Does it really matter? Can all these niches: personal style, street style, shopping, fashion – fit under the banner of “fashion” blogs? I brought this up briefly in an outfit post (of all things) last week, and then Yuli Ziv made me think about it again with her great article: 10 Fashion Blogger Stereotypes, Or Why Brands Still Fear Working With Bloggers.
I concluded then that my main site, Grechen’s Closet, is not a fashion blog – at least not in terms of what I would consider a fashion blog: focusing more on “news,” trends, runways, designers, and “fantasy.” I started in 2004 with a desire to make online shopping easier & more fun by posting resources and outfit pictures – but I’ve always classified myself as a fashion/style/shopping blog. Lately though, I feel sort of “left out” of the fashion blog genre because I don’t attend Fashion Week or post about runway shows – I focus entirely on reality: where to buy, what to buy, and how to wear it.
There is obviously a lot of overlap and fuzzy lines in the blogosphere; I think a personal style blog can also be a fashion blog (like THE COVETED or Dream Sequins) when there’s a combination of “dress-up” with news & observations on trends in design. You can also have a combo fashion & shopping blog, like Refinery29.
There are also strictly personal style blogs – like Adored Austin or What I Wore – and then there are strictly shopping blogs, like dluxelist, and Style Bite – or a combination of shopping & personal style, like Grechen’s Closet. And then there are fashion/personal style/shopping blogs like FabSugar…
I could go on, but I think you get the picture. Which brings me back to my original question: Does it matter what “type” of blogger you are? Should you be confined to a group, or left out of a group because you don’t attend Fashion Week, or post outfit pictures? Are we all just fashion bloggers? And what IS a fashion blog anyway??
What do you think?
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It makes life easier — including selling your products, increasing your traffic, making dinner party conversation — if you can fit into a category. I’ve never been sure of my own category. Fashion blogger? But I write about other things. Designer-who-is-a-blogger? I write about other designers too. Any suggestions are welcome!
WendyB´s last blog ..Epic Outfit Post: Electric Lady Gaga Land
wendy, you are the blogger of all bloggers
you make your own category! but you’re absolutely right, life is always easier when you can fit squarely into a category…but what fun is that?
Ha ha — people have told me that I would be more successful if I could just do something third or fourth instead of first. It’s so much easier to sell. Like those movie pitches that say “it’s like When Harry Met Sally meets Jaws meets Cold Mountain” and everyone says, “Oh, of course!”
WendyB´s last blog ..Epic Outfit Post: Electric Lady Gaga Land
P.S. One time I tried to join a fashion blogger network and they told me I wasn’t a fashion blog
It wasn’t IFB of course!
WendyB´s last blog ..Epic Outfit Post: Electric Lady Gaga Land
For me, I classify anything that has to deal with fashion as a fashion blog. I think there are niches within it (as I think of myself as more of a style & lifestyle “fashion” blog), and I think it’d be too black and white to say that fashion blogs are only one thing. IFB is a great example of that, Ithink.
We’re all fashion bloggers, and I think (probably another debate) that it’s the duty of the reader, the PR person, the designer, to realize and recognize that there are these subdivisions who cater to completely different markets. Girls going after a shopping/sale blog aren’t going to be interested in my blog, and that’s ok. I think this is probably the only place where I think “type” of blogger would matter.
Ashe Mischief´s last blog ..Indie Designers: I Am Dorkus
i tend to agree with you ashe – and that’s the beauty of it. we all bring our own mix of interests to our blogs, and although they may not fit into a specific category, there are uniting characteristics enough to make us all fashion blogs.
Great post! I agree with Ashe – I call myself a fashion blog because it’s easier to say and much more used than ‘style and lifestyle blog’ (which is the niche I would say I fall into as well). It is a really interesting thing to think about, because the discount/sales blogs that update 10x in a day and the content-heavy blogs that update 3-5x week are all under the same umbrella!
Michelle´s last blog ..How to Stop Worrying All the Damn Time
I think these “categories” matter only when others (advertisers, networks, PR people) assess your blog to see if you’re worth working with, as far as target audience and content.
Grechen, if you’re not a fashion blog, then I’m really on the fringes
Thank you for the link, Gretchen. Here’s a little tidbit that y’all may not know: I didn’t start off doing Adored Austin with the intention of making it a personal style blog. I wanted it to be a spot sort of like TheAustinist where I wrote about Austin events, but I wanted the events to only be fashion, home decor, art, and shopping based. I was throwing in What I Wore type posts to fill in the gaps. Alas, my personal style posts were the ones that people were actually commenting on, and after a month of so of my launch, I decided to just go with it. In all honesty, I don’t feel particularly fashionable. I’m not into shoes or bags, and I don’t read any fashion magazines. I just like thrift store shopping and buying clothes that are affordable but sustainable, so a lot of the time I feel like the ugly duckling of this whole strange land of “Fashion Bloggers”.
Also, there are days when I feel incredibly narcissistic and shallow, though. I sometimes wonder if people know that there’s much more to me than what I wear and what I buy. This year I’m going to try really hard to put more of a focus on events in Austin and to spotlight small businesses and emergent designers, instead of it being a 100% Look at Me fest.
Thanks for everything you do here, an I’m excited to finally be able to meet you soon!
Indiana Adams´s last blog ..Video: Getting to know me, getting to know all about me
hi indiana!! see…that’s why i love to read adored austin – you have your own distinct style & you love to have fun with your outfits. i feel like WAY too many of the uber-popular personal style blogs have the same look, they’re always following trends, or look like something out of the shopbop lookbook. that gets boring after a while.
i can’t wait to read more of your austin events/designers pieces – i’m really looking forward to getting to know the city
Thanks for the shout out and for joining the discussion, Grechen! One thing I would like to add, which wasn’t mentioned: I see also many bloggers who post a little bit of everything, which confuses people even more about the various kinds of fashion bloggers. Just like established publications have their own mission statement and niche, I think it’s important for bloggers to figure that out, so they don’t get swayed away by PR pitches and traffic driving temptations
Yuli´s last blog ..10 Fashion Blogger Stereotypes, Or Why Brands Still Fear Working With Bloggers.
Hey hey there! You know when I first started out blogging (a short year ago) I wrote from the personal style and fashion point of view, then I realized that others liked, respected, and wanted more, and as one of my blogging friends told me, you evolve.
My blog has grown into a fashion and lifestyle especially as mines focuses on a specific niche (plus size). I do try to differentiate my blog, focusing on the contemporary, and fashion forward designers and fashion, translated from what we’d see in fashion week and in the mags…
Great post Gretchen!!! Aptly timed as I am restructuring my positioning
The Curvy Fashionista´s last blog ..Revisiting my Open Letter to the Retail Industry
One of the ways I am attempting to differentiate my blog (http://the-budgetista.com) from the rest of the fashion blogs is that I don’t tell my readers what “fashion” is, I allow them to tell me. They have the ability to contact me for whatever fashion inspired them, whether seen on a reality show or music video. Then I try to find them what they are looking for at a cost that cannot be beat. For me, after reading so many fashion blogs, I realized I still couldn’t afford anything they wrote about so I would ultimately stop reading. What I hope to do is find affordable fashion for those readers who are on a budget.
elizabeth´s last blog ..Spotted: Serena’s Cut Out Dress & Messy Necklace from Gossip Girl’s The Empire Strikes Jack Episode