Rag Tales Weekly News Round Up
1.Kate Moss designs a range of handbags for Longchamp. The collection will be sold in Dublin in Arnotts but take a look here at a video of the launch party last week and rare footage of Ms Moss saying a few words…. (or should that be, saying few words?)
2. Almost half of all the Fashion Magazines continue to experience double digit declines in sales, titles affected include Marie Claire, Vogue and W. With the growth in the Internet as a source of all things fashion coupled with a difficult economy the Magazines are going to have to work even harder to not only hold but grow their readership. Harpers Bazaar were accused of using some creative accounting techniques to hold up their reader count and it transpires they had added two other magazines in their stable into the mix in order to bump up the numbers
3. Fashion extremes were all a sparkle at last weeks 52nd Annual Grammy Awards with Lady Gaga taking all the fashion titles know to man. Three outfit changes from Armani Prive before the ceremony even started!!
Lady Gaga in No 1 of 3
4. Trouble brewed and spilled over onto Twitter and the Fashion Press when a group of Invited Bloggers previewed Ann Taylors Loft Summer collection. Twitter was all atweet with this highly trending topic for days with lots of negative comments about Bloggers V Editors which were vigorously rebutted. Read the article below which comes from WWD and leave a comment.
A new Loft blogging strategy has created some buzz, but not entirely the kind intended.
A group of bloggers was invited to preview Loft’s summer collection on Jan. 26 and each received a free gift card, ranging from $10 to $500. But Loft executives insist it wasn’t a ploy to insure favorable reviews about the collection, just to generate some blogging action.
“They could write whatever they want. Obviously, there’s freedom of speech,” said Gary Muto, president of Loft, which is a division of AnnTaylor Stores Corp. “These are independent bloggers, not affiliated [with] any publications. We invited them to come in and write something. We treat bloggers more as potential clients. We don’t believe bloggers to be the same as the editorial community. We don’t incentivize the press. We would never do that.”
A Jan. 19 article in The Los Angeles Times said, “From the sound of the sliding scale card values, the bigger and better your coverage, the greater your reward.”
But Muto disagreed, indicating: “These were preloaded gift cards dumped in a fish bowl,” meaning the dollar value of the cards was set and wouldn’t be altered based on a blog’s content.
After they left the preview, bloggers could find out the value of their cards by either shopping Loft or communicating with the company by sending the link to their blog posting. Once Loft received the link, it could e-mail back to bloggers what the card was worth and also read the blog.
Muto said 31 bloggers viewed the collection and each took a card. There were 50 cards in the fish bowl, he added.
A separate preview was held the same day for editors, but no gift cards were distributed there, Muto said.
“We will continue talking to bloggers,” Muto said. “We firmly believe that word of mouth is a great avenue to explore. Gone are the days of traditional forms of marketing and communication.”
Asked if Loft will continue to offer free gift cards to bloggers, Muto replied that for now, at least, “I can’t answer that question.”A new Loft blogging strategy has created some buzz, but not entirely the kind intended.
5. Suzy Menkes is one of the most Influential Fashion Editors in the World, as Head Fashion editor of the International Edition of The Herald Tribune she wields significant clout so listen to her being interviewed here on her view of Fashion Bloggers and their role in the world of Fashion
On Fashionblogs from Mary Scherpe on Vimeo.
