Insider Issues with the 'Fashion Outsider'

Less about what and more about why: the perfect equation for a conversation with blogger Susie Bubble.

The fashion blogging nation is growing every day heralding an array of media and fashion insider attention. Most recently the interest in internet cultures has manifested itself in the form of a seminar series at the London College of Fashion entitled ‘Fashion and the Internet’.
If you were able to attend the ‘Conversation with Susie Bubble’ with Dr Agnè s Rocamora on Wednesday 21st January, no doubt you would have thought it was worth cramming into the ‘intimate’ lecture room for the quite enlightening and entertaining talk.

Listening to the 25 year old Susie Bubble (a name given to her by classmates years ago, for ‘living in a bubble‘) it is clear that although her knowledge on the subject of fashion is extensive, her position in the market of journalism is one of uncertainty. Writing daily about anything new and exciting in the fashion world on her blog http://www.stylebubble.typepad.com/ she is a household name in the fashion world yet neither an insider or outsider in the industry. As Susie said herself, the internet “is like fast food. You can consume it all in minutes.” Susie details every movement infashion, but also her own personal movements, thoughts and ideas as well as outfit experiments.

So, with a blog that is part of the mass produced and untamed medium of the internet, the question is: can she be taken seriously?

“I received a message saying that 'I had no right to write or to be talking about fashion.' I looked up that HTML address and found out that it had come from Condé Nast.” Susie Bubble

Clearly not everyone believes that she has the ‘right to write’, but then again she is also invited to preview shows by Chanel; events that are only for bloggers, as well as invitations to Gucci’s UNICEF fundraiser and countless runway shows since she started her blog in 2006.

Voted ‘blogger of the year’ by Teen Vogue and featured in the Observer’s ‘most influential’ list, style bubble.com’s first-person-perspective musings may not enthral those in high places but does it matter when she has her number of hits exceeding 16,000 daily, ends up featured in top publications anyway and has a job at http://www.dazeddigital.com/? However, as she stated to Jefferson Hack ‘I’m somewhere outside the periphery of fashion.’ It is this periphery that all blogs seem to sit in, with the availability for anyone to publish their views on fashion however self-indulgent and with the prospect of a personal invitation to Chanel preview shows, why not blog? Rather than dissecting the content of Susie’s blog, the talk was more focused on why she blogs and what role they play in the fashion industry. To be honest though ,to warrant a talk in the first place, these internet pieces that multiply in the time it takes to refresh a page must make an impact. After all, you can never tell who is reading.

Don't miss out on the next seminars in this series at the London College of Fashion http://www.fashion.arts.ac.uk/5204.htm

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