I think I’ll expand upon this idea of having ‘stock’ in the fashion world.
The fact is that women like Giovanna- industry women that ‘regular’ women want to dress like, are extremely useful to the fashion industry at large. Women who are interested in luxury fashion consume a great deal of media related to the industry, whether they can afford to purchase or not. Young women who initially do not have a great deal of luxury ‘awareness’ become exposed to new brands through industry professionals like Giovanna. Because industry professionals cast their nets over a wide range of styles and trends, consumers are made more aware. Editors/Publicists/Stylists are not accessible. If anything, they are encouraged to take risks and get personal with their personal style (genius). Through these women, newer ‘indie’ brands are brought from the fringe into the aspirational realm while older, entrenched fashion houses get to show off the fact that they are still current and progressive.
In my opinion the fashion media should embrace women in the industry as the greatest source of positive publicity. They encourage fledgling fashion fiends to be knowledgeable and more savvy in what they choose to buy and what they choose to wear.
This kind of mentality has a similar rhetoric to that which emerged when celebrities began to become more popular fashion icons; use a beautiful, enviable woman who has heavy media coverage to sell your brand. The key elements remain the same. What changes however is a)the level of knowledge and the experience that you are delivering to your potential customer and b)the strength of the bond that you can potentially establish between the reader and the luxury industry. Dressing a celebrity that is not in the fashion industry brings a mix of intense publicity and creative constraints. Forming a relationship with someone like Lauren Conrad (as the article continues, feel free to insert any current popular celebrity instead) will give your brand a boost in popularity however the average consumer you attract will be less knowledgeable, more fickle and less discerning. Why? Because Lauren Conrad is accessible to most women through virtually all mainstream media outlets.
In her career, Lauren Conrad has a brand to sell and that is *herself*. In the end, her brand will always trump your own (in this case I am not just referring to the brand she embodies in her physical self- her eponymous clothing line too will take priority). Fans of Lauren Conrad will almost always come away with a stronger memory and a stronger attachment to the celebrity than the accompanying brand. It is in fact the ‘brand relationship’ and not the brand itself that is the most clearly established; ie. people know that Lauren Conrad wears Chanel but have no real attachment to the brand image and culture. Case in point: I have actually heard people say that they want to buy “the Lauren bag from The Hills”. The Lauren Conrad brand has trumped both the 55 years of the Classic Caviar Jumbo Flap handbag and nearly a century of work towards establishing the Chanel name brand.
In case anyone is wondering…….I’m not being dramatic about this because I’m sad for the Classic Caviar or Chanel for that matter (they’ll survive); I’m being dramatic because I believe that the aforementioned case study (ha!) is significant in what it says about mass consumer culture. Because of the Internet and the ability to replay streaming videos, people don’t need to work very hard to search for images anymore and can establish a relationship with multiple products very quickly. The mass amount of emotional attachments are formed with specific products that demonstrate a strong relationship between themselves and the celebrity. In this group the most important thing for most consumers is that the product can be identified with that specific celebrity and the lifestyle they represent
Ideally an attachment would form between a consumer and a brand culture, fostering an emotional, intimate, long term buying relationship. Ideally, the informed consumer would buy from a wide range of brands and shop at a wide range of sources (flagship/e-boutique/archives/department store). At the very least, the informed consumer in a lower income bracket (much preferred to the uninformed, wealthy consumer) would be encouraged to think of making an aspirational purchase, even if this only happens once or twice in their lifetime. Such a thing can only happen when consumers are inspired to take a more intellectual approach to fashion, inspired by the women existing within the fashion industry.
*A quick introduction to aspirational branding:
