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July 19, 2019
As you all know I take the Business of Fashion online magazine, newsletter, about the....business of fashion - duh! It's really about how clothes are designed, made, marketed, sold and everything in between. As a devotee of fashion and huge follower, this is really right down my alley.
But there's also another reason I read this media. I follow fashion and as a designer and sewists myself, seeing where fashion is going is essential to my business. And then there's simply the fact that I love following fashion. Actually, I must rephrase that - it's more like I used to love following fashion when it was pretty. This latest business with looking sloppy, ill-fitting (too big or too small), ripped, torn and otherwise ratty look was
old when it first started and went against my very grain of working as hard as I could to look well-groomed, classic, neat and well-kept. For a while there that was the antithesis of what mainstream designers, stores and marketers were hawking.
But things are changing and they are changing fast. This week, the BOF had a very interesting article titled, "Instagram influencers aren't very good at influencing anymore." Whoa - wait a minute. There's a lot who don't even know what an influencer is, much less the effect they have on the fashion industry.
They look like a motley crew and worse, do any of us even recognize any of these people?....do we even care?
Well, I'm here to tell you for the last decade they (the influencers) have been almost single-highhandedly been selecting what you would see and what you wouldn't, and therefore what you can purchase and what you can't purchase. The purchase part has never really concerned me except as a peripheral concern in that if it isn't purchased, then that style, trend, fad dies. These influencers have been the mainstay at almost all fashion shows even the couture shows
that used to be the exclusive purview of the very wealthy and select fashion magazine editors.
But it is the idea that they govern and decide what the rest of us see and the track that the rest of us take towards what we can purchase and what's available in stores is the most concerning. It's been concerning for me for a long time.
Here's why this is so dangerous.
It used to be that folks with experience, knowledge and education had the reigns of what we saw and what we didn't in fashion. And that wasn't the best, because there was still some designs out there that we didn't see.
The Story of Pauline Trigére vs John Fairchild
Unless you were in the know, you never heard of Pauline Trigére. She was a fabulous designer in the vein of Carolina Herrera and Hanae Mori. However you most likely haven't heard of her because she had a rift with John Fairchild, the editor, owner and controller in chief of Women's Wear Daily which was a mainstay of the
fashion industry and thereafter in-the-know fashionistas.
Trigére never really recovered after that even after her famous "Dear John" public letter to Fairchild. This is the sort of power these people held over designers. So when at first there were these influencers to take a little power away, it was met with excitement and real joy.
Some Really Great Fashion Editors
Here are some of my most fav current fashion editors. From left to right, Cathy Horyn, Laura Brown, Anna Wintour and Suzy Menkes. They hardly have ever used their power in a negative way - not always - but hardly ever, and have helped project fashion in a very responsible, mature and well-thought-out direction.
Where the Influencers Have Led Fashion in the Last Decade
This can't be said of the influencers of today. They are concerned about one thing - their place in the social media world and how many subscribers they have. Unfortunately neither one of these has to be really an honest reflection. Influencers are known for exaggerating their following by including bots (that's robots to the rest of us lay-people), which jack up their numbers into the millions of followers when the figure is more like a couple of hundred
thousand. Granted that's a lot, but it ain't any millions.
The other thing that has finally born out is that with the magazine editors, you at least had a modicum of a filter. If an editor did pan you it was for a reason, as in the case of Kayne West shows when Cathy Horyn called a show "The Emperor's New Clothes". The point is that although some of the designers may have looked crazy, they actually had some thought,
expertise and reasoning behind their look and it passed through the filter of these more educated and knowledgeable editors.
With the influencers, it was like everything was dumped out for anyone and everyone to see, without any sort of reasoning, explanation or anything that showed forethought or a process of thinking. Hence these fashion shows, became more of a dog-and-pony show than a showing of the latest fashions of a designer. It was about who was there, who wasn't there, who was in, who was out, and how outlandish was the show for whatever la-la reason a designer might feel. John
Galliano is famous for this, but the problem is that John Galliano actually does have reasoning behind his shows and as a result there really is thought and actual designing going on behind the scenes. The problem is that because the influencers have taken over the media, even if the fashion editors spoke out about it, we would hardly hear it for all the other racket out there.
Point in case - Jean Paul Gaultier is considered the bad boy of Paris. You may think looking at his designs that he is anything but a well-thought out designer. Au contraire mon petit!!! Here is a magnificent video of an interview between Suzy Menkes and Jean Paul Gaultier which will give you an incredible insight into fashion, fashion designing and even fashion reporting. Here is a case of a consummate reporter with an extremely talented designer
conversing in an meaningful and insightful way that even we lay people can understand the whole process of designing - as well as the process of the artist. Click the photo below.
Back to the Influencers
I got a little side-tracked here, but this is good background for this week's article in the Business of Fashion about influencers. Apparently they are losing their influence. Actually this doesn't surprise me as you can have a huge flash in the pan and sell a
lot of stuff, but then eventually, folks find out if it's worth something or not and eventually fall away knowing that it's not all it's cracked up to be.
The question is what/who will take their place? Will we go back to the privately-held, closely-guarded fashion shows of the past, or will we have the open-ended, free-for-all that we've had the last decade. And then maybe the designers will garner their "own" influencing avenues so that people who want to see their clothes can see them whenever.
I didn't so much mind the editorial sieve as at least there was an educated guess if not reasonable surmise of what the new season might have in store for us, and to a certain extent I miss that as it made the fashion season much more organized and easier to understand especially for the uninitiated in fashion, but still a person wants to look modern and with-it.
The Future of Influencers
What is the upshot of all this is that the gargantuan influencers with throngs of followers are mostly either fake or at best flimsy and don't follow for long. I'm sure you've done that on your Facebook or Instagram account - seen someone you're following and wondered why and then simply stopped following them so you can keep your digest more well-edited. Most people are thinking more that way and prefer a more edited social media and keeping their
timelines and posts more to the point for what they need and want in their life.
I have several Twitter accounts, Instagram account and Facebook pages and profile, and on all of them I keep my timelines and walls clean - if I follow someone for a reason - usually to get fashion, art or sewing info, and they veer off onto rants of this or that, they are off my wall. Don't get me wrong, if one of my sewists sources wants to talk about the latest soup recipe - I'm not going to nix them. It's getting into areas that either they do not have expertise
in or they are simply talking out their mouth without checking their brain or heart.
I follow a person who I know is the antithesis of my political beliefs, but her posts are funny humorous and almost always pithy (sometimes I don't understand them cause I'm a different age), and almost always enjoyable if not instructive. So it's not like this can't be done.
And the preponderance of those who follow influencers have to be feeling the same way. If they have a sense that the influencer is really believe what they are saying or have practical or personal experience with it, then they are more than likely going to keep their followers. Those who are in the business of getting millions and millions of followers simply to sell themselves as mega-influencers, probably aren't going to be in that position very much longer. And
that's a good thing, and shows how reality is weeding out the chaff and keeping the nutritious grain.
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PS - I do a lot of posting on Facebook as both Claire Kennedy and SewingArtistry - if you want to friend me to check out the goodies over there for free!
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