Maybe it’s the age thing. Perhaps it’s her awesome popularity. Or maybe editors have a point when they say that older, wiser and more educated fashion journalists are the bee’s whizz-fizz when it comes to objective and considered critiques.
And that they should have front row seats to haute couture.
Forever.
And, why not? They’ve gone through uni. But more importantly, they’ve gone through high school. They’ve laboured through professional writing courses and internships. They have degrees. They’ve done their time.
Hence the little ruckus (and I say little compared to AMY WINEHOUSE’S HAIR) that ensued after 13-year-old fashion blogger extraordinaire Tavi Gevinson scored a front row seat at a hoity toity fashion show, I don’t know where, they ride bikes there, I think.
Yes, the internet is a curse. All these people, distributing their music, writing and films on the interconnected webs, for free (well, relatively), and without needing to suck up to someone as irritating as low fat yoghurt.
Fashion editor Suzy Menkes put it best:
The world changed when fashion instead of being a monologue, became a conversation.
And once this happened, things could never turn back.
Bloggers, unrestricted by editors and less restricted by advertising (they do receive some gifts from people, like nail clippers and front row seats), are voices of criticism in an industry lulled by a desire not to piss anybody off. They have taken high fashion into their homes, ripped it up and put it in their scrap books. It’s not something they want to keep quiet about, and it’s not something to be reserved for the opinions of the highly educated. Anymore.
Designer Christopher Kane recently said (which he later tried to amend):
At some shows this season the front row was just all bloggers. I think it will die down though, and people know what they are doing. No one who wants to read a serious review of a show is going to look at what a 14-year-old thinks.
Hmm. He might want to think about how all these inconsequential voices will react to that. Regardless of age, people are reading and listening to fashion blogs in their millions.
But are fashion bloggers really so honest? Don’t designers give them hats and stuff?
On the other hand, glossy magazines offer objective critiques all the time. They aren’t swayed by designers and advertisers. Nuh-uh, simply not true.
Robert Johnson, editor at GQ, had this to say:
Bloggers are so attractive to the big design houses because they are so wide-eyed and obsessed, but they don’t have the critical faculties to know what’s good and what’s not. As soon as they’ve been invited to the shows, they can no longer criticise because then they won’t be invited back.
Well, he’s right about the show thing. Sure, some bloggers will accept gifts and give a good rap to a designer. But doesn’t this happen everywhere, in every field? He’s also right about something else: it’s safe to say that many bloggers are obsessed with whatever it is they’re writing about. And that’s what makes them so great to read.
Setting aside fashion blogs for a moment, in what other medium could you view a visual diary dedicated to sandwiches? Scanned images of sandwiches? Not photographed, but scanned?
Check out this interview with Suzy Menkes on the growing influence of fashion blogs. I found it here.