finding out that such a fashion web 2.0 specific book was being published via Bits and Bobbins and reading the VERY stimulating comments that ensued because of her post, I literally got on the phone to the publishers and requested a review copy pronto. So we have a book called 'What I wore today...', the premise of a lot of fashion blogs that we all read and view with. The book isn't written by any particular author but by Korero the publisher. I'm not entirely sure who gets a mention in the book tough I'm expecting the likes of Style Bytes (*sigh*...), Wardrobe Remix, The Fashion Spot WAYWT ('What are you wearing today?' ah...I miss that thread....), Fashion Toast etc.... I don't THINK Style Bubble is in it as I never got any email asking for permission which is usually the norm with these things but then again the blog is not really of the 'What I wore today...' ilk either so I doubt I've made an appearance in it. It's the tagline 'Online Fashion Narcissism' which has sparked all the interesting controversy. As Tricia of Bits and Bobbins said, she's not entirely sure whether the publisher has used the word to shed a negative light on people sharing their outfits with the world via forums, Flickr, blogs etc but she asks a ton of questions relating to the topic of 'narcissism' on the web.
I have to be honest.... I do find blogs that purely consist of outfit posts with no accompanying text or perspective on things a little dull... whilst I'm all for pretty pictures, I like engaging with text too. People say that I blather on and am rather long winded here on this blog but I'm a thought expounder. It's very rare that I post images up with no contextual background or explanation. Yet I do feel the need to defend those of us that are posting images of ourselves. I'm not even seeing narcissism as a negative thing because that is someone who takes pleasure in looking at images of themselves as opposed to people who take pleasure in having other people look at them. I am concerned though that such taglines as in the case of this book, expound the idea that bloggers or WAYWT participants are doing it because they are keen to get their style out and say to the world 'Hey, my style is so amazing...check me out and send me praise because hip-hooray I'm so effing cool!'.
That couldn't be farther from the truth. At least in my case... It's true that for a lot of people, there's a confidence level in their own style that propels them to post pictures of themselves, be it conscious or sub-conscious. However, in my own case, sometimes, after the pics are up, I realise I'm getting 'it' (whatever that means...) completely wrong or things look godawful, yet I leave them up there. I'm not aiming to put the best of me out there or representing my style in the most positive light possible purely because that would be impossible and because I like things that are a work in progress. It's the documentation of a moment that is part of a progression or a thought process I was going through. The crux of it is that posting pictures of myself is an easy way of communicating the thought process behind the style decisions I take and with that comes an explanation, a description and something to back up the images. I think it's all too simple to write off people taking pictures of themselves as people just looking for a bit of praise and I don't doubt that there are those that seek that sort of gratification but for me those pics communicate not an just an image of myself, but an idea, something to do with the outfit backed up by the text (sometimes I suspect people don't actually read what I write but anyhow....), hence why I did faceless shots for such a long time and even now, the only reason you see my face is because the mirror that I use to take shots in gets dusty and sometimes the light just isn't that great for my poxy crappy camera...
Still, I'm not going to dismiss this book as lazy journalism yet without reading the content. If it turns out to insinuate what the tagline indicates then it's going up there in the banal chart of blog cliches along with that pesky question which I get asked most often...'Are blogs going to replace magazines?'...the less said about that one, the better...
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