Fashion Blogging

Tied with the coverage of celebrities is the coverage of fashion on Jezebel. Its manifesto declared Jezebel as an alternate to the fashion-heavy women’s magazine industry set Jezebel up to be a critique of fashion. However, looking at the fashion tag shows that this has mostly devolved to reviews: the fashion industry,  celebrity fashion  and products by Jezebel writers.

Fashion blogging has become a major factor in the industry. While at first, fashion was resistant to embrace social media, companies themselves are now  using it in addition to acknowledging the influence of independent fashion bloggers.( Amed 2011) An article for Women’s Wear Daily‘s website explains that there are  two million fashion and shopping focused blogs, many with linked to similar products available for purchase embedded in their site (Cochoran 2006).  The influence of digital fashion critiques is forcing fashion institutions to change, and involve a more democratic process of inclusion (Cochocran 2006). While fashion was once a “dictatorship” the growth of the fashion blog, and its critiques of the fashion world have forced a type of transparency on the industry, forcing them to involve regular citizens in their decision (Cochoran 2006). Industry giant/PR Rep Kelly Cutrone commented to the New York Times that  “Do I think, as a publicist, that I now have to have my eye on some kid who’s writing a blog in Oklahoma as much as I do on an editor from Vogue? Absolutely. Because once they write something on the Internet, it’s never coming down. And it’s the first thing a designer is going to see. (Wilson 2009)

This change is infiltrating long-standing bastions of the fashion industry.  Wilson’s 2009 New York Times article about the changes in the industry noted that “Jezebel.com (a saucy blog that includes coverage of fashion) shot ahead of Style.com (the Condé Nast fashion site) for the first time this fall with more than a half-million visitors” (Wilson 2009).The attention given to a wider variety of designers, such as the detailing in Jezebel’s “Rag Trade.”

Similar to “Dirt Bag,” but focused on the fashion industry, “Rag Trade” reflects both caused the increased humanization and celebrity of industry giants, and increased the name and coverage of smaller scale designers. These changes, wrought by Jezebel and other online fashion blogs have caused a more macro examination and restructuring of the industry. A recent story on Jezebel discussed changes in America’s Next Top Model, a show that has long been merging the world of fashion with the American people.  (Stewart 2012) Tyra Banks, show star/producer has fired long standing judges and creative director, to take the show in a more digital/ online directions. (Stewart 2012) She is currently courting BryanBoy, one of the most popular fashion bloggers to become a part of the show. (Stewart 2012) Bryanboy is so influential that in 2008, Marc Jacobs named a purse in his collection after the blogger. (Wilson 2009)

In “Rag Trade” Jezebel also covers the gossip of the industry, mentioning not just the design changes but inner lives of the designers. Social media has become a major player in perpetuating rumors about the fashion industry. (Amed 2011)This reflects the trends of celebrity gossip, but extended to the names of the fashion industry. What is interesting to note about this section is that it differs from the others in that it assumes baseline knowledge of the players in the fashion industry, and does not just draw upon popular culture, like “Dirt Bag.”

Another element that reflects celebrity trends is Jezebel’s coverage of celebrity fashion at red carpet events in a feature called “Good/Bad/Ugly.” In this feature, pictures of celebrity outfits at red carpet events are shown, with commentary. This dissection of celebrity fashion is a part of the fashion blogging trend, which magazines have had difficulty adjusting to. (Wilson 2009) The analysis of celebrity fashion can have multiple functions. In Feasy’s study of heat readers (talked about more in this post) the women described why they enjoyed the fashion section of the magazine.( Feasy 2009: 693-696)  For some, they liked both the inspiration of the style, but also the confidence it gave them to try off new styles after feeling validated by seeing a certain look on a celebrity. (Feasy 2009: 694) Most magazines have launched digital components, which readers enjoy due to their interactive and search features, which allow them to tailor the content the consume. (Inghanm and Weadon 2008: 218These online pieces are able to be more in depth then the virtual pieces.  (Ingham and Weadon 2008:217)

The fashion industry is being changed by social media, but is still managing to maintain its gendered identity. Fashion blogs merge the celebrity, gossip and fashion elements, whether fashion is the main focus or one element of a larger site.

Sources

Ahmed, Irman. “Fashion 2.0 | Fashion PR in the Digital Age | BoF – The Business of Fashion.” Fashion 2.0. Business of Fashion, 5 Apr. 2011. Web. 20 Apr. 2012. <http://www.businessoffashion.com/2011/04/fashion-2-0-fashion-pr-in-the-digital-age.html&gt;.

Corcoran, Cate T. “The Blogs That Took Over the Tents.” WWD. Women’s Wear Daily, 6 Feb. 2006. Web. 21 Apr. 2012. <http://www.wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-features/the-blogs-that-took-over-the-tents-547153?full=true&gt;.

Feasy, Lauren. “Reading heat: The Meanings and Pleasures of Star Fashions and Celebrity Gossip.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 22 5 (2010): 687-699

Ingham, Deena, and Alexis Weedon. “Time Well Spent: The Magazine Publishing Industry’s Online Niche.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 14 2 (2008): 205-20. Print.

Stewart, Dodai. “Tyra the Tyrant Has Fired Mr. Jay, Miss J and Nigel Barker from ANTM.” Jezebel. Jezebel, 20 Apr. 2012. Web. 21 Apr. 2012. <http://jezebel.com/5903702/tyra-the-tyrant-has-fired-mr-jay-miss-j-and-nigel-barker-from-antm?tag=america.s-next-top-model&gt;.

Wilson, Eric. “Bloggers Crash Fashion’s Front Row.” The New York Times 27 Dec. 2009, New York ed., Style sec.: ST1. Print.

“Celebrity, Sex, Fashion [and cute puppies]. Without Airbrushing.”

The role of advertisers plays an important role in the format of Jezebel’s page. The organization of Jezebel  reveals important information about the content categories. Denton’s goals to emulate traditional media was  reinforced with a redesign of the front page of Jezebel,and the other Gawker Media holdings to look more like the front page of a magazine or tabloid (Denton 2010). In an article published on Gawker’s life advice/organization blog Lifehacker, Denton explained how the different changes are a result of media convergence, blurring the lines between digital communications and traditional media (2010). The format allows the editors to differentiate, and highlight certain articles or categories as more important or popular (Denton 2010). In fact, much of the redesign was based on the intrinsically linked process of drawing viewers and advertisers (Denton 2010). This reflects further Jezebel as a profitable media enterprise, which could have an unknown effect on the content present and could effect how the material may be edited to cater to drawing in the most advertisers. However, this cannot be proven without thorough content analysis at the scale this blog cannot complete.

Specifically for Jezebel, each article is tagged with a different label, which indicates the content of the article.  Underneath the highlighted article on the main page there are headlines for other articles divided by some of the more popular labels. Along the side of the page is a traditional blog view, which shows the label and article title. Some of the labels are features such as “Dirt Bag” and “Rag Trade” which are published regularly, while others are adjusted to more current issues such as “Pill Baby Pill” which covers issues with the current debate about birth control.

The blog defines itself as describing “Celebrity, Sex and Fashion for women.”  These three categories loosely divide most of the content on Jezebel. The “celebrity” indicates content that focuses on gossip and celebrity news, including a feature called “Dirt Bag” which lists celebrity gossip, and “Snap Judgment” which shows pictures of celebrities, and asks commentators their opinions.   One common celebrity article is “midweek madness,” which analyzes the celebrity tabloid magazine covers for the week, playfully mocking the focus on celebrity pregnancy (Mascia 2010). The “sex” content focuses on issues related to women, including women’s health news, personal relationship and motherhood anecdotes, accomplishments by women in news and similar content. The “fashion” category harkens back to Jezebel’s proclaimed roots as an alternate to traditional women’s magazines, (Holmes 2007) and takes up a smaller portion then the other two categories.  There are segments such as “Rag Trade,” which outline news about designers and the fashion world, snf “Photoshop of Horrors”, which shows egregious use of Photoshop in advertising, as well as reviews of fashion shows (Mascia 2010). However, as a member of Gawker empire, the payment of the writers is driven by page views (Grigoriadis 2007). This leads to a de facto fourth category, composed of labels such as “squee” and “aww” which, as their titles suggest include videos of cute children, adorable animals and other videos which are going viral from websites like YouTube and Vimeo. These videos  are what Denton describes as “palette cleansers” – softer pieces to dilute the snark that may driver advertisers away. (Denton 2010) All of this content is compiled to form what Jezebel views as what women want to hear about.

Works Cited:

Denton, Nick. “Why Gawker Is Moving beyond the Blog.” Lifehacker. Gawker Media, 30 Nov. 2010. Web. 21 Mar. 2012. <http://lifehacker.com/5701749/why-gawker-is-moving-beyond-the-blog&gt;.

Grigoriadis, Vanessa. “Gawker and the Rage of the Creative Underclass.” New York News & Features. New York Magazine, 14 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Mar. 2012. <http://nymag.com/news/features/39319/&gt;.

Mascia, Jennifer. “A Web Site That’s Not Afraid to Pick a Fight.” NYTimes.com. New York Times, 12 July 2010. Web. 23 Mar. 2012. <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CEEDB103BF931A25754C0A9669D8B63&gt;.

McCarthy, Amy. “Self-Righteousness, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Celebrity Gossip: Why Jezebel Is Ultimately Bad For The Feminist Movement.” Feminists for Choice. Feminist for Choice, 8 Sept. 2011. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. <http://feministsforchoice.com/self-righteousness-gwyneth-paltrow-and-celebrity-gossip-why-jezebel-is-ultimately-bad-for-the-feminist-movement.htm&gt;.