www.fashionblog.com

by Alison K.

For years, people have been looking to magazines like Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, and other magazines for inspiration in fashion and upcoming trends. While those tomes are still heavily valued in the fashion world, there is a new outlet slowly rising into prominence: the fashion blog. Fashion blogs, and most importantly, their writers, are the new authorities in fashion and are becoming celebrities in their own right. The fashion blog gives an outlet people of different ages and interests to display their ideas about their definition of style. Some photography bloggers choose to post their street-style photographs like on Scott Schuman’s blog, The Sartorialist, and Garance Doré’s eponymous blog. Other bloggers post pictures of their own outfits and musings, much like an online fashion diary, like 17-year-old Texan Jane Aldridge in her blog, Sea of Shoes, and 13-year-old Chicagoan Tavi Gevinson’s blog, Style Rookie. Whatever their content, and whatever the age of their writers, these blogs are rising higher and higher in the ranks of the fashion industry.

Actors and “It-Girl” celebrities and socialites often play muse to some of the fashion industry’s most influential and talented designers. Fashion bloggers have started to encroach upon this territory. Two days after Philippines-based blogger Bryan Grey-Yambao, of BryanBoy, raved about a green ostrich bag he saw in Marc Jacob’s new collection, the designer emailed him, stating “Just to let you know…we are going to name the Ostrich bag the BB, in your honor!” Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the sisters behind the avant-garde line Rodarte, fell in love the Tavi’s blog, sending her a pair of their handmade tights and later inviting her out of Los Angeles to spend a day with them. They even invited Tavi and her father to sit front row at their fashion show, a high honor usually saved for high-profile editors and A-list celebrities. When designer Katie Nehra was casting the lookbook for her line, Simone, she immediately thought of one of her favorite fashion bloggers, Jane Aldridge. When Jane didn’t respond to the first email, Katie personally wrote the 17-year-old, offering to fly her out to Los Angeles for the shoot. Jane agreed and later posted photos from the shoot on her blog. Amanda Brooks of fashion line Tuleh remarks on the blogger-as-muse phenomenon by saying, “The idea of who has style is the most democratic it’s ever been and that’s why the muse is more democratic.” (Wall Street Journal)

Not only are bloggers making an impression on the designers that create some of the world’s most coveted clothes, but they are also making an impression on the editors who run the magazines. Tavi not only serves as muse to Rodarte alongside Kirsten Dunst, but she is also currently on the covers of two of Britain’s hippest fashion magazines, LOVE and POP. Jane of Sea of Shoes was featured in Teen Vogue and Vogue’s August issue while also shooting features for Elle and Lucky magazines. After their blogs became hits in the fashion world, street-style bloggers Schuman and Doré were approached by magazines to shoot editorials in magazines like Vogue Australia and British and Italian Elle. Some bloggers even score permanent and guest writing positions of the blogs of magazines. College sophomore Julia Frakes, 19, who runs the website Bunny Bisous, regularly writes for Paper Magazine’s Fashion Shmashion blog, and last year she even accompanied the magazine to Paris to cover Fashion Week. During fashion week in September, Tavi guest blogged for POP magazine’s website, writing reviews for the shows she attended.

These bloggers also have opportunities to collaborate with designers and retailers. Schuman recently shot campaigns for DKNY in the same style he shoots for his popular blog. He also switched sides of the camera and posed in ads for The Gap. Shuman’s girlfriends and fellow blogger, Garance Doré often adds cute illustrations alongside her colorful photographs. Mega-brand The Gap fell so in love with her cheeky drawings that they commissioned her to create drawings for a mini-collection of t-shirts available only in their London store and super-chic Parisian store Colette. Jane Aldridge transitioned from shoe collector to shoe designer with her recent three-shoe collaboration with Urban Outfitters.

But one of the greatest things that this new phenomenon has awarded these new “celebrity” bloggers is access. Fashion Week happens twice a year, in February and September, in four major cities: New York, London, Milan, and Paris. While Schuman and Doré used to wait outside the show venues to snap pictures of the hordes of fashionistas after a fashion show, they were invited inside this year, actually able to see the collections. Last week, in Milan, Schuman, Doré, BryanBoy and Tommy Ton of Jak and Jil were invited to sit front row at the D&G show while magazine editors were relegated back to the second and third rows. They were even provided laptops and little desks so they could live-blog while they were watching the show. As mentioned above, Tavi sat front row at many of New York’s most coveted shows including Rodarte, Marc Jacobs and Alexander Wang.

So why have these blogs even become so popular? It’s the reason that I spend hours looking through photos of Jane and her shoe wall. It’s the reason that people read Tavi’s blog even though they admit they hate her writing. They just offer what traditional magazines cannot. These fashion bloggers present fashion in a way that is less stuffy and pretentious than their printed counterparts. Because they’re on the internet, blogs are automatically more casual and you don’t need a subscription or pay to read them. Bloggers are also able update more regularly while magazines just have on issue a month. The Sartorialist and Garance Doré both update daily, while Jane and Tavi update at least once a week. But ultimately, even if the Sartorialist is posting photos of a Vogue fashion editor decked out in head to toe Lanvin or Jane is wearing a Prada skirt and Gucci platforms or Tavi is wearing a thrifted skirt with a Commes Des Garçons t-shirt, they all present their fashion in a way that is completely wearable and accessible to the average fashion enthusiast.

The greatest thing is that while I might not have the funds or resources to buy myself closetfuls of designer clothes and shoes, I can just type in the web address of one of my favorite blogs and escape into their world of endless clothes and stylish people. I can’t deny that I’m supremely jealous of Jane’s seemingly never-ending closet or jealous that Garance’s job is to travel around the world to take pictures of extremely stylish people, but I also tend to forget that these people are actually real people. In my jealousy of Jane and her extensive designer collection of clothes and shoes, I just tell myself that she’s not even a real person in order to make myself feel better, but she is! One of my friends even saw her walking through our mall in Dallas over the summer. I forget that 13-year-old Tavi is actually sitting around in her Chicago bedroom with ridiculous bows in her hair, but then I saw her walking through SoHo our first weekend here at CITYterm. These bloggers are real people too, but they just happen to be ridiculously stylish and have their own blogs that have turned them into celebrities. Oh, I just wish I was stylish enough to start my own…