The B-Listers: Are Fashion Week bloggers selling-out?

 A few days out and I’ve had a bit of time to gather thoughts and sleep on the whirlwind week that was New Zealand Fashion Week 2011.Along with having a mass rummage through my goodie bags and finding I’m set for the next six months for novelty sized moisturisers and anti wrinkle creams, a part of this was having a good weed through of all the fashion blogs and checking what those-who-know thought of the week. Perhaps it’s just me, but it didn’t take long before the question of credibility really came to the fore.Blog after tweet, all I found was wildly positive chat on anything and everything that the week had showcased. Before I go much further, I’m all about positive feedback, I think it’s great. However, we are talking the fashion industry here, supposedly one of the most cut throat industries for critical commentary, and I was struggling to find one single blogger that had anything even remotely on the fence to say about any of the shows.It seems there has been a fundamental shift in the way designers are now interacting with bloggers. There has been a movement toward utelising them as promotional tools to gain more exposure and create a greater following for their brand. As a PR exercise this makes sense. However, I guess the issue here for me is that this then begs a question on the whole blogging mechanism.If we go back to the purpose of social media, we remember it is about stimulating and facilitating genuine conversation. The pioneer bloggers formed a conversation based on personal opinion, therefore, the discussion this simulated was organic. The beauty in this was a genuine sense that what you were reading was actually what Joe Blogger thought; an accessible and honest opinion and, dare I say it, bias free journalism.So what happens to blog culture when it becomes obvious that a blogger, in their front row seat, has been paid by a brand to be there? If bloggers are just going to become commodities to make the conversation happen, then we are defeating the purpose of social media entirely. It’s also a little unfair to assume your audience can’t pick up on a shameless plug when we read one. The trickle down effect from this being, when you sell out, your audience stops reading and, essentially, what you say has become redundant.Bloggers are influencers. In order for them to build up an identity with longevity and sustain this influence, there needs to be a foundation of utter credibility. In short, this has to mean the same rules as professional journalism where it's unethical to take bribes or have an opinion overshadowed by external factors.Bloggers can’t be used just to trumpet what a brand wants someone to say. They need to stay true to the fact that a blog is a platform for an individual voice and, in order to maintain integrity, cannot become part of the advertising budget.