Nov 18, 2006

Fashion blogs make Web a stylish scene

By Catherine Nash

Once upon a time, Vogue was the bible of the best dressed. Then along came the fashion blog. With names like Fashiontribes, I am Fashion, and Manolo's Shoe Blog, they stormed the Web two years ago, and the category has been growing ever since. A recent Technorati search found more than 2,500 blogs under the keyword "fashion." There's no denying that fashion blogging has become, well, fashionable.

"You're seeing new ones pop up literally every week," said Cupertino resident Trisha Okubo, who founded Omiru (www.omiru.com) in March 2005.

Okubo is one of several Bay Area fashion bloggers whose voice is part of the burgeoning online chorus. She says that her mission is to showcase of-the-moment clothes that don't cost thousands of dollars.

"Fashion magazines like Vogue and In Style tend to be very aspirational. They show these beautiful models or celebrities in outfits that are not necessarily reachable for the general public," said Okubo, who has degrees from Stanford University and the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, "I wanted to create a (Web) site that brought fashion back to earth and made it more accessible to everyone."

Omiru offers a little bit of everything. "Ready Made Outfit" assembles looks piece by piece, with prices and links to online retailers. Weekly polls gauge what readers think is in or out (in: layered necklaces, out: cowboy boots), and there are tips to help real women - the kind with hips and thighs - pull off unforgiving trends.

"Take the bubble skirt," Okubo said. "The (magazine) editors are all over that, but regular people think, 'How am I going to wear that?'"

At Verbal Croquis (www.verbalcroquis.wordpress.com), Zoe Hong offers a glimpse into the world of a "real-life, non-famous fashion designer." The San Francisco resident is the head designer at a local design house she won't name, and she started her blog a year ago as a way to manage her portfolio. (Croquis is French for "sketch.")

It has since become a chronicle of Hong's day-to-day activities, a collection of her musings on the direction of the industry and a playground for photographic experiments.

Hong posts up to five times a week depending on her hectic schedule. Besides her day job, she's designing an eveningwear collection. (One of her pieces won this year's Gen Art Sparkle competition.)

Unlike most of the fashion blogosphere, Hong is not about product promotion. "Verbal Croquis is not full of pictures of hot new clothes/shoes/bags," she explained. "My blog services a niche readership of people who are or want to be involved in the industry. My focus is not to entertain people who like fashion; there are plenty of people who do that and do it better than I ever could."

Omiru has a staff of five and logs up to 3,000 unique visitors a day. That's a sizable readership for a blog, but it's less than a tenth of Vogue's circulation. Nevertheless, the influence of Omiru and blogs like it is growing.

During the spring collections in New York, Milan and Paris, Style.com, the online home of Vogue, W and GQ, featured New York blogger Scott Schuman, a.k.a The Sartorialist. He also regularly writes for GQ.

But the way the mainstream media has embraced Schuman is the exception, not the rule. Okubo also covered New York fashion week, and said that although the animosity bloggers felt last year was absent, they're still not considered equal players.

"Some of the more forward thinking designers gave interviews. The more old school the designer is, the harder it was to get access," she admitted.

Still, up-and-coming designers regularly ask her to check out their lines. Eventually, Okubo would like to go beyond the blog and turn Omiru into a profitable business.

Though Hong's reasons for blogging are different, she and Okubo agree that fashion is moving away from ivory tower luxury in favor of a more democratic approach.

"The democratization of fashion is happening full force right now," wrote Hong. "Less than 10 years ago, the big news was how every major design house was launching a bridge label. Now the big news is the Stella McCartney designs for H&M."

Okubo believes that bloggers have a strong part to play. "Back before fashion blogs, what's in and what's out used to be in the hands of a select few fashion editors and designers. Now more people are having their say."