On the Spot
The guilty pleasure of the online fashion forum.
We all know they're out there; we all know they're talking about us. Online fashion forums like Fashionologie and The Fashion Spot are hotbeds of fannish dedication, scanned fashion stories and good old-fashioned slayings off. Not that any of us would be bothered by it enough to go on there and look, of course.
Human nature has long dictated that we want to know what people really think about us and ours - the stuff we say, do, own and create - whether their appraisals be kind or cruel. Online fashion forums are, of course, the newest-fangled method by which we can exchange our positive or negative views about others - often under a cloak of anonymity, via pseudonyms - without incurring a knuckle sandwich in the face by way of offended retort.
The fashion biz - crammed as it is full of amusing egomaniacs, eager gossip-lovers and hardcore novelty-seekers - is certainly not immune to interchanges of online opinion. Hence, not only does this megabillion-dollar global industry collectively and very effectively harness the internet to promote its wares directly to consumers - with street trends, the latest catwalk reports, news and gossip, retail offerings or just tips about how to 'get the look!' being splattered across cyberspace to a head-exploding degree - but it also plays host to dedicated forums in which enthusiastic fans and self-appointed experts can merrily big up or slag off every aspect of fashion to their hearts' content.
Sites such as fashionologie.com, models.com and thefashionspot.com appear to exist primarily to promote and advertise brands, designers, trends and models, drawing 'regular' punters and established and aspiring industry bods alike into their shiny, slick orbits. Subscribe and you can be part of an international gang. But it is their forums in particular which have, during the past couple of years, become so completing and addictive (sometimes masochistically so) to those professionally embroiled in setting trends and upholding fashion as both an artistic and commercial force.
Having made some enquiries - at style magazines, PR companies, model agencies and design studios - it soon became clear that no shortage of folks admit to checking up on what is being posted about their toils or those of their cohorts and rivals. 'I was talking about this to my flatmate just last night,' admits Dean Mayo Davies, assistant editor at i-D. 'I do look now and then to see what inane rants are going on. The Fashion Spot is a total guilty pleasure, isn't it? I haven't been slagged off yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time…'
Indeed, Mayo Davies's assertion that The Fashion Spot forums have become something of an illicit thrill to industry types is absolutely spot-on. It confirms why some of those fashion movers and shakers asked about this tend to chuckle slightly nervously, biting their lops, before admitting that they can't resist looking and confirming that, yes, they do cringe when they get a vicious slating, or even shamelessly cackle when someone else does. It might also explain why so many of them - designers, especially - are somewhat reticent about being quoted herein: we do it, sure, but we don't want to admit we do it in a magazine.
How does it feel, then, to see one's latest collection redacted to a stinging two-line ids by a forum frequenter of The Fashion Spot? For one successful London-based womenswear designer who prefers not to be identified, it was quite traumatic, actually: 'I don't mind if someone doesn't like my work,' she beings. ' Obviously, it won't appeal to everyone. But I remember looking on the forum after pictures from my show had been uploaded there a few seasons ago and feeling totally mortified because of some of the comments. It felt so cruel - people were reducing all the hard work, the time, the money that had gone into the collection and the show to a few disparaging words.' She continues: 'Mostly, I felt bad for my team - I get the chance to take about my work in interviews, with journalists who at least usually have some knowledge about the subject. But my team are more "behind the scenes" and don't always get that platform to explores their perspectives or talk about their roles and explain the design process.' There was some light at the end of the cyber tunnel, luckily: 'Although there were some really awful comments, there were good ones too,' she concedes. 'But it made me realise that it's very, very easy for people to tear your work to pieces in a totally blasé way on the internet. In fact, one of them was even mixing me up with a totally different designer at one point. So stupid!'
Ah yes, it seems on of the most irksome factors for those professionals falling foul of forums is that they perceive the commentators - accurately or not - as ill-informed, flippant and incurious: lacking sufficient awareness of fashion history to be able to appraise or deconstruct what are often complex ideas with any seriousness; in too much of a hurry to immerse themselves fully in a subject. Who are these silent assassins using laptops as their weapons? 'I have no idea whatsoever,' says Mayo Davies after a ponder. 'Supposedly they're people in the industry, or on the fringes of it - but their opinions are often so off the mark you have to wonder. They seem to have no comprehension of the way things really are.' This was an opinion touched upon by Katie Grand, who sparked an entire thread on The Fashion Spot after stating in issue one of Industrie, 'Authority is knowledge. If someone goes onto The Fashion Spot and writes that a certain magazine is dreadful, that's different from Cathy Horyn saying it is dreadful because there is an authoritative, experienced voice behind the latter point of view.'
Many posters subsequently insisted that a magazine such as Industrie couldn't flourish without the likes of The Fashion Spot, because the forum has helped propagate a mainstream interest in fashion - fair enough. None the less, some of those same posters - often quick to criticise the efforts of undeniably talented and internationally in-demand stylists, photographers, editors, designers and so on - did not appear to like having their own shortcomings so eloquently exposed. 'If it wasn't for TFS, would Katie Grand even be well known enough to have an article in Industrie?' asked 'nyc art style', rather naively.
'The problem with these forums,' begins Jo-Ann Furniss, editor in chief of Arena Homme Plus, a magazine often debated on The Fashion Spot, ' is that if someone in a bar just says out load, "Oh I hate that!" then the comment is gone immediately afterwards. But when they write it on a forum, with no sense of responsibility, it's permanent and can be frustrating and hurtful, because we want people to take the time and trouble to really look at, and actually read the writing and really get into the magazines - not just glance at a couple of images from it or glib comments that someone has made about it online and then base their entire judgement about the issue on that. We spend a long time thinking about and working on each issue, so we want people to really get a feeling for it.'
However, Furniss does enthusiastically acknowledge an appreciation for the time and effort that some posters go to on the forum: 'There is someone in China who seems love the magazine. It must be a real effort to even get hold of a copy of it there. He must spend hours and hours scanning images from it to put on the forum, and I love that. I like that people would take the time and trouble to do that, that they care enough to do it, that they love magazines. To me, that's much better than someone from Paris just writing, "Oh, that's boring!"' She also points out that criticism in itself is not a problem, either: ' We are not always totally in love with or satisfied with everything we do. We don't sit around in the office going, "Oh, we are geniuses!" So sometimes if someone writes on a forum that they don't like something in the issue, I might read it and think, "Yeah, me neither!"'
It is difficult to clearly discern how much actual influence the gushing praise or the damning slights filling up forums might have upon publishing houses or, perhaps more significantly, fashion houses. Rumours abound that certain megabrands - in particular, one British heritage name as well as an influential Italian label - are constantly poring over the online commentary about their latest collections or advertising campaigns, presumably to gauge whether or not they are still at the top of their game. An emailed request to the relevant PRs for some sort of answer to this very question gets bugger all response from one (bah!) and a curt 'This is not something which we wish to comment on at the moment' (yawn!) from another. Do they take heed from what they read, though? Might they change - even ever so slightly? - the mood or direction of their newest creations if a popular thread suggested that to be a wise move?
'Designers definitely do look at what people are writing about their shows,' insists Furniss. ' People do like to know what their audience might feel about what they do. But whether or not it affects what they do depends. A designer who is at the top level and genuinely brilliant works on instinct. High fashion has to leave, not follow; it has to anticipate what people might want. It is unlikely that they would be influenced at all by some comments on a forum. It would be very destructive if they were. And it's the same for stylists and photographers at the best level.'
Less surprisingly, perhaps, a senior member of the design team at one spectacularly popular high-street fashion chain - his identity withheld for fear of being sacked - makes no bones about the influence of forums upon his colleagues and employers: 'What people write about us on the internet is taken extremely seriously at work, yes,' he says. 'I've even seen print-outs of the comments from these sites being passed around the office. We all look at comments online and some of us even post ourselves. We are about selling huge volumes of affordable clothes. We are not expecting to be the most cutting-edge brand, though we do want to be on trend and be the most successful name on the high street. We have to pay attention to what the public are saying and writing about what we design - of course we do.'
One essential 'ingredient' in the recipe for fashion success - whether that's high fashion or pile-it-high-and-sell-it-cheap fashion - is the choice of certain models, used at just the right time, in just the right way, for maximum zeitgeist impact. And models certainly come in for some serious scrutiny on The Fashion Spot and models.com: one can only hope their thin frames are encased in thick skin. Poor Agyness Deyn, bless her, seems to incur as much flak as she does delight on The Fashion Spot's forum. For example: 'Ugh…She looks ridiculous in her new haircut. What a shame,' snipes Mousyy. 'Her jaw is too wide,' chirps Tashatoo, while Magnus helpfully points out, 'She has been wearing those shoes non-stop for the last few months.' Ouch!
Meanwhile, in the case of models.com, it is widely accepted among agencies that getting one of their models profiled favourably on the site is quite a big deal. 'All the agencies look at models.com, and most people in the industry use sites like that as a tool,' confirms Paul Hunt, senior booked at Premier Model Management. 'And yes, we strive to get our girls featured in the Model of the Week category or in the top 50.'
From a business point of view, could it be damaging if a model is given widespread negative feedback by users on the forums? Hunt doesn't think so: 'Agencies are less likely to pay attention to the forums as they often seem to be used more by people who aren't involved in the industry - wannabes or fashion students. If there are negative comments on there about one of our models - knocking her personally or criticising her look - we really feel for her, but we tell her just to take no heed of them.' Modelling is insanely competitive, so is it therefore possible that bookers might log in to these sorts of sites under assumed monikers and b*tch about their rivals' models? 'It has been rumoured to happen,' chuckles Hunt. 'Especially from those how are far less busy than ourselves. I bet there are a few twisted bookers out there who would do that - they're not all as nice as me! Frankly, to do so just seems desperate - though hilarious.'
Others are adamant that they would never involve themselves in responding to remarks made on the forums. In the case of Thom Murphy, the designer of menswear label New Power Studio, this is as much as anything do to the way he prioritises his time. 'I look at stuff that people say online now and then - and sometimes it's really good and sometimes not so good - but it's best to just let them get one with it.' he explains. 'We are so busy doing what we do every day and we want to stay focused on that. If other people have got time to sit around commenting on stuff that people are making, good luck to them!'
Jo-Ann Furniss cites a different reason from refraining from retorting on behalf of Arena Homme Plus. 'It's not my place to be involved with that. With the magazine, you are talking to an audience through ha camera, and you have to retain that wall between you and the audience - though we never patronise our audience because we assume they just know about things.' She elaborates: 'You wouldn't see an actor, when he's performing, pausing to say to the audience, "Oh, was that bit OK? Am I doing this right?", would you? Having said that, I have known certain editors occasionally replying and justifying themselves to people on forums, but I think it's undignified to do that.'
Not everyone is so keen to maintain the wall between themselves and forum users. Rick Owens, a designer known for his deliciously black sense of humour, is most impressively unphased by his internet haters. 'They are always kind of honest, absolutely viscous, and I do quite enjoy that,' he told Arena Homme Plus. 'I was looking at Fashion Spot or Zeitgeist, or something and it said, "Rick looks like a creepy guy who probably belongs to NAMBLA and lurks in the corners of gay bars looking for chickens to plough through…" It was really good! I kept it. I might well print it on a T-shirt.'
Just turn it into a look: isn't that always the most creative solution to a bit of fashion confrontation?
