New media and the Fashion

Overview
The fashion industry has embraced new media and has implemented it to their processes; from manufacturing to marketing. However, new media has not stopped at infiltration of the big fashion companies. It has seeped into the simple way we throw our clothes together every morning.

Fashion on Fingertips
With the growth of the new media, new fashion ideas and new designer clothes can be spread from the podium to every little part of the world in just seconds. Web sites such Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Pinterest, Facebook, Vkontakte and more are those means of new media that helps spread fashion throughout the world.

Facebook is a great site where a person can type in whats trending, and it will show many different pages with fashion clothes around the world. One of these pages is "ToDay's Fashion" it's goal to bring to the world latest clothing trends from Korea made of great material.

Similarly to Facebook, but even better, fashion is spread in Russian web site called "Vkontakte". This web site was created in order to copy Facebook for Russian-speaking people. The only difference in it, is that on the news feed a user can subscribe to anecdotes or fashion trends, and all the time receive news from that company, person or the store. One example of spreading new trends and the way how to better dress up via news feed on this site is "Салон красоти" which means "Beauty Salon". There people can see what type of clothes are now popular, what color is popular at the certain time of the year,how to take care of thee hair, what hairstyles are popular, what exercises to do in order to have a great stomach, what diets are there in order to have a perfect body.



Campaigns
Candace Swanepoel Juicy Couture YouTube Campaign shows off Juicy Couture's clothes, bags, accessories and shoes on the beautiful Victoria Secret model, Candace Swanepoel. We watch her fall asleep by the pool and dream about a fun night out in Hollywood. Attracting us with her beauty and her elitist social life, Juicy Couture allowed viewers to click on the products worn by Candace and purchase it in real time.



Check out the Youtube Campaign here: Candace Swanerpoel Juicy Couture YouTube Campaign

'I am Levi's' Instagram Campaign uses Instagram to look for the new start in their upcoming campaign. It is open to men and women. All they have to do is to take an innovative, fun picture of themselves rocking Levis and Instagram the picture with the hashtag, #IAMLEVIS. It isn't a picture competition, but a smart and easy way of Levis to avoid the annoying task of auditioning hundreds of pictures. This Instagram campaign is an easy way to seave through the crowds to find that handful of potentials.



Check out #IAMLEVIS pictures here: #IAMLEVIS

The Nars Satin Lip Pencil Collection Pinterest Campaign encourages users on Pinterest to pin pictures of women in red, pink or nude hues of lipsticks. It may be directly based off of the Satin Lip Pencil Collection or a similar one. This allows viewers to physically see how the common public matches their clothes to the color of their lips. An e-commerce feature allows users to conveniently buy the lipstick directly.



Social Media Platforms
As seen from the above campaigns, social media (New Media) has long been a common marketing tool. In the case of the I am Levi's Instagram Campaign, Instagram was also used as a tool for the hunt for their new star. This shows that social media platforms are malleable in its uses. Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter are amongst the most commonly used social media platforms in fashion.

Democratization of the Fashion Industry
Fabricly and Garmz are similar examples that democratizes the fashion industry. Using new media and the mass outreach that comes with it, they discover up and coming talent and help them achieve their dreams. Fashion designing has always been for those who could afford to go to expensive art schools like Parsons in New York and London School of Fashion in the UK. New Media has made this opportunity a little bit more realistic for the normal working class and those who cannot afford to pay for the fancy education.



Fabricly is a conceptual boutique in an internet full of malls They allow you, the user, to design and create your own clothing line. They work toward democratizing the fashion design industry using new media. All you have to do is to submit sketches to designers@fabricly.com and cross your fingers. If the professionals from Fabricly see potential, they will take care of sourcing, production and PR for a portion of the profits.

Without new media, this search of new talent would be impossible. New media has opened doors in the fashion industry for aspiring designers like it has for every other industry.



Garmz, is a launchpad for budding young fashion designers and a treasure chest for fashionistas who are in search of product that is fresh and original. The audience gets to play the role of a merchandising buyer, the designer gets to watch their sketches come to life and Garmz does everything in between

Garms aims to help struggling designers to make it in the fashion industry, using three services:

1) An online platform (again, using new media) that allows consumers and the public to rate and vote on which designs they see succeeding. 2) Wholly packaged manufacturing and delivery. They source materials, oversee production and coordinate all delivery-related logistics. 3) An e-commerce service that allows customers to purchase the final product.

New media Changes New York Fashion Week
New York Fashion Week is considered one of New York City's biggest highlight of each new year. The largest media event, takes place in February and September at Lincoln Center for over 8 days, and with more than 80 well-known designers. The event provides top designers an international platform to showcase their collections to more than 100,000 industry insiders from around the world, including buyers, editors, retailers, celebrities, VIPs, and more. It is known as the premier event worldwide where style, beauty, supermodels, and celebrities come together to celebrate the best in fashion.

For those that are long-term fans or are familiar with Fashion Week, they would tell you that it is an ultra-exclusive event reserved for the fashion elite. Nothing is exposed to the general public until the print publications are released. In other words, everything about Fashion Week was topic secret. However, new media has completely changed that. Fashion Week's new fashion elite are fashion bloggers, who now occupy the front row seats at the most popular shows. They're the ones that go behind the scenes, and get all the inside details. Fashion lovers around the world now do not have to wait because every second of Fashion week can be seen through live streaming, Twitter, blogs, Instagram, Vine, Pinterest and more. Putting fashion week on display using digital channels is certainly not new this year, but with platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, Vine and Twitter gaining more and more recognition as traditional marketing channels, 2013 saw an explosion of digital and social activity surrounding this major event.The changes new media is making doesn't stop there. Hashtags have quickly become the easiest way for brands at Fashion week to target a larger audience, as well as to create buzz around their own campaigns. 2013 Fashion Week is the year where the most cutting edge technology and new media were incorporated into its event and promotions.This two day event was full of live streaming, Tweeting, hashtag campaigns, social and digital lounges, interesting digital promotions with many designers who wanted to use multiple platforms to maximize their reach, engagement and impact from the event.

CFDA

The CFDA is a nonprofit fashion council that used Postano to aggregate social content centered around this year’s new york fashion week, and then showcased the social hub of content on their website. Postano is a social media engagement website that helps brands and organizations distribute curated social media content to websites, event displays, retail signage, and mobile apps. he CFDA used Postano’s curation feature to select color-coordinated content, giving it the appearance of mini-branded campaigns with consumer-generated content.

Cole Haan

During the 2012 Fashion Week, Cole Haan, a famous shoe brand, launched a hashtag campaign the week before Fashion Week began called #DontGoHome. The first part of the campaign involved using closed storefront gates to project cheeky sayings like “You can sleep when you’re dead” and “You’re fair drag mother says don’t go home” along with the Cole Haan logo and the hashtag #DontGoHome. This lead to a chain of people taking pictures of the messageing and spreading it with the same exact hashtag on Instagram and Twitter.

Rebecca Minkoff



Rebecca Minkoff is a leading designer and fashion brand in casual luxury handbags, accessories, and apparel. During last year's Spring Fashion Week, designer Rebecca Minkoff decided to live-stream her entire fashion show. She also promoted connection between the people in the audience and the online audience by contributing a live wall of tweets and social content (powered by Postano Events) before her runway show. Not only does this create a huge interaction between people around the world, but it also caused other people to tweet or hashtag about her show as well.

The New Elite- Fashion Bloggers


Fashion bloggers and fashion blogs are becoming the most influential and popular forms of new media in the fashion world. Fashion is an influence-driven industry where the opinions of a handful of connected writers and designers in New York, Paris and Milan drive billions of dollars in product. Thus, opinions matter, but the how strong of an influence their opinion are depends on who is voicing it. Things have changed, digital denizens are gaining access, collaborating on designs and influencing purchase decisions in a meaningful way. They've brought welcome new perspectives into what was once a cloistered industry.

Blogging is the third most influential form of new media [after retail sites, and brand sites] in terms of how much influence they have on purchases. The influence of online fashion blogs have also surpassed the influence of the top American fashion and lifestyle magazine, Vogue when it comes to links, social media activity and general buzz. Bloggers are creating more results and progress than fashion magazines who have larger staffs and larger budgets when it comes to influencing readers online. The new media, blogging, has embarrassed the works of magazines, because they are failing. Now, people are buying less magazines, and more people are buying digital subscription forms. Additionally, other fashion magazines have realized how important fashion bloggers and blogs are, and are incorporating it into their businesses. For example, Glamour created their own blogger network; Elle hired the editor of an influential blog to breathe new life into theirs (a move that's paid off); and though Style.com is now an online property of its own.

Fashion blogs and bloggers are far from being overlooked. For example, during the 2011 New York City Fashion Week, top-tier fashion designers, Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough (owners and designers of Proenza Schouler), took the time out of their ‘hectic schedules’ during fashion week to help promote the work of fashion bloggers. They were asked about their personal opinions on the effects of fashion blog writing, how it influences the fashion industry as a whole, and how fashion blog posts affects their designing and selling process. When asked about their thoughts on the overall effect of the fashion blogs, McCollough stated, “Blogs posting things about us, going viral, spreading throughout the internet… it has an extraordinary impact on the business”. They also stated how in the past, they would have to wait three, four days to hear a review on their line, but now the feedback comes almost instant. When asked about how the blogs directly affect their own designs, they explained while they do read numerous blogs daily, they try to take each criticism (positive or negative) with a grain of salt, “We try not to obsess over it” stated McCollough The influence of fashion bloggers have grown so much that they have become fashion's new elite guests at fashion shows by sitting front row seats.

Apps that fosters Fashion
In a society where people covet fashion they seen in magazines, runways, models it is hard for people to narrow down where items are bought. Especially those seen floating around in our digital sphere. There have been a few apps that help people find the articles they are looking for as well as sell their own clothing.

Luvocracy
Luvocracy is s a social network similar to Pinterest that's focused less on dreaming and more on shopping. It allows the users to gather fashion pieces that want and place them in categories for ease of purchase. Luvocracy is the place to discover, share and shop for the things you luv. The web is filled with cool creations and savvy shoppers which are spurred on by the fashion they see. It is ultimately a social shopping platform that encourages fashionistas to share they taste and purchase from the site directly.

People flock to Pinterest to collect and keep track of inspirations, whether they're recipes to cook, destinations to visit or clothes to wear. But there's a promising new social network with a similar model focused less on dreaming and more on shopping.

San Francisco-based startup Luvocracy, which launched quietly this fall in beta, is based around the concept that we buy products more when they are recommended by others. And since 92% of consumers trust word of mouth over any form of advertising, according to Nielsen, it's a smart strategy for a company to embrace especially since fashion and shopping works the best in a see and buy way.

Stylitics
Stylitics is a great mobile application that helps people to organize their closet and the way they're will be dressed on the go. People can see what is trending at the certain time, plan what they're going to be wearing during the day and share it with friends. With the help of this application they have the ability to see what is trending, what celebrities are wearing and chat with celebrities and stylists in order to dress up the best for the day depending on the season of the year and the weather.

Stylebook


Stylebook is an app designed to help you carefully curate your wardrobe without wasting time. Stylebook lets you create a virtual closet to mirror your own, so that you can mix and match them at will. It also allows you to create lists of what to pack for a vacation, your measurements and photographs of your style inspirations. You can even examine how potential purchases will integrate with your other clothing before making a commitment. Stylebook is the best way to capture your taste and make informed decisions the next time you’re looking to add to your wardrobe. Stylebook is both a wardrobe manager and a virtual closet that avoids all the cluster. Stylebook was created by co-founders Jess Moore and Bill Atkins and now includes over 90 features.

Kaleindoscope


Kaleindoscope is an application that can be used sort of like Shazam but instead of music a person can track someone's fashion items or any item that is popular in any part of the world and know where to buy them. It also finds clothes that are on sale and stores where they are the cheapest. Every day this application posts 30 to 60 street style fashion images, and allows people to buy these items right from the phone. This application can be used by any android phone or iPhone iPad and iPod.