phenomenon has been rising over the past few years, and is recently getting a lot of attention. Leading character in this discussion is Tavi Gevinson, a 13 (!) year old blogger who, using a simple Blogspot account just like most students in our course, made her way front row and towards fame, writing about fashion and the role it plays in her life. She and collegue Bryanboy, whom Marc Jacobs named a bag after back in 2008, have even been added to the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America). One might wonder whether they even have time to go to school anymore. 

Left: Teenage blogger extraordinaire Tavi
Right: Marc Jacobs' Bryanboy bag (photo By George Chinsee)

Meanwhile, online shopping website Racked National playfully took up the buzz and sent a five-year old girl to the New York Fashion Week to report about it. While this stunt received many indignant comments, Racked-editor Danica Lo explained it as "a tongue-in-chic (forgive the bad pun!) answer to the child-blogging-gone-wild movement happening in fashion right now", and made sure the child did not get her own seat, but sat on her lap instead.

Cécile Narinx, editor-in-chief of the Dutch fashion magazine ELLE, discussed this issue last month in De Wereld Draait Door. [in Dutch, 8:30]



What I find particularly interesting about this discussion, is the way it explores the boundaries between regular, traditional media and a more democratic, 'anyone can write' guerilla style way of publishing online. As long as each of them provide their own, unique qualities well, I think it's perfectly possible of them to co-exist.