(High) Fashion Trickles Up

Fashion bloggers are still making a lot of noise; but all is not tranquil in the brewing community. The Monitor ran this story outlining the two opposing sides of how the “mainstream” is influenced by the fashion blogosphere:

Kate Betts, editor in chief of Time magazine’s quarterly Style & Design publication thinks street fashion blogs are positive influences on design that are here to stay.

“Street fashion has always been important, and this is another medium that’s absorbing it,” said Betts, who chose the Sartorialist blog as one of the magazine’s top 100 design influencers this year. She adds that beyond fashion blogs, social networking sites such as MySpace.com and ShareYourLook.com are also expanding the influence of street fashion. On ShareYourLook.com, members are encouraged to post photos of their outfits and rate each other’s looks.

“(The fashion industry) can get so insular,” Betts explained. “They’re only interested in how it looks on a magazine page, not how it looks on the people. But the most important thing is the people: how they’re wearing it and who they’re wearing.”

Margaret Voelker-Ferrier, a University of Cincinnati professor of fashion design, says there’s strong interest in these blogs among art and design students and young designers, but calls the phenomenon “the latest flash in the pan.”

Voelker-Ferrier thinks their influence is slim on mainstream fashion editorial. “People think fashion is from the street, but it’s not,” she said. “It’s from the designers who are using the streets for inspiration. So at the end, it’s still coming from the designers.”

Yes, it’s “coming from the designers;” but who do you think designers look to for inspiration? Chicken or the egg dilemma, sure, but c’mon, we all know where fashion really impacts society.

In their June 17th issue, The JC Report interviewed Minya Quirk, co-owner of Brand Pimps and Media Whores (BPMW). Her take on the topic is quite on point:

JCR: Where do designer labels figure into the casual fashion story?

MQ: Everyone has their eye on casual fashion, we believe it’s driving everything. Dsquared, Galliano. Everyone looks at what real people wear. Take jeans for example — there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. $500 jeans? No problem. And they’re not just Gucci anymore. We’ve always been much more fascinated with the trickle-up theory — high fashion inspired by those who can’t afford to buy their “looks” so they create them. The streets can sometimes be a crystal ball.

Grassroots inspiration trumps totalitarian trickle-down fashion any day. If the streets didn’t buy, designers wouldn’t have jobs; Fashion is a ceaseless give and take between the two.

[via] JC Report & AP

Photos: Hel-Looks, Oslostil, Lookatme.ru, Stil in Berlin