Watching the fashion industry play digital catch up is turning into more of a spectacle than a model in towering platforms tumbling down the catwalk. Just look at last week’s Spring 2010 D&G show.
There, front row in Milan huddled over four glowing, pizza box-sized laptops, were style blog stars Bryanboy, Scott Schuman, Garance Dore and Toronto’s claim to online fashion fame, JakandJil‘s Tommy Ton.
The picture and the mainstream fashion press reports of (gasp!) bloggers being assigned primo runway seats made me wonder a few things:
- Laptops? If D&G really wanted to look tech-savvy, they would have armed the foursome with powerful PDAs. You can blog and post images from them now too!
- The front row? Columnists started admitting a year ago that attending fashion shows is becoming increasingly unnecessary to their ability to review collections. Upper style echelon ego stroking aside, those seats aren’t worth what they used to be.
- D&G? Kudos to a company known more for embracing a tarty, romantic look than techno-anything for recognizing online media’s relevance.
“It was definitely a surreal and unexpected experience,” says Ton on his way from Milan to Paris where he’s snapping the off-the-runway scene for Style.com. “I used to have to beg for a response from the publicists who represent the designers. After the front row appearance, editors who never gave me the time of day started to say hi and I’ve received invites to exclusive shows.”
Ton says Vogue Nippon’s Anna Dello Russo, who often appears drenched in Dolce on JakandJil, convinced the designers that a blog post can now be as influential as press attention from the fashion glossies.
So what kind of pampered reception can Toronto’s fashion bloggers expect when our shows kick off on October 19?
After four seasons of online outlets being downgraded to a web pass, LG Fashion Week’s organizers are issuing one standard form of media accreditation for all press again. Bloggers will have access to more invites and the filing room where they can continue to post and tweet their way up the fashion ladder.[rssbreak]
