Kate Moss, Agyness Deyn and Emma Watson have all done it. Now it’s time for
you, me — anyone who wants to, really — to star in a Burberry campaign.
This week, in the space of four days, more than 100,000 wannabe models joined artofthetrench.com,
a new Burberry website that hijacks the tactics of a new wave of
narcissistic “street style” fashion blogs.
The site is the recession-hit fashion industry’s acknowledgement of its huge
online audience, a relationship that threatens the supremacy of glossy
fashion magazines.
The street-style formula is simple and cheap: users post pictures of
themselves looking as chic as possible in a Burberry trenchcoat and wait for
others to cast judgment. Those judgments are invariably positive, giving the
users an ego boost. Burberry reaps free advertising and a new source of
brand loyalty.
Between Monday and yesterday morning 107,000 people joined the site,
generating nearly two million page views and an average of 1,500 tweets
every day. Burberry said that the site had caused a sharp spike in sales at
its online shop, where the trenchcoats are priced from £395 to £895.
Christopher Bailey, Burberry’s chief creative officer, is vetting all the
users’ pictures and choosing which to add to the site. “I’ve often talked
about the different types of people that wear trenchcoats, how it crosses
generations and sexes and the globe,” he said. “I wanted to do something
that united that community.”
To sign up, users must promise to wear the company’s trenches only — although
it is unclear how Burberry could police the odd subversive. Aquascutum is
not smuggled on to the site.
The first portfolio of photographs was taken by Scott Schuman, founder of the
street-style blog the Sartorialist. Schuman roams streets around the world,
scouting for people he deems stylish. Mr Bailey said that the blogs provided
a form of reportage: “Everybody is interested in real people, trying to see
how other people do things, how their lifestyles affect the way they dress.
People are interested in that kind of voyeurism, of looking at people from
all walks of life. “ Started in 2005, the Sartorialist inspired a wave of
copycats. Schuman’s girlfriend, the stylist Garance Doré, created a
street-style blog of her own and has since been hired by Gap. Burberry has
become the first big fashion brand to jump on the bandwagon.
Burberry, which entered the FTSE 100 in September, has more than 700,000
followers on Facebook, the highest tally of any fashion brand. In an ominous
move for the traditional fashion media, such as Vogue and Harper’s
Bazaar, it is shifting 25 per cent of its global advertising budget to
online media.
The company’s digital evolution comes as the global luxury industry faces a
projected sales decline of 8 per cent in 2009 to £138 billion. After years
of dallying, other big luxury brands are beginning to experiment with ways
of taking their products to consumers on the internet rather than depending
on boutique visits. Prada and Bulgari have started online stores and
Ferragamo has announced plans for one. Fashion’s move online has been led by
the photographer Nick Knight. He is a favourite of fashion magazines,
shooting 17 covers for the UK Vogue since 2003. Since 2000 his
organisation, SHOWstudio.com, has made experimental internet fashion
campaigns for designers including John Galliano and Alexander McQueen. A
Lady GaGa single was premiered during McQueen’s most recent show at Paris
Fashion Week, which SHOWstudio streamed live online.
Mr Knight said: “Fashion glossies have now got to work out why they’re there.
The industry side of it — showing you the clothes, saying where you can get
them — is now much better done on the internet. Magazines should become much
more a place where you see incredible, beautiful fashion photography.”
Lorraine Candy, the Editor of Elle, believes that the glossies must not
see the bloggers as barbarians at the gate but participants in the fashion
industry. “Anything that gives us a kick up the a**e and makes us more
modern and more thoughtful — that’s good.”
LUKE LEITCH POSES FOR ARTOFTHETRENCH.COM
I’m no narcissist. But this picture of me is going to look amazing.
To make sure, I call Ian Loughran, head of women’s editorial at Select Model
Management.
“For a portrait, don’t face the camera head-on,” he counsels. “Turn your body
to the side slightly and look around towards the camera. And don’t tense up
the muscles in your face, or squint, or pull a Blue Steel – it looks
terrible.”
Check. Next thing is, choose my Burberry. They have sent me two samples, blue
and classic gabardine tan. The blue looks better, but one of the belt straps
is broken and it has arrived with a surprise in the pocket — an oozing can
of Vaseline. Tan it is.
Out on Willesden Lane, the lens trained my way, I try to adopt the insouciant,
ultra-chic mien so well cultivated on artofthetrench.com and the
Sartorialist. Three people flick me V-signs. We try leaning, we try walking,
I squint into the middle distance and entirely forget Ian’s advice. Ah well.
Submitting the picture is simple enough. A few hours later, there it is on
artofthetrench.com. I am someone: look at me. Not that I’m a
narcissist, of course.
SITES FOR SORE EYES
Thesartorialist.com The
daddy of all fashion-blog- streetstyle-photography websites, the
Sartorialist (aka Scott Schuman) takes pictures of people on the street
whose style he likes and posts them on his blog. The simplest idea — and the
first to do it.
Garancedore.fr/en Started by
the artist Garance Doré to showcase and blog about her illustrations.
Considering that Scott Schuman is her other half, it’s perhaps inevitable
that she now publishes street-style images as well.
Streetpeeper.com A global
group of photographers who display their street-style pictures on one
website. Guest fashion editors are invited to comment on their favourite
outfits.
Lookbook.nu A
Sartorialist/Facebook/X-factor hybrid, “an international social experiment
in style”. Upload images of yourself and allow your image to be “hyped” by
the 60,000-plus Lookbook community. The most-hyped (read popular) outfits
appear on the site’s front page.
Whatkatiewore.com What to do
when people say they never see you in the same outfit twice? If you are
Katie, you get your boyfriend Joe to take a picture of you daily and post it
on a website to prove that you can wear a different outfit every day for a
year.
Your Comments
Order By: