Melbourne Spring Fashion Week began on Monday 5 September 2011 and runs until 11 September 2011.

Business seminar encourages designers to get digital

A business series presented by the Victorian Government ran on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Monday’s session, Talk the Talk, saw Erik Lavoie of VICE, Lucy Feagins of The Design Files and Billie Ivesson of RUSSH magazine provide an insight into traditional and non-traditional media in the fashion space.

Print magazines RUSSH (Australia) and VICE (International) are extremely active online. The Design Files is a local Melbourne blog which now has over 100,000 unique visitors per month and is published from Feagin’s dining room table.

The overall themes encouraged brands to get online, be active in social media and provide engaging content which will inspire people to share it.

Bloggers vs print journalists

As is par for the course at fashion festival events, there were plenty of bloggers in attendance. Sustainability advocate Lara McPherson runs her own blog Wardrobe Wonderland, and is covering business and sustainable fashion events for local fashion blog, Style Melbourne during fashion week.

McPherson believes blogs complement mainstream fashion magazines. “I think they serve two different purposes,” she says. “Blogging has the opportunity to be quick to market, but there’s still a place for that really beautiful, good quality print journalism, that we’re seeing a lot more with quarterly or bi monthly magazines.”

Leeyong Soo (who started her twitter account @Leeyong_Soo especially for fashion week) has worked in fashion journalism for many years, including a lengthy stint at Vogue Japan. Her own blog, Style Wilderness, focuses on vintage and upcycled fashion. Soo says she blogs because, “I find that a lot of my friends don’t understand my love for vintage or getting stuff from op shops. So it’s a nice way to connect with people who actually like that sort of thing.”

Soo is also a print journalist for The City Weekly (Fairfax community network) and Peppermint magazine. She agrees that blogging complements print journalism. “Blogging is a lot more intimate, people like to see the background and what people do behind the scenes, and as stupid as it might seem, to see pictures of your cat. I have to say that I actually enjoy looking at the blogs where people do that sort of thing, more than a news blog, but that’s just me, there’s blogs for every different sort of person, just as there are magazines for every different sort of person.”

Melbourne fashion blogs

Melbourne is home to many well-regarded fashion blogs including Business Chic, Fashion Hayley, Fashionising, Lady Melbourne, Oh Jamie, Sea of Ghosts and Style Melbourne to name a few. Each of their creators, and in some cases teams including writers and photographers, are out in force this week, attending events throughout the day, editing and finishing images, video and editorial at night, and posting well before print media can publish a story.

Rather than compete for advertising with print media though, the engaged audience of fashion enthusiasts which bloggers nurture represents a complementary opportunity for advertisers, says Country Manager of blog advertising community, Nuffnang Australia, David Krupp. “They can help promote a traditional media campaign by including key messages about  products and/or services in their posts, reinforcing the positioning of offline activity.”

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Twitter role:

Featured: Business Chic: @busichic @businesschicTV, David Krupp: @davekrupp, Fashionising: @fashionising, Fashion Hayley: @fashionhayley, Lady Melbourne: @ladymelbourne, Lara McPherson: @laramcpherson, Leeyong Soo: @leeyong_soo, Melbourne Spring Fashion Week: @MSFW, Nuffnang Australia: @nuffnangAU, Oh Jamie: @ohjamiee, RUSSH Magazine: @russh_magazine, Sea of Ghosts: @aliciahnaomi, Style Melbourne: @stylemelbourne, The Design Files: @thedesignfiles, VICE magazine: @vice

Article by: Lou Pardi: @loupardi, @smkapac

You may also wish to read: Nuffnang Blog Advertising Community