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Shelby Morrow Professor Isaacs English 2135 03 February 2017
Genres in the World of Fashion There are so many components to making an industry successful. One key component is getting the merchandize out there and seen, this is something critical for the fashion industry. The fashion industry is comprised of many genres, understanding a specific genre and knowing how to appeal to the particular audience in reach of that genre, is key to getting your product out there. The most popular ways the fashion industry is advertised is thorough: bloggers, magazines, fashion shows, social media, and even billboards. One thing the fashion industry is good at, is advertising, this is done by correctly understanding their inherent genres, and using them to their advantage whether or not its conventional. One genre that is universally used in the fashion world is fashion shows. According to Frankel from the Independent, this is where the products originate from: “the shows are attended by buyers from around the world who purchase the clothes to sell in their stores six months from now. For lesser known designers in particular, the shows are a direct source of income.� In simple terms, this is a fundamental part of the business, lines invite lucrative buyers to view their show and visit their showrooms to ideally, buy their clothes and put them in their stores. By choosing the right buyers, the designers will have included advertisement, this is where understanding the conventions of genre is key. The designers need to know their audience, who will be buying their clothes. When designers are inviting buyers
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they need to keep their audience in mind as it will be crucial for reaching their audience. For example, extremely high end designers, such as Chanel, Tory Burch, Louis Vuitton, and many more will need to know who their customers are. Inviting department store buyers like Neiman Marcus, Barneys, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bergdorf Goodman, are their ideal buyers as customers who can afford their high- prices would be found shopping at those stores. The breakdown of this genre as follows: the purpose- designers want to get their clothes out there; this is done by holding fashion shows. These fashion shows are crawling with press and journalist publicizing the event. Audience- the designers consider who their customers are when inviting buyers, they invite buyers who have the cliental to afford their clothes. If designers did not understand the importance of audience, money and publicity would be wasted if they invited people who are unable to afford the clothes. For example, it would be more appropriate for Chanel to invite reps from Bergdorf Goodman rather than Target, as Bergdorf has shoppers who are willing to pay those astronomical prices that Chanel embodies, while it’s not as common in Target shoppers. Social media is another genre that the fashion industry uses to get brands out there. By using social media, brands are able to reach all kinds of audiences, especially since the way of the world is shifting in that direction. Social media is huge in this day and age, and designers who understand that are ending up on top. “US women's clothing designer Tory Burch beats well-known global luxury brands such as Gucci, Hermes and Chanel,” stated Katie Hope from “How social media is transforming the fashion industry.” The article continues to further this point by saying, “Traditional luxury brands like Hermes could lose out if they don't embrace social media” (Hope). Without social media, the brands publicity is limited to commercials, billboards, and magazines; which are slowly dying out. Solely relying on commercials is
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dangerous as DVR’s allow viewers to skip through the undesired commercials to get back to their show. Additionally, billboards and magazines are dying out as cell phones get increasingly popular; people are busy scrolling through social media, not looking at billboard signs, just as people are less likely to read a magazine when they can get a condensed analysis from snap chat stories. Social media is also largely considered when picking models for their campaigns. JoseFlorez from the Inquisitr agree that, “For the longest time, modeling has been solely about looks, however, since the rise of social media, big named brands are now looking for women who have large amounts of Instagram followers… In addition to the followers, big brands are now pushing models to do some posting on social media to promote the products and brands one represents.” This makes quite a lot of sense, when your favorite celebrity is posting about a certain product or brand, you’re more likely to buy it in attempt to be more like them. For example, if someone you follow looks really good in a certain outfit, you may try to buy the same outfit as them. This is actually extremely common in television shows. If your favorite character from a T.V. show wore an outfit that you just adore, you can go to this website and order the exact outfit, it’s called “wornontv.net.” Another perfect example of the influence that social media has on the fashion world is “Burberry’s fragrance ad campaign” (Hope). Last year, young Brooklyn Beckham was selected instead of industry professionals to take photos for the Burberry campaign -- “Burberry boss Christopher Bailey suggested it might have been Brooklyn's 5.9 million Instagram followers, rather than his parents, that got him the gig” (Hope). Bailey continued by saying, "Brooklyn has a really great eye for image and Instagram works brilliantly for him as a platform to showcase his work" (Hope). This is once again showing the increasing prevalence of social media, now
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and days people with excessive amounts of followers are getting jobs over traditional workers, due to their lack of social media “cred” that the younger generation possesses. Social media has become an extremely prevalent not only in today’s modern era, but as a genre in the world of fashion. A more conventional genre impacting the fashion industry are magazines. Magazines have been around for hundreds of years and they have grown and transformed to fit the era, making them relatable and appealing to the audience (buyers). The production of fashion illustrated began in the late 1600’s and 1700’s, where the courts of aristocracy recorded the fashion statements of that era, according to Fashion Art Diary. Obviously, this has shifted slightly, but the conventions are the same. A common convention thorough out all fashion magazines is the idea of showing the most recent trends. This traces back to the sixteen and seventeen hundreds. Although trends change, the conventions remain constant. Vogue, one of the most successful magazines of all time, has worked well within the genre. Encyclopaedia Britannica explained that, Vogue Magazine understands its purpose, to display high fashion, the proper high society etiquette as well as the traditions. Beyond understanding its purpose, Vogue is excellent at appealing to their readers (audience), this is evident as they have been relevant for a multitude of years as it was established in 1892 (“vogue”). Certain magazines have gained ethos (credibility) over the years, or are at least naturally held to a higher standard. “In 2009 the New York Times christened Vogue ‘high fashion’s bible,’” (“vogue”). By being so highly valued, readers already accredit Vogue with credibility, this gives vogue quite an advantage when it comes to accessing the opulent trends of high fashion. The modes and mediums of the fashion industry has shifted over the years. When magazines were first starting out it was strictly limited to text/ print, now it has expounded much
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past that. Today popular magazines have embraced more modern conventions. For example, Cosmopolitan Magazine has expanded to social media sites, they now put magazine articles daily on the app “snapchat.” One of the more traditional advertisement methods are billboards. This can be effective, but since the direction of the world is shifting more towards media, billboards are becoming less and less effective. Billboards are especially unrealistic for small businesses as putting up a billboard is quite expensive, “If you really want to reach local customers, online ads are going to be far more cost effective for most businesses. You can even make a Facebook ad for your business in under a minute,” stated Marc Prosser from fitsmallbusiness. Even though they may not be worth the money for small businesses, it may still have some value in it for large businesses. This is theoretically an effective form of advertisement as it can get the information out in a high volume depending on location, as well as appeal to the audience with its design and style. Although this is an expensive method, it may be worth it for large businesses where it wouldn’t particularly hurt the company like a small business. However, like previously said, there are more modern methods that are just as effective, if not more effective and cheaper. Billboards are a genre where it’s hard to take a definitive stand on. The affectability can go either way, it more or less depends on the business and location. In this situation, it may not be the best form of advertisement just because there are so many other options in the fashion industry that are perhaps more reliable. However, it is interesting that we can take this old method and transform it and manipulate it to make it more effective for this day and age; for example, a digital billboard that may get more attention than the traditional highway billboard. It’s vital to understand the concept genre because its universal. I find it absolutely fascinating that genre, a concept derived from English, is applicable to something like the
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Morrow Work Cited
Frankel, Susannah. “The Big Question: What is the point of fashion shows, and how do they influence the high street?” The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 24 Jan 2007. Web. 25 Jan. 2017. Florez, Jose. “Want to Model? You Need 10,000 Instagram Followers, Say Big Brands.” The Inquisitr News, n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2017. Hope, Katie. “How social media is transforming the fashion industry.” BBC. BBC News, 05 Feb. 2016. Web. 24 Jan. 2017 Prosser, Marc. “How Much Does Billboard Advertising Cost?” Business Software and Service and Service Reviews. 21 Dec. 2016. Web. 24 Jan. 2017. “The History of the Fashion Magazine.” Fashion Art Diary. 19 Nov. 2009. Web. 24 Jan. 2017. “Vogue.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica, inc., Web. 24 Jan. 2017.
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