Tagged: bloggers

Shit Fashion Bloggers Do: Dealing With PRs

Because dealing with PRs is forever one of the most contentious issues in blogging, I though I’d put my spin on things. A lot of more established bloggers forget that, once upon a time, starting to get emails from PRs is actually a nice thing – it shows that, somehow or another, you’ve been recognised as having a voice and implies you’re doing something right.

Well, as Taking Back Sunday once sung, don’t let it go to your head. I’ve seen a ton of girls who’ve been blogging for about six weeks and get this idea in her head that Chanel should be sending them an umbrella as soon as there’s a cloud in the sky, and that Oliver Peoples’ PR department should be sending free sunglasses the second that cloud disappears. To those girls, I would say this -
1) They don’t know you exist.
2) They don’t care you exist.

Fluffy Fashion Beans (or whatever that, no doubt, derivative and cliched blog name is) only has 4 GFC readers and its author only has 104 Twitter followers, and you have to do a hell of a lot more than that before the superbrands come knocking at your virtual door.

PR is a business. Unless sending you a gift is going to result in at least two sales, there isn’t any point in doing it. Shocking though this may be to some bloggers, brand PRs aren’t there just to help people get a new wardrobe for free. Yes, it’s frustrating that some bloggers are like ‘LOOK AT THIS OUTFIT MADE ENTIRELY OUT OF GIFTED STUFF, LOL’, but if you’re that bothered about lining your pockets with free stuff, you should probably reconsider why you started blogging in the first place.

All too often I see bloggers bitching about PRs on Twitter, sometimes even namechecking the brands and individuals involved. On a scale of 1 to HORRIBLE IDEA, this is about an 8. (Well, except for the one by this blogger, because it made me laugh endlessly.) Yes, PRs can sometimes be massively annoying. Like sending you emails that start ‘dear blogger’ and end with ‘when can I expect this to go live?’. But just as you wouldn’t (I assume…) spit in a snooty shop assistant’s face, you shouldn’t email a PR with a massive rant. Why?

1) There’s a person at the other end, one who probably hates their day job (I’m assuming again) as much as you do. Imagine how soul sucking it must be to spend all day forwarding ‘press’ releases about stuff even they’re not excited about.
2) They talk. I’m friends with enough PR peeps (hell, even my dad is one of them) to know that they’re not exactly a quiet bunch. They sometimes make ME seem like a mute. They also, just like bloggers do, have a bit of a pack mentality. Mess with one of them, and it’s taken as an insult by all of them. Tread with care.

A while back I heard a story (from a PR…of course) about a blogger who’s pretty well known. She started firing off these snotty emails to PRs saying how lame their events were and asking to be taken off their lists, she had a semi-public spat with a paper who supposedly ‘implied’ that she lied about her stats and she now insists on being called a journalist, not a blogger. Even though the main place she does her ‘journalism’ is a…err, blog.

Seriously, I thought this trite sense of self importance was reserved for characters in Gossip Girl. I had my photo taken by a magazine once, does that make me a model? I cooked some spaghetti last night, I’m only responding to chef now. One day I’d like to have a regular column in a fashion magazine or something, but even then I doubt I’d insist that people refer to me as a journalist – I’m officially, and you can quote me on this, ok being referred to as a blogger. You only have to look at the comments on just about any article about fashion bloggers to realise that it’s this perceived attitude problem that turns the general public, as well as a lot of PRs, against fashion bloggers. Don’t give them any more ammo.

So, yes, it may be annoying when a PR emails you something starting ‘dear blogger’ or expects you to post about some fairly mundane product or invites you to an event that doesn’t even have a free bar (shock horror). But remember, there are newbies out there just wishing for emails like that to start arriving.

Coming Into The Closet.

The following are all things that have been said to me at, or regarding my presence at, fashion events:

  • ‘Oh yeah, you and room full of women, bet I know why you like that so much!’
  • ‘Doesn’t your girlfriend ever get jealous of you hanging around with all these fashion girls? If she does, give me a call.’
  • ‘I hope the boys who are coming know this is about blogging, not picking up chicks.’
  • ‘Here you go mate, have a few extra free drinks tokens if you’re going to be stuck up there all night.’ (Ok, admittedly this was actually pretty nice of this guy to offer, even if it was misguided)
  • ‘Sorry, tonight’s girls only!’
  • ‘So what’s actually your story? We all know there are no straight men in fashion.’

It’s an ongoing joke that there are ‘no straight men in fashion’, one that isn’t completely unfounded – aside from a few biggies like Oscar de la Renta, Christian Lacroix, Paul Smith and Tommy Hilfiger, I struggle to think of many straight male fashion designers. However, I’m not here to talk about straight fashion creators, rather straight male fashion enthusiasts and the discrimination they face.

I’ve been interested in fashion for as long as I can remember. Even as a boy (once I outgrew my penchant for oversized American sports jerseys and Big Dog t-shirts), fashion fascinated me because of the extent to which it pervades popular culture. In my teenage years, I devoured magazines like Vogue, Cosmo and InStyle, always making sure that I had an alibi for doing so – I would read them in the hairdresser’s because there was ‘nothing else to read’, or because I was ‘THAT bored’ in the sixth form common room. By the time I went to University, I had given up on quipping to cashiers that I was buying fashion magazines ‘for the girlfriend’ and gathered them with impunity. The common thread in all of this is that I knew (or at least, felt) that fashion wasn’t something I was supposed to be interested in. When male interest in fashion went mainstream, the term metrosexual was born. Of course, it’s worth noting that this term is still shrouded with a sense of ‘otherness’ – the implication is that men who like fashion, even if they aren’t gay, are still somehow different from their hetero brethren.

Since I started blogging more regularly about fashion, I’ve made some incredible friends who have welcomed me into the scene with open arms. However, they have been the exception, not the rule. The sad fact is that I feel alienated from much of the fashion community on a daily basis. I see new bloggers quickly becoming chummy with fashion PRs, being invited to events that I haven’t even heard about and being sent freebies, despite the fact that they’ve been on the scene for a matter of days. I’ve been pretty down about it recently and have found myself wondering if I’m just a really unlikeable person – I can be pretty self-centred and come across as fairly obnoxious, so before I made any generalisations I decided to see if this is just my problem. Thankfully, I quickly found out that it isn’t.

I spoke to a lot of male fashion bloggers, some straight and some gay, and most of them told me that they’ve all had similar experiences. Arash Mazinani told me that he believes that ‘in my limited experience, I’ve found that gay men are welcomed more warmly by bloggers’ and that despite having previously worked at a big high fashion department store ‘I’ve never been invited to their local fashion events when other female bloggers in my city have, which I was a bit disappointed by.’ Joseph Kent, of Unlimited by JK (which I love, by the way), told me that he’s “found it difficult as a male fashion blogger in gaining followers and being noticed by brands/PR companies etc.” He describes it as “rather a blow, because more than just having fun at these events, I’m trying to further my career into fashion journalism by networking and building relationships.” Even after a year of knowing Joseph, a lot of people on his journalism course thought he was gay (he isn’t), with one remarking that “I know you’re straight, but I find it hard to believe, because you have such a good fashion blog.”

Speaking with one gay male fashion blogger, who asked not to be identified, was a particularly interesting experience. He told me that women, particularly fashion bloggers, almost immediately start cooing when they meet him because they’re desperate for a gay best friend. However, he told me that “they soon lose interest, as I act quite differently depending on the people I’m mingling with. It’s like as soon as we’re not at an event, I’m not gay enough for them anymore.” He poignantly described this experience as being similar to his coming out – “Sure, it was tough at school when everyone found out I was gay. Everyone seemed to forget about it after a while, then when I didn’t expect it someone would make a joke or generalisation and it would come right back to the surface. It’s the same with some of these girls – we might not have talked in ages, but when they need the token homo opinion on something that’s when they pick up the phone.” He also told me about the way in which he feels he has become a parody of himself – “I do sometimes think about whether the things I’m saying are ‘gay enough’. It gets to me sometimes, and I end up questioning my whole identity.”

In recent years the mainstream media has done little to help break stereotypes of gay and straight men – while shows like Sex and the City and Will and Grace romanticise the idea of the GBF, as if they’re a chihuahua in a handbag or some other bang on trend accessory, columns that ‘ask the straight bloke’s opinion’ feature footnotes by an (almost exclusively female) industry expert who rips their ideas to shreds and laughs at how wrong they are. Men are placed on a two point scale, with the lager swilling, football loving, boob honking caveman at one end and the immaculately groomed, purple suit wearing, flaming homosexual at the other. There seems to be a need to round off anyone who falls somewhere in the middle to one side or the other, which might explain why people seem shocked when they discover that, while I might use three different kinds of moisturiser and like to watch ballet, I’d give my left pinkie for a night with Kate Middleton. The fact that I don’t ‘fit’ with the traditional idea of the gay male fashion enthusiast immediately calls my motives into question, and tends to make girls think that I’m only there to get into their trousers. Whereas, actually, I’m probably just interested in looking at their trousers.

So, my point? Well, people say there are no straight men in fashion. Maybe they need to work a little bit harder at letting them in.

How to pose like a fashion blogger, part deux.

So. Safe to say the last post I did about how to be a fashion blogger made its way around the internet a little bit. A couple of people have actually referred to me as ‘that dude who did that blog post’ when I’ve been out and about. I figured I’d strike while the iron’s hot and do a follow-up – let’s hope it’s more Empire Strikes Back than Gremlins 2. Maybe if I do ok people will actually learn my name…or at least refer to me as ‘that dude who did those two blog posts’. Let’s go.

The Artiste

Yeah, no, I get what you’re trying to do. You spent a lot of money on that English Lit degree and you don’t get many chances to quote Ayn Rand in everyday conversation, but I’m not sure it really fits here. Did you take this on an analogue camera? No? You added that light leak later on, I see. Mmhmm, well, yes it does look ‘kinda cool and stuff’ but it means I can’t really…see the clothes.

The Marionette

This is totally a comment on postmodern society. By imitating the posture of a puppet, I’m attacking your bourgeois sensibility and the extent to which the mainstream fashion media dictates not just what people wear but also how they self identify.

No, actually, I’m just really gormless.

The Sparks

The name behind this probably needs a little explaining. It’s something every Nicholas Sparks heroine does at some point in the movie adaptation. Seriously, just imagine the advert – Breakeven by The Script plays while our heroine, let’s call her Betsy, is sitting on the bleachers writing in her notebook. She looks up and catches the eye of Zefron, who’s about to go to war or get amnesia or some stupid thing. Cue a bunch of shots of them getting really sweaty and making out in a beach shack before cutting to Betsy’s dad yelling at Zefron. He really fucking hates Zefron for no apparent reason. Then just before everything fades to black, Betsy’s spinning around in the rain, giggling and saying something inane like ‘the rain always reminds me to feel!’ Meanwhile, we’re all like ‘yeah, but seriously, why does your dad hate Zefron so much?’

The Rush Hour

There are two of me. I don’t know why. I genuinely wish I did.

The Pigeon

By popular demand. Seriously, this has to stop. Trying to point your toes inwards like this while maintaining the illusion of ‘dat gap’ is going to give people serious health problems. But maybe that’s fine – judging from this picture, rickets is bang on trend. I once read something that talked said if you love someone you naturally point your feet towards them. If you want to read something into the fact that some fashion bloggers’ feet seem to be constantly pointing at themselves, then I won’t stop you.

The Gamer

GUYS, LOOK, I’M A GIRL AND I PLAY VIDEO GAMES. YEAH, I GAME. NO BIG DEAL. I ALSO GO ON REDDIT AND EAT STEAK. I REMEMBER PLAYING THE ORIGINAL DONKEY KONG IN ARCADES!

Kinda falls apart when you realise that the controller isn’t switched on, and when Donkey Kong was released they were two years old.