LAST week Rebecca Fok fired a blast at Jessica Simpson. Ms. Fok, 19, who was reared in Hong Kong and lives in London, writes under the name Harrods Girl on the blog I am Fashion, heaping praise and, by turns, tirades on the haughty world of style.
Along with her partner, Vincci Nie, 18, who lives in Chicago and is known as Barneys Girl, Ms. Fok was unimpressed that Ms. Simpson had signed a $15 million licensing agreement to expand her fashion and accessories brand. "Like EWW!! As if there were not enough Jessica Simpson around," the two sneered. "And why does she have to overstep her celebrity boundary and enter the designer world, when she obviously has no such talents."
In the same week a blogger who signs herself Annie Town on Blogdorf Goodman, a Web log that showcases boots from Prada and dresses from Chanel, was just as unsparing of Marc Jacobs, a designer usually impervious to critics' slings, panning his resort collection as the uncontested "worst of the season."
Beginning this week, as Mr. Jacobs and his peers prepare to parade their clothes for spring 2006 under the tents at Bryant Park and elsewhere in New York, Ms. Fok and Ms. Town will add their voices to a swelling chorus of fellow fashion bloggers tossing verbal grenades - and the occasional nosegay - in the direction of the catwalks. If past performance is any indication, a few of their targets are well advised to duck and run for cover.
As little as a year ago the number of these aspiring online Anna Wintours could be counted in the dozens. Today there are hundreds vying for the loyalty of readers who range in age from their teens through their mid-30's, an audience for whom no scrap of celebrity gossip or runway news seems too insignificant.
With names like Fashionologie, Kiss Me, Stace, Shoewawa and Now Smell This, the more popular fashion blogs are compelling enough that "to ignore them is to run the risk of seeming out of touch," said Brandon Holley, the new editor in chief of Jane, the young women's style magazine. Readers identify with bloggers' idiosyncratic, rebellious voices, said Ms. Holley, who has added two online diarists to her stable of contributors. The blogs, which are updated weekly, daily and sometimes hourly, are a platform uniquely well suited to fashion news, she added.
"Fashion moves so fast, " Ms. Holley said, "that readers find the blogs keep up better than even the tabloids like Us Weekly."
Writing with a candor not often glimpsed in the pages of that celebrity weekly, or in W, InStyle or Harpers Bazaar, bloggers form an opinionated, informed and spirited community. They may be a long way from displacing Vogue as a fashion authority, but they are steadily gaining clout with consumers and marketers.
"In coming months we can expect that fashion blogs are probably going to have the same kind of influence that we see in widely read blogs about gadgets and high tech toys like BoingBoing," said Bob Wyman, the chief technology officer and a founder of PubSub, a search engine that offers a weekly rating of a blog's popularity based in part on the number of links that appear in the content and also the number of postings. Heading the list last week, Mr. Wyman said, were sites including Beauty Dish, with a rating of 709, in which the writer chronicles her adventures as an Avon sales representative; and Shoewawa, which dissects the world of designer foot wear. ("If I wore these on a night out," the writer carped about a pair of Christian Louboutin platform shoes, "my friends would make me walk a few meters behind them.") Its rating was 975. "In a population of 15 million blogs, those rankings are pretty impressive," Mr. Wyman said.
Blogs like I amFashion, which averages 1,000 to 1,200 readers a day, its authors said, resonate with a hyper-communicative but precociously jaded generation disdainful of mainstream magazines and the corporate world. "This is a generation used to getting and giving feedback that doesn't feel corporate or mass," said Jane Buckingham, the president of Youth Intelligence, a trend-forecasting company. "They are not taking direction the way young people used to, and for them the establishment media is just another resource, with no special authority. In their minds, the individual is the authority."
Fashion bloggers court their readers with a down-to-earth, conversational tone, offering a saucy mix of product endorsements, pop culture and fashion commentary. Many glean their information from visits to showrooms and stores, or random on-the-street surveys. Others supplement first-hand observations with tidbits and images shamelessly pilfered from sources like Star magazine and Style.com, giving the news a perversely satirical spin.
The most popular sites generate attention by taking aim at the stylistic foibles of Hollywood stars in a tone that is often more salty, savage and possibly actionable than that of the fashion police features in celebrity magazines. Above a photograph of a well-known actor dressed in a velvet dinner jacket, dark glasses and a pointy beard, one blogger, who calls herself Jessica, wrote, "I present to you Mr. Mickey Rourke, who is currently working a style I like to call Intoxicated Lucifer, because I'm pretty sure he'd steal your soul if he weren't so wasted."
Lera, another first-name-only blogger who offers her random musings on Fashion Addict Diary, chips away at overexposed celebrities and trends with a venom worthy of gossip sites like Gawker. Her "Must Die" roster, a frequently updated in-and-out list, was topped last month by tiered gypsy skirts, cowboy boots, hippy belts and glitzy silver and gold purses. Turning her eye to back-to-school fashions, she nailed top trends like a seasoned trendspotter, listing bestsellers including Edwardian blouses, pleated skirts, empire waist dresses and T-strap shoes.
Some of these writers claim to be democratizing fashion commentary, aiming at readers less likely to wear Gucci than Gap. "To our readers, it's more interesting to find out what real people are wearing, not just Jennifer Lopez," said Gina Pell, the chief executive of Splendora, a fashion shopping Web site with its own blog. Despite her disclaimer, Ms. Pell's site liberally mingles celebrity photos and gossip with fashion news.
Her strategy has met with some success. Within a month of its introduction in May, the San Francisco-based Splendora blog was getting more than 1.3 million hits in a single week, Ms. Pell said, more than all three of the company's shopping Web sites in various cities.
Bloggers' inclusiveness and pointed irreverence certainly are selling points. Still, most of the conversation is shopping advice, liberally laced with consumer recommendations, observed Doug Rushkoff, the author of "Media Virus" and other books about the impact of technology on society. "That, of course, is making businesses happy."
It may explain why, in recent months, the most popular style blogs have attracted retailers and fashion brands as advertisers. The blogs now feature banner ads for Internet shopping sites and smaller text ads along their margins, which are generated by advertiser clearing houses like Google AdSense. The services places advertisers on Web pages with related content. When a reader clicks on a link, the blogger gets a small commission.
Some smaller vendors have been known to ask bloggers for free mentions within their text. And at least one industry giant has sought to capitalize on the popularity of style blogs with a stealth campaign of product placement, never mind the blogs' reputation for independence.
Jockey, the underwear maker, approached I am Fashion, which has no obvious ads, and asked to be mentioned in the text, Ms. Fok said. "We liked the product and didn't see any harm in writing about it," said Ms. Fok, an accounting student, adding that it had never occurred to her that Jockey, which offered no payment, stood to profit from her plug.
In order to compete, online retailers like BlueFly have introduced blogs of their own. Flypaper, Bluefly's blog, offers fashion and celebrity commentary along with tips on little-promoted sales across the country. "If you have really valid information and news that's sort of quotable, that's a good way to reach a lot of people ," said Melissa Payner, chief executive of Bluefly. The company does not discuss Flypaper's traffic, but Ms. Payner did disclose that "people who spend time on the blog spend more time over all on our site." According to the company, the average order on Bluefly is 25 percent greater from people who spend time on Flypaper.
Not all bloggers are so focused on the bottom line; some strive to maintain at least a semblance of editorial integrity.
Sheena Warmin, who writes Closet Therapy,a fashion blog that features crochet bags by Ferragamo and beauty products from Kiehl, Laura Mercier, and Mario Badescu, offers links to marketers' Web sites, but does not accept commissions. "That might compromise what I have to say," she said, adding, "You read the magazines, and see their ads, and you get the feeling they are not completely honest. I wanted to be able to tell my readers what exactly they were buying."
Kim Weinstein, a New York City makeup artist who operates the beauty site i am pretty nyc, said: "I keep my Web site free of advertisers, because I want the power of free speech." She is not blind, however, to the commercial possibilities. She uses her site as a way to market her personal shopping services.
Nor is she averse to endorsing products that she likes. "If Mac asked me to mention their nail polishes, I'd probably say sure," Ms. Weinstein said. But when Wet & Wild, a drug store cosmetics brand, recently asked her to feature its latest shade of pink, she turned the offer down. Ms. Weinstein, who prides herself on religiously testing every product before it can merit a mention, explained, "Their pinks just don't come out pink enough."
