Victoria: The editors of Vogue have recently spoken out against certain fashion bloggers “preen[ing] for the cameras in borrowed clothes”. They’ve since been condemned and told to get back to their “Werther’s Originals”, but aren’t the Vogue elites just saying what we’re all thinking? I must admit I have often wished that I too could be granted free clothes every time I post a picture on Instagram, but should we necessarily be looking up to these men and women as the new faces of fashion?
The degree of promotion work that they do begs the question of whether they’re wearing the clothes because they like them, or just because they are able to convince millions of followers that they should like them. Fashion blogging should not be about getting your readership to go away and buy the exact same outfits. It should be about expressing individual style and inspiring their readership to express themselves through their own clothes. In one sense, I think it’s admirable that any Tom, Dick or Harry can call themselves a fashion blogger but therein lies the problem. Where’s the originality gone? It seems that bloggers are just desperately trying to sell us something. There are still a rare few fashion bloggers that remain true to their own style but brands are using lots of bloggers as merely a means to sell their clothes. Vogue are right to point out the issue but it’s not the bloggers that are to blame, it’s the brands. Ultimately, the brands have found a new way to convince people to buy their clothes and lots of bloggers are happy to oblige in the pursuit of freebies. For now though, the latest war in fashion continues.
Molly: Controversy is key during fashion week - if you’re not exploding onto the glossy pages of the fashion bible that is Vogue then who even are you? Standard practice would suggest that it is the designers that prevent the dust from settling and the editors that bow down to this madness. However, this year the head honchos at Vogue have mounted their high horses and charged at the new kids on the block: the bloggers, relatable entities that bridge the gap between us and the obscure world of fashion. Hypocrisy is rife amongst the fashion set as Sally Singer, Vogue’s creative digital director, claimed that bloggers were “heralding the death of style”. Disputable really, seeing as style has no definitive image. So how could bloggers, trend devotees who build their career using the shallow building blocks from Vogue’s empire be the reason for the deterioration of style? The director of the magazine’s runway app went as far as to describe the “street style mess” as “distressing”. However, not only is street style one of the most photographed aspects of fashion week but it also has it’s own dedicated page on Vogue’s website which features over three hundred pictures from the first few days of Paris Fashion Week alone. It’s clear that these worshipped few need reminding of the fundamentals of fashion, Vogue itself continues to feature coveted fashion houses such as Dior and Chanel. Interestingly, one of the most historically powerful fashion designers, Coco Chanel, once said that “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”