Throughout history, strategy tended to focus on the ultimate ‘rival’ — a worthy opponent who could be meticulously assessed for its wants, needs, resources, and abilities — Athens had Sparta, China’s seven warring states had each other, the USA had the USSR, and Holmes had Moriarty. Yet today’s rivals seem to take on a very different form, one of complex networks and patterns rather than nostalgic “baddies”.
Take for example a recent string of articles depicting a faceoff between Vogue Magazine and a vibrant fashion blogosphere. One can only assume that the sleepless nights of Anna Wintour, Vogue USA’s legendary editor-in-chief, would have previously been consumed by what its arch-rival — Elle Magazine might be planning next. Yet these days, it is likely to be troubled by a rather more complex and dispersed rival phenomena — the rise of independent fashion bloggers curtailing the brand’s legendary “gate-keeper” status.
Over the last few years a flurry of fashionistas have been flooding social media with their own take on the ins and outs of fashion. As some of them began to amass huge followings, other inter-lockers joined the network and critically, facilitated its monetisation. These included new specialising PR agencies, business managers, photographers, and assistants. With them came the emergence of whole new departments within leading fashion brands dedicated to ‘social influencers’.
Vogue’s competition over advertising revenues no longer plays out within a bounded field of a few leading elite publications. Rather its new theatre of operations incorporates a complex network of players using new social platforms to exchange fashion images, news, and opinions, thereby undermining its dominant market position. The emergence of such platforms, especially Instagram, have not only created new ecological niches within the fashion industry, but have also significantly increased the leverages and choices for brands — previously competing for Vogue’s attention and cooperation. By connecting into the bloggers and celebrity networks, as well as enhancing their own online presence, designers have been able to develop new outreach strategies that can easily bypassed the old editorial hubs.
The growing tension between the fashion bible and street style is not just a reflection of cultural democratisation, but also holds real economic consequences. What started as a lifestyle fad grew into a multi-billion dollar industry with top bloggers reportedly earning seven figures yearly sums. Depending on a blogger’s outreach, a single Instagram post can go for anywhere between $5000 and $25000, whereas long-term collaborations with top brands can top the million dollar mark[i]. Altogether, this digital gold rush has inevitably eaten into both the readership and advertising income of fashion publications such as Vogue.
The shift in power relations has been especially obvious during recent seasonal fashion shows, with front row sits filling up with leading bloggers at the obvious expense of fashion journalists. Perhaps still perceiving their strategic rival in the traditional symmetric framework, Vogue editors went on the offensive, criticising bloggers for wearing paid for outfits as product placements, with one going as far as commenting how “looking for style among a bought and paid for front row is like going to a strip club looking for romance”[ii]. Needless to say, the plight to delegitimise the fashion blogosphere by proclaiming it was “heralding the death of style”, and especially emphasizing its obvious commercial interests, did not go down well, with many accusing Vogue of obvious hypocrisy, and even worst for 2017 — “elitism”.
While the fashion world has never lacked rivalries or intrigue, facing rival patterns rather than rival players presents a different kind of challenge. As structured networks emerge they create their own self-sustaining patterns of connections, exchanges, and incentives. Once such patterns takes hold, simply removing specific players out of the network will not solve the problem. Vogue’s will inevitably need to develop its own counter-pattern strategies, this not with an aim of maintaining its current position in the industry, but rather with the ambition of capturing an emerging new one!
[i] http://wwd.com/business-news/media/chiara-ferragni-fashion-bloggers-money-make-income-millionaire-kristina-bazan-kylie-jenner-10306124/
[ii] http://www.vogue.com/13483417/milan-fashion-week-spring-2017-vogue-editors-chat/; http://press.starcount.com/starcount-blog/2016/10/13/vogue-is-wrong-social-media-stars-are-the-key-to-fashions-future;
