This Year’s Model: Bloggers in Fashion

The Independent Fashion Bloggers association has over 10,000 active members. 10,000 fashionistas—or fashionistas in training—hungry for the latest style dish and eager to flavor their blogs with a pinch of Brand A or Product B. Because it’s a network, the exposure can be exponential. Brands are lucky if just one of those fiercely independent top bloggers chooses to praise their products – right?

The answer is: What’s luck got to do with it? Many of those 10,000+ bloggers aren’t so independent anymore, and so brand mentions aren’t necessarily so serendipitous. Respected teen style icon Jane Aldridge, who pens Sea of Shoes, has partnered with both Barney’s and Urban Outfitters. True, she might have mentioned the latest pair of Manolos anyway, not just because they’re available at Barney’s. But now those keystrokes are, well, incentivized. 

Instead of models, ads for J.C. Penney’s summer campaign feature real-girl bloggers Jennine Jacob (proprietress of The Coveted) and Jessica Schroeder (of What I Wore), and the Penney back-to-school campaign includes videos from teen bloggers and vloggers, or video bloggers, such as Bethany (aka MacBarbie07) above.

But if what essentially made blogs so appealing—their unadulterated editorial honesty—is peppered with strategic product placements sometimes designed by the brands, the question is: Are we reading blogs or ads? Especially if bloggers are paid to highlight brands in a particular way at particular times. 

Breathing, blogging ads are one thing, but Coach took it a step further: its spring line featured four bags designed by style bloggers. The 13-year-old "it girl" and fashion blogger, Tavi Gevinson, inspired Rodarte's 2009 line for Target, and now discloses (per the FTC's mandate for bloggers) the clothes she received for that collaboration.

All this is, of course, a sign of the ever eroding line between journalism and brands, between art and commerce, and between the crowd and the craving.

But it goes deeper. One wonders: at the point where the blogger and the brand collaborate so closely that each depends on the other not only for support but also for existence, who controls the brand? Is the role of the blogger shifting from brand support to brand design?  Maybe even brand creation? 

There’s also an incredibly simple and powerful trend at work here. Brands’ interdependence on bloggers is a sign that consumers want to hear from—and buy from—real people they can believe in, not glossy, unreachable ideals.