March 24, 2010
It’s taken a while but the fashion industry has finally woken up to the wonders of the World Wide Web! Online stores such as ASOS are booming, fashion designers are tweeting like there’s no tomorrow and the majority of high-street retailers now have some form of blog to keep consumers up to date with fashion news and trends.
Innovative brands such as ASOS have leaped ahead and successfully created platforms which allow users (43,000 visitors per month) to interact with each other and build their own community. The ‘my fashion my way’ and ‘Saturday night style’ sections, as well as the ‘share your outfit’ group spark conversations and encourage members to share their own ideas, tips and insights.
River Island has also responded to this growing trend with Style Insider, an editorial and community site. Attracting 27,000 unique UK visitors a month, much of the site is written by the creative forces behind the brand – clothes, shoe and accessory designers. This makes the content compelling, relevant and appealing to those interested and involved in fashion and the brand itself.
And it’s not just the fashion brands and designers that are harnessing the power of social media platforms to speak directly to fans of fashion. Fashion magazines have also joined the online explosion. The Marie Claire Twitter account not only regularly updates and interacts with their following (it currently has an impressive 79,283 followers!); it has even been known to look for writers from their Twitter community.
In the midst of this exciting new landscape are the fashion bloggers – providing real insight and up-to-the minute commentary. Whether they’re posting images live from the catwalks, revealing latest trends from the streets of Tokyo, they too have become a huge force within the industry and a voice for a new generation of fashionistas.
Blogs such as Catwalkqueen and Stylebubble boast more readers per day than Vogue’s website and the Sartorialist has been named by Time magazine as one of the most influential forces in design. What’s more, bloggers such as Susanna Lau, creator of Style Bubble, are frequently snapping up front row (and extremely limited!) seats at the catwalks of high profile shows such as London Fashion Week.
One thing is for sure – this is an exciting time for the fashion industry and an incredible opportunity for brands to interact with consumers!