AD4314 Contextual Studies 2 (The Fashion Industry) - 002

Blogging. It is a word that is heard often in our society, and most of us read blogs almost every day. With the speed of rise in social media and the Internets never ending growth, the world we know today will be a brand new one tomorrow, but what does this mean for the fashion industry? In what ways does social media asset and benefit our fashion industry, and is it all positives, or is social media killing the art in the industry?

Blogging can be interpreted in so many different ways, you can read blogs about anything from bizarre make up trends to the most extreme freak shake ever, and the latest beauty product will be up, tested and reviewed by a beauty blogger before it is even available to buy (I know, it’s torture), but why have blogs become such a fundamental factor to our everyday online culture, and how can you turn blogging into a career?

Huda Beauty

Well for starters, it’s good to know what a blog is, to me a blog is a website or social media account that is regularly updated and written in an informal and casual style. The context of the blog can be about anything, but usually it’s centred around a theme, but most importantly it should be fun! I find that it is best to keep to a theme throughout a blog, it gives it structure and an organised blog is more likely to capture the attention of audience, pulling in more viewers, and increasing the popularity of your blog, my niche for example is fashion and beauty, so therefore by sticking to this theme throughout, the readers of my blog know exactly what they’re getting, they wouldn’t expect to open up my blog and see an article on psychological studies, I attract a specific audience.

@zoella

So maybe you’re thinking, “Okay, but how can you make a career out of this?”, and with famous bloggers such as Zoella and Mimi G becoming so successful within the fashion industry through blogging, it’s easy to be intimidated into thinking that it is an impossible industry to get into. Well the truth is, the fashion industry is one of the most difficult and most competitive industries to become a part of. However, it’s is possible to become a part of the industry with hard work and dedication, and thanks to blogs and social media, these opportunities are coming up more often. If you take a look at the fashion industry now compared to say 1994, when the first blog was created, you can see a clear difference in how brands advertise their products, as well as design influences and even the designers of these products. Say if we now lived in a world without social media and blogging, would half of the celebrities we see sprawled across our twitters even be known? So I am going to use the wonderful Zoella as an example of how starting a fashion and beauty based blog can jump start a career into the fashion industry!

So it’s clear to say that she had started early on and has worked her way to the top, starting her blog in 2009 when she was just 18 years old!!! Through years of consistent blog posting and never giving up, she has becoming one of the most influential and well known fashion bloggers of my generation, I could go up to any of my friends and ask them if they have heard of Zoella, and without a doubt they will say yes, so it’s pretty clear that she has made an impact though her blog. However, it is not just through her blog that she has made such an impact. I follow her on her Instagram, twitter, Facebook, YouTube and even Pinterest (What can I say, she knows her stuff), all in which clearly promote her blog.

I could be scrolling through Instagram when one of her posts pops up, and within the post she will have linked one of her other Instagram account, further promoting her beauty and lifestyle collections, and with that I am hooked, I know what she’s selling and I want in on it. This is how most fashion and beauty lines now promote themselves. Magazines, tv adverts and billboards are becoming a part of the past, with blogging and social media taking over the fashion industry, but is this new age of fashion really all that good?

Bella Thorne, Kylie Jenner, Serayah and Rita Ora at
New York Fashion Week, Front row.

I love social media, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I would have met half of the amazing people in my life if it wasn’t for social media and I defiantly would not be in this position right now, but in my own opinion it is killing the fashion industry! If you look at a runway in London or New York during Fashion week, you don’t see aspiring fashion designers sat in the front row, not even other designers, you see rows of Kardashians and Jenner’s. The front row of any fashion show is decided on how many followers you have on Instagram, rather than your working status in the fashion industry. Being a fashion designer myself, this does frustrate me, no matter how hard I work, or how far I rise in the fashion industry, if I don’t pack up a following on social media, I am less likely to get that seat at London fashion week than Kylie Jenner and her 93.5 million followers on Instagram. It’s not just on the side of the catwalk either that’s being overtaken by social media, according to The Guardian, the choices for the models that run the catwalk are also being influenced by their popularity on social media accounts,

Gigi Hadid Instagram Post
@gigihadid

“Milan fashion week has long been ruled by luxury brands, but this week a new brand leapfrogged Prada and Gucci to dominate coverage: that of 21-year-old Gigi Hadid, whose stratospheric rise in modelling is inseparable from the 23 million followers she has on Instagram. (To put this figure into perspective, consider that Donatella Versace has 858,000 followers.) This week Hadid, the star of MaxMara’s advertising campaign, walked in their catwalk show along with her 19-year-old sister Bella. The pair also starred on the catwalk for Fendi, designed by Karl Lagerfeld.” -
 To read the full article click here.

Now this is a brilliant example of my point, 62 year old Donatella Versace, an extremely successful business women, the current vice president of the Versace group AND the chief designer of the Versace brand, has 858,000 (now 1.4 million) followers on Instagram compared to the then 21 year old Gigi Hadids 23 million followers (now 34 million!), now, Donatella has worked her way up, she is a successful business women and entrepreneur, so why should someone who hasn’t worked that hard or been that successful in a tough industry, get more opportunities, purely due to how many people follow them on a social media account?

@donatella_versace

Now I know how much blogging and social media has done for so many industries, and it is such an amazing asset to any designers’ career, but the problem that I see is how it is taking over the industry, it is taking away the art away from fashion. Fashion used to be bespoke, it took time, precision and the designers had worked hard as hell to make their way to the top of the pile. Whereas now you scroll through Instagram where there is advertisement after advertisement for websites that sell cheap, knock offs and copies of other designers work for a fraction of the price, destroying the bigger, more successful companies business! There is no art to it, and that’s what fashion is, it is art you can wear.

Rihanna designing a collection for Manolo Blahnik

Blogging and social media has its pros and cons within the fashion industry. On one hand, it makes so many opportunities and makes it possible for people who would have possibly not had the opportunity to be a part of this wonderful industry to shine and display their designs. However, on the other hand, it’s taking these opportunities from the people who do work their way to the top, the ones who go through years of training, school, university or even start from the bottom of the pile and work their way up, purely because of a number on a blog or social media account. Bloggers such as Zoella can influence you to see the pros of blogging and social media, with her staring off like any one of us, she is someone you can relate to, she started her journey into blogging early on, giving her an advantage. Still, she was one of us and now she’s a house hold name in the blogger-sphere. However, the art is going from the fashion industry, it’s becoming too easy to display your work and celebrities who shouldn’t really be designers, are being given the chance to design ranges, purely based on their Instagram followers. This is only to give the brand more publicity, and they are chosen over people who have worked their way to the top. Thanks to blogging and social media, more opportunities are being made possible for fashion designers, but is it worth killing one of our most creative industry to do so?



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