Images from SHOWstudio's "Dress Me Up, Dress Me Down"

Last time we surveyed the rapidly changing landscape of digital fashion media. Today, in the second part of our series on the future of fashion magazines, we explore the experimental approach that online pioneers like Jefferson Hack and Nick Knight are using to create unique content and experiences that truly bring fashion magazines into the digital age.

LONDON, United Kingdom — The internet’s ability to transmit information immediately, impossible in print and too expensive on television, has changed the way in which we create and consume content perhaps more than anything else. “Print magazines will never be the first to break any news,” said fashion blogger Diane Pernet, whose influential website, A Shaded View on Fashion, has been reporting live from fashion weeks, showrooms and studios around the world, capturing and transmitting the moment almost instantaneously with inexpensive camera phones and laptops.

In response, forward thinking magazines have done two things. Web pioneers like Dazed Digital, a fashion and culture platform launched in November 2006 by the publishers of Dazed & Confused magazine, have begun “live blogging” themselves, posting realtime reports from fashion shows in Paris, London, New York and Milan. But they’ve also learned to focus less on what’s new, a commodity that’s instantly available everywhere, and more on a unique point of view and reader experience that aren’t easily replicated. “It’s got to be more about experiencing the fashion; a stylistic point of view. It’s less and less about information,” said Jefferson Hack, founder and co-publisher at Dazed Group. … Continue Reading

Screen shot of DazedDigital.com

Fashion media has long been a BoF obsession. This week, we bring you an in-depth, three part series revealing the strategies, plans and expertise of some of the most innovative and respected players in the online fashion scene. Today, we start with an overview of the rapidly-evolving fashion media landscape.

NEW YORK, United States—A few weeks ago, independent fashion magazine i-D, founded in 1980 by art director Terry Jones, announced it was cutting back its print run to 6 issues per year, while major commercial titles like American Vogue have been forced to slash payroll and scale back on expenses.

Across the spectrum, times are tough for fashion magazines. With ad sales dramatically down, their main source of revenue is evaporating. And while online readership is growing, the “culture of free” that dominates the web means magazines earn nothing from internet subscriptions, while the sale of online ad space simply doesn’t generate enough income to cover cost. It’s a crisis I first examined a few months ago, amidst dark headlines about powerhouse publishers like Condé Nast. … Continue Reading

Angel Chang

The Business of Fashion recently caught up with Angel Chang whom we first met last year when she caught our attention with her unique technology take on fashion. Now, she’s embedding herself in an unlikely reality TV setting, taking her message to a much broader audience.

NEW YORK, United States — Angel Chang likes to quote Hungarian electrical engineer and inventor of the hologram Dennis Gabor: “The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented.” It’s a telling reference for a fashion designer who works with innovative, high-tech materials like “color-changing prints, light-up fabrics, and self-heating linings.”

Young and talented, Angel trained at Donna Karan, Viktor & Rolf and Marc Jacobs before launching her eponymous brand in 2006 with a vision of harnessing technology to create fashion that “could actually do things—beyond just looking good.” In her first year in business, she won the prestigious Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation and Cartier Women’s Initiative awards.

Today, Angel is one of several designers competing for $125,000 in funding on US television network Bravo’s new reality series “The Fashion Show,” hosted by Isaac Mizrahi and former Destiny’s Child singer Kelly Rowland. Times are tough, especially for emerging designers. But what’s a self-described innovator and technophile doing on a reality show that’s better known for its entertainment value than its boundary-breaking fashion?

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Shopstyle.com

NEW YORK, United States — Fashion brands are finally making a real effort online, launching increasingly sophisticated e-commerce sites that often do more business than flagship stores. But as usual, Andy Moss is ahead of the curve.

A British transplant to California’s Silicon Valley, Andy launched fashion shopping site ShopStyle back in 2007. Then described as “a search engine devoted to fashion,” the site set a new standard for shopping online, providing a front-end experience that was more like browsing a fashion magazine or shopping a clothing rack than squinting at thumbnail results.

Today, Andy is on the cutting edge of “social shopping,” a combination of shopping and social networking that’s changing the way we shop for fashion online. Indeed, ShopStyle now offers social features that let people create their own looks and share them with friends, harnessing the “many-to-many” medium of the web to turn consumers into online stylists who inspired each other as they shop.

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Backstage tweet from Marc Jacobs show, courtesy of The Moment

NEW YORK, United States — As another fashion week season comes to a close, we’ve seen everything from intergalactic armour to a full-fledged ’80s revival on the runways. But when it comes to covering and commenting on the collections, one trend stands out. This time around, we came closer than ever to capturing and transmitting the real experience and energy of the shows thanks to fashion’s growing love affair with Twitter.

Editors at New York Times fashion blog The Moment, Women’s Wear Daily, SHOWstudio and our very own The Business of Fashion, among others, took to the “micro-blogging” service with enthusiasm, using their iPhones, BlackBerrys and laptops to broadcast haiku-length updates on what they were doing and thinking at presentations and parties from New York to Paris. For fellow insiders and fashion consumers following their  “tweets” this amounted to a captivating play-by-play delivered with immediacy and intimacy like never before.

… Continue Reading