As Fashion Week kicks off in Paris today, two of the industry’s longstanding authorities are throwing shade at a crop of digital influencers who have risen to new prominence.
In a Milan Fashion Week roundup from Vogue, for instance, the magazine’s creative digital director Sally Singer spoke out against the fashion blogger phenomenon. “Note to bloggers who change head-to-toe, paid-to-wear outfits every hour: Please stop. Find another business. You are heralding the death of style.” Added fashion news editor Alessandra Codinha: “It seems to be all about turning up, looking ridiculous, posing, twitching in your seat as you check your social media feeds, fleeing, changing, repeating.”
And Vogue wasn’t the only entity to take a swipe at social media. In a conference call where it reported a fourth consecutive quarterly sales loss, Karen Katz, the CEO of luxury department store Neiman Marcus, also took the opportunity to blame the blogosphere. “Today, fashion shows are now blogged and broadcast all over the world via social media,” she said. “By the time the merchandise ships many months later, the newness and excitement had worn off and in many cases, the customer has moved on.”
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While it sounds like each of the aforementioned companies is yearning back to a time when they could serve as gatekeepers to an industry that has now been democratized by social media, notes Quartz, several high-profile bloggers didn’t take the comments sitting down.
Popular vlogger Bryanboy, whose real name is Bryan Yambao, called Vogue’s comments “schoolyard bullying, plain and simple.” And Shea Marie, who counts one million followers on her PeaceLoveShea Instagram page, called the storied fashion publication hypocritical. “It’s ironic how you make degrading comments about influencers, and then put them on your international covers to boost sales,” she wrote of Vogue. “How many of your covers are paid for ‘head-to-toe looks’ by brands? What about the daily ‘street style’ pictures and articles on your website homepage. Why? Because — guess what? — that’s what gets the clicks.”
