The internet is a source of infinite information made accessible only by those who have permitted themselves to make it accessible for free.

Newspapers and magazines have made their revenues from advertisers for over a century before the internet came along. Whether it used to be $0.10 or $0.50 for a printed newspaper, to a few dollars for a glossy magazine, media companies made their money through ads, this is a given.

When the internet came along, though it was neat to be able to share information in one common world wide web, advertising on the web was, right from the get-go, very cheap. Pennies were made based on impressions, clicks, and leads. Then, when content was reproduced on the web, the print media followed. However, the fatal mistake from print media was to reproduce their content for free.

If I were a business person, who made their fortune by offering a service for a price in person, and then offering the same service for free on the internet, of course my client base will grow on the internet. But my internet clients aren’t paying for my services, they’re getting it for free. And everybody, and I mean everybody, loves the word “free”. So it’s only logical that you would attract more people online than you would in person. By the end of if, I wouldn’t be making any money at all since my in-person clients will flock to me indirectly and get my services for free rather than in person.

Thus, my question to the big print companies such as the New York Times, The Globe and Mail, and the thousands of other newspapers…why did they make their content online free? It’s like shooting yourself in the foot. The Wall Street Journal was smart, they limit their free content and still rely on paid subscriptions to generate some revenue and it isn’t free falling into a black hole like other newspapers. Women’s Wear Daily is also able to stay alive with their subscription base model, while offering just a trickle of free content. It’s content is still linked to from numerous websites despite it being mostly off limits to casual browsers. Newspapers could have still been afloat if they would’ve offered their news for the same subscription price online as their print version. The only foreseeable problem with that is having their content reproduced by users – however, with hundreds of articles being printed each week, I doubt all of the content would be made public.

Fashion magazines however are not entirely at fault. Fashion brands have established their own sites and thus can propagate their ad campaigns from their home base without the need to pay for space in a physical world. The internet allows them to reach a much wider audience than their print (and costly) versions ever could.  Combine that with viral marketing from blogs, and cheap web space, there’s little need for fashion magazines except for the fashion gurus to cherry pick the cream of the crop of products. I suppose a temporary solution for fashion magazines is to also privatize their content online and have users pay to read their fashion experts’ opinions.

If print media companies would’ve started out with privatized paid subscriptions online, then I doubt there would’ve been such a global meltdown in the print world, perhaps saving thousands of jobs. Of course, there are hundreds of thousands of sophisticated users who can pirate content, but quality content as the big medias were known for, wouldn’t have disintegrated so quickly if they did some planning and foreshadowing.

If print work does indeed die out in the next decade (and reduced to an art form), I expect online advertising prices to go up. With no ulterior source of income, I think coveted online fashion websites will have the opportunity to break out a new standard for online advertising. Of course, online fashion magazines will have to compete for attention with the very brands who are buying their ad space.

The Wall Street Journal was rather cocky about the release of their new lifestyle magazine, WSJ. (with the period) last week, taking slight swipes at their competitions like T Magazine from The New York Times.

After some reflections and analyzing e-magazines, I’m starting to wonder if e-magazines really offer you a different web experience or are they really just spruced up versions of their printed counterparts? We’re now expecting more and more from fashion websites, we want them to be updated daily, we want RSS feeds, we want comment capabilities, forums, and tons of pictures and videos to look at.

Unfortunately, I don’t understand why big reputable newspaper companies such as the WSJ and NY Times cannot afford to give its magazines the same web usability as their newspapers. Granted, these magazines only publish monthly or quarterly, but I believe the extra online features should be added.

Here are some of things lacking from WSJ.

• No comment feature – Are we not allowed to have dialogue in the luxury world?
• Only one RSS Feed of a blog-ish type of daily update called “WSJ. Magazine Today”, of which a couple of the articles don’t show up in the feed, or a few appear in the feed but not on the same page of the site? Where are you pulling your posts WSJ.?
• Videos – Ok. I’m going to rip this apart. What is up with their videos?? I really like Roland Mouret and his interview “The Shape of Things To Come” is a good read. But the videos on this site are little more than decorative and have little to say. I usually like WSJ’s reporting videos on the newspaper’s site, even if they do lack pizzazz. These videos’ intros sound off to the beat of something coming off of MTV’s Cribs. On top of that, you can’t even share the video, not that they’d be worth it… Is this really luxury? I’m not even rich but I know crap when I see it.

I’ve revisited T Magazine’s site and also found a few gripes.

• No comment feature – except for their blog “In The Moment” which I’m starting to believe is really a blog post overload of anything fashion related. Hardly anybody comments.
• RSS only for “In The Moment”, so you’d have to scroll through a maze of articles on the site itself.
• Videos are non-linkable, non-adjustable, and a tad too small for my taste (make it YouTube size at least). I like their “Screen Test” series, and can find a few gems in “Exclusive Films”, but I would do away with “T Takes” of short films, they don’t belong on this site.

I’m split between what e-magazines today should represent. As a print publication, it’s obvious we’re only doing the reading and there’s no interaction whatsoever between the content and yourself. But as a web experience, especially seeing how interaction is now possible between the content and the user, I’ve come to expect this extra feature to be available for online publications (whether they have printed counterparts or not). I suppose magazines don’t want to lose their authority on fashion, and open the gates to dialogue will expose them to direct, unfiltered critique of their content. But so far I think being able to comment and share content has only heightened the interest in fashion and we could get some very insightful opinions from individuals you wouldn’t never hear about. Cathy Horyn’s “On The Runway” blog is a prime example of being able to voice her opinions, and still be respected and receive both favorable or unfavorable opinions from different users. This interaction shouldn’t be ignored and for the fashion industry, reknown as a tough skin industry, to shrivel up so easily to opinionated consumers is sort of an oxymoron.

The New York Times‘ article is particularly interesting. As China is growing exponentially as an economic power, so are the wages, and higher wages means improving (at least we’re hoping) work environments. With higher wages, outsourcing to China is no longer a cheap endeavour as manufacturers are now looking to other asian countries like Vietnam and Cambodia for labor work. However, outsourcing to other asian countries proves to still be a difficult move.

The Reuters article points that cheap labour entices designers to use more expensive fabrics and that many countries don’t seem to mind the Made in China labels as much as previously thought. Also, the article points out a very important factor where Made In labels are being faked, thus it is difficult to really know where clothes come from.

Her reason? Writing for a magazine had too much pressure to be positive ALL the time. If a brand’s collection is perceived as bad for the season, they simply don’t write about it at all. Instead they would focus on the brands they deemed good. Being bred from a newsroom where there needs to be a heart to the story which includes fact checking, interviews, and unraveling the truth (whether good or bad) – there wasn’t any of that at Vogue.

You may find the occasional insightful article, the most notable I’ve read recently in Harper’s Bazaar’s September 2007 issue, “Everyone’s a fashion critic” by Pulitzer Prize acclaimed writer Robin Ghivan (The Washington Post‘s fashion editor). But as a whole, it’s hard to be negative in a magazine, I can vouch that as a writer for Gloss. It’s not that there’s anything to hide really, I enjoy doing interviews and all of them so far have been humble and super nice people. But after a while, it gets redundant. Newspapers have an edge that will allow you to express your opinions if given you can back up your statements.

Being a fashion editor at a newspapers does have its drawbacks. Opinions dished in newspapers can hurt brands, resulting in bans from certain fashion shows. Nobody has been spared, even the almighty Wall Street Journal, The NY Times, The International Herald Tribune, and Newsweek writers have been banned from attending shows, from Louis Vuitton to Armani, for their comments. Frankly though, kudos to these women who have the experience and most importantly – who have their eyes wide open. These women are not easily swayed by the glamour and lavish parties. Oh sure, they’ll attend the parties, but by no means would it bribe them in counting a collection as fabulous if it doesn’t live up to certain standards or capability. What makes them so qualified in critiquing you ask? Perhaps it’s because they don’t blindly follow the herd, that they don’t just gobble up what every designer has to offer. Not only that, they have experience under their belt and they haven’t abandoned their investigative journalistic skills.

Hilary Alexander, for The Daily Telegraph UK, is perhaps the exception to the investigative journalistic style for a newspaper. Although Hilary would rarely express her opinion on collections, she certainly makes up for it by concisely writing show reviews with the pen of a novelist. Her choice of words build and create fantastical atmosphere that one can only dream of how beautiful these runway shows are in real life. She’s incredibly talented on this end, and so I forgive her for lacking an opinion.

With my experience in fashion magazine writing, I feel that here you would have to stretch your creative writing skills by indulging the reader into the fantasy that fashion is portraying. That, in some respect, requires quite a good deal of skills in order to achieve this mystical world for the reader. How do you convince your readers that the latest designer you’re presenting is hot stuff and why? What makes them special? I’ve been struggling with this since I’ve started, but learned a great deal along the way. I do believe at the end of the day that my heart belongs in having an opinion on fashion and digging deeper to unravel the truth and mystery behind the fashion facade.

Image credit: Patrick McMullan for Harper’s Bazaar

In a world where we could only resort to customizing Vans slip ons and some Nike runnings, Steven Madden has pushed the envelope to make it a real girl’s dream: customize your own fashionable shoe. The New York Times gives a more in depth look of the new service, so I went to Steve’s website to get a better look of what it’s all about.

The concept is simple.

Choose one of 45 different styles of shoe (from Uggs to high heels) and play around digitally by picking colors of the trimmings, heel, straps and buttons, from leather to faux animal prints. Prices vary from $89.95 to $169.95. You can even customize a couple of handbags too. Once your choices are made, it’ll take about 3 weeks for your shoes to arrive and to enjoy.

Here’s a shoe I designed on Steve Madden’s interface, cute no?

Though I’m sure every girl would like their shoes to be designed and created by the likes of say Christian Louboutin, but average income people can’t afford shoes at $500-$600 a pop. According to the NY Times, Steve Madden has “almost no online competition” right now, but the company may as well revolutionize online retail shoe shopping for the mainstream public. It’s like the American Apparel of shoes, buy the base, customize everything else yourself. How can you go wrong?

The concept can be pushed even further to handbags as already shown. This trend could spread to sunglasses, gloves, clothes, hats, socks, tights, and the list goes on. Of course, such customization will demand the proper resources and work force to handle the process and most likely new regulations.

Designing or modifying your own clothes is not a new concept though. In some Montreal boutiques like Mad-Ame in the Gay Village, offers their clients the option to design their own clothes with a tailor. They also sell ready to wear pieces and each can be modified to the client’s wishes. Word to the ones who don’t know, this is a lesbian clothing store. Don’t know what that is? You should check it out yourself, I personally found it pretty cool to be greeted with a slushie and have the opportunity to play Mrs. Pac-Man in the store.

Another idea for those of you shopping for the holiday season!

Lululemon has a comprehensive product testing process and partners with
SGS Group, a leading independent inspection, verification, testing and
certification company. The Switzerland-based firm conducts a battery of tests
before each season on all of Lululemon’s fabrics across all product lines,
testing for a variety of attributes including content, pilling, shrinkage, and
colorfastness.

Well…this is a tough call. It’s normal that the company fends off such accusations, so it’s a question of who is telling the truth. Is the newspaper at fault for reporting these tests? And what made them doubt Lululemon’s claim in the first place? If people can make handbags out of candy wrapper, what’s wrong with using seaweed fiber?

Whatever the case may be, in the end it’s the customer’s choice if they want to spend their money on clothes (authentically organic or not).

**Update**

Ok, my question has been answered as to what made the New York Times investigate Lululemon in the first place. The Business of Fashion pretty much gives you the 411 that it’s really all about the benjamins.

A final twist to all of this is that it was a private investor that paid for the first test which questioned the claims of the VitaSea product and it was he who spurred the New York Times to do their own test and publish the results. This investor was hoping that the test results would send Lululemon’s stock into a free-fall, enabling him to short-sell the stock and make a nice bundle of cash. Mission accomplished.

So, bringing a company down for a quick buck. Hélas, c’est la vie!

“Seaweeds have known vitamins and minerals, and we searched specifically for those vitamins, and we didn’t see them,” said Carolyn J. Otten, director for specialized services at Chemir Analytical Services, a lab in Maryland Heights, Mo. that tested a sample of VitaSea.

[...]

Lululemon executives said that they had not independently tested the VitaSea material to see whether it lived up to the claims on Lululemon’s tags. Instead, it trusted the claims of its suppliers, executives said.

[...]

Analysts said it is the responsibility of the companies to test all of their products.

“It’s frankly up to the companies to do sporadic product quality tests to make sure everything is being manufactured to the parameters they set,” said Sharon Zackfia, an analyst who covers Lululemon at William Blair & Co., an investment firm based in Chicago. “At the end of the day, it’s Lululemon’s name on the line.”

This is a gaffe that could harm the company’s image in which consumers rely on their brands to live up to their promises. The company flourished not because of savvy marketing campaigns, but by word of mouth. If Lululemon did in fact “lie” to their consumers about the seaweed use in the VitaSea line, it puts into question as to what else they could have lied about.