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International Herald Tribune

Fashion Wednesday, September 14, 2005 13

Photographs by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage.com; Larry Birkhead/Splash News and Pictures; Lawrence Schwartzwald/Splash News and Pictures; Lester Cohen/WireImage.com
From left, the Winona Ryder T-shirt that started it all; Tori Spelling with her dog Mimi La Rue; Eva Longoria’s message for Brad Pitt; Naomi Campbell poking fun at herself; Britney Spears promoting herself and a new film, and Carmen Electra’s Jesus tee.

Telling the world what you think: the T-shirt as message

By Jessica Michault the hippest way to make a statement, she might serve time in prison for head with the arrival of the ‘‘Feed Lind- of the stars of ‘‘Desperate Housewives,’’ after it hit the market to promote Paris
express an emotion, or share a political shoplifting designer goods from a Saks say’’ tee — a reference to the dramatic has reportedly sent a personal note to Hilton’s first Hollywood film.
PARIS view with the masses. Fifth Avenue department store. (In the weight loss of the Hollywood starlet Jennifer Aniston apologizing for wear- Even celebrity designers are getting
elebrities and citizens alike The writing was on the wall, or end, she was placed on probation and Lindsay Lohan. It even carries an ac- ing an ‘‘I’ll Have Your Baby Brad’’ T- into the act. Sean Combs’s fledgling

C have stopped wearing their

hearts on their sleeves and de-
cided to take a more direct
route to communicate to the world.
Call it the mini me version of Internet
blogging, the ‘‘message’’ T-shirt is now
Sheena Warmin, who writes Closet Therapy, is one of hundreds of young bloggers vying for the loyalty of readers.
rather the T-shirt, three years ago when
Winona Ryder kick-started the trend
by wearing an underground ‘‘Free
Winona’’ tee on the cover of W
magazine. She was poking fun at her-
self and the very real possibility that
f ined.)
The overwhelming response to that
T-shirt (which is now considered ‘‘vin-
tage’’) has spawned similar ones, like
‘‘Free Martha’’ and ‘‘Free Katie.’’ Even
this message has been turned on its
Ann Johansson for The New York Times
companying Web site (www.feedlind-
say.com) where a petition urging the
star to stop losing weight can be
signed.
‘‘I think the whole T-shirt craze is a
way of communicating in our society
that no one ever expected,’’ says David
Wolfe, creative director of The
Doneger Group, a New York-based
fashion trend consulting firm. ‘‘These
T-shirts turn people into statements —
be it a product, lifestyle, or celebrity.’’
To be sure, today’s T-shirts are
speaking volumes. They announce ev-
erything from religious affiliation (‘‘Je-
sus is My Homeboy’’) to favorite kids
cereals (‘‘Monstrously Delicious’’) or
even make a public announcement
(‘‘Vote or Die’’).
For Chris Bick, co-owner of the hip
clothing Web site fredflare.com, the
‘‘message’’ tees are popular ‘‘because
they’re so funny and can really evoke
your mood at any given time. They are
also really popular with celebrities.
And if Jessica Simpson wears anything,
it’s sure to be super popular!’’
There is no denying that the
celebrity culture has helped the mes-
sage T-shirt gain popularity. And with
its cost hovering around $30, it is easier
for those who want to emulate their fa-
vorite star to buy the same ‘‘My Dog
Can Beat Up Paris Hilton’s Dog’’ T-
shirt that they saw Tori Spelling wear-
ing than it would be to buy her designer
ha ndbag.
But beware these new disposable
fashion statements. In hindsight some-
thing that seemed benign one week can
take on a whole new interpretation the
next. Case in point: Eva Longoria, one
shirt just days after the Hollywood
golden couple announced their separa-
tion. And after the latest revelations
made by Aniston in a Vanity Fair cover
story, maybe the T-shirt Brad Pitt wore
with the word ‘‘Trash’’ written across
the front on the couple’s much photo-
graphed last vacation together be-
comes a more significant message than
it seemed at the time.
Fraser Ross, owner of Kitson (www.
Shopkitson.com), the Hollywood
clothing store favored by many celebri-
ties, came up with his own way to let
the public express their opinion on the
breakup of the Aniston/Pitt marriage:
he made a T-shirt out of it. ‘‘Right now
the ‘Team Aniston’ and ‘Team Jolie’
baseball T-shirts are very popular.
‘Team Aniston’ is selling 25 to 5 against
‘Team Jolie’,’’ says Ross.
Kitson is also finding it hard to keep
the ‘‘Scientology School Drop Out’’ tee
in stock, which is a direct comment on
the ‘‘TomKat’’ romance between Tom
Cruise and his soon to be third wife
Katie Holmes.
But the message T-shirt has also
gone corporate, with movie companies
creating tees linked to their latest re-
leases. And who better to blur the lines
of personal expression and corporate
commerce than Britney Spears.
The pop princess proudly wore a ‘‘I
have the golden ticket’’ T-shirt with an
arrow pointing to her pregnant belly to
the Hollywood premiere of the ‘‘Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory’’ movie. A
more subversive person perhaps thought
up the ‘‘House of Wax’’ promotional T-
shirt. Its limited edition ‘‘See Paris Die’’
T-shirt sold out almost immediately
women’s line includes a T-shirt that is
used prominently in its advertising
campaign. The ‘‘Daddy’s Rich’’ T-shirt,
with words written in a golden scroll
across the chest of spokes model
Penelope Cruz, has already sold out at
the Kitson store.
For Wolfe the usurping of the mes-
sage T-shirt by companies hoping to
cash in on the craze doesn’t mean the
demise of the underground T-shirt
movement. ‘‘Both can coexist. The key
to success is that the T-shirt be funny,’’
says Wolfe.
Ross agrees. ‘‘For us it is important
that the T-shirt be positive and funny.’’
It was with this in mind that Ross de-
cided to carry the ‘‘Team Selena’’ tee but
to pass on the ‘‘I’ll Be Your Nanny’’ one,
because he thought it was in bad taste.
There is nothing worse than a T-shirt
that isn’t funny, especially if the butt of
the joke isn’t laughing. Only last year
the ‘‘Save Mary Kate’’ tee was pulled
from the market by the designer Randy
& Moss when the Olsen twins
threatened to sue. An offer to donate 20
percent of the profits to the National
Eating Disorder Association by the
company didn’t dissuade the twins.
But maybe the best offense is a good
defense when it comes to a celebrity’s
public trauma. Naomi Campbell took
her cue from Ryder and, after recent re-
ports that she had gotten into a fight
with another model, took to the streets
wearing a T-shirt that read ‘‘Naomi hit
me’’ on the front while on the back were
the words ‘‘and I loved it.’’
Jessica Michault is on the staff of the
International Herald Tribune.

Fashion’s sassy bloggers

By Ruth La Ferla that fashion blogs are probably going to Splendora, a fashion shopping Web site
have the same kind of influence that we with its own blog.
NEW YORK see in widely read blogs about gadgets Despite her disclaimer, Pell’s site lib-
ebecca Fok recently fired a and high tech toys like BoingBoing,’’ erally mingles celebrity photos and

R blast at Jessica Simpson. 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, Fok was unimpressed
that Simpson had signed a $15 million
licensing agreement to expand her
fashion and accessories brand. ‘‘Like
EWW!! As if there were not enough Jes-
sica Simpson around,’’ the two sneered.
‘‘And why does she have to overstep her
celebrity boundary and enter the de-
signer world, when she obviously has
no such talents.’’
In the same week a blogger who signs
herself Annie Town on Blogdorf Good-
man, 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 last week, as Jacobs and
his peers prepared to parade their
clothes for spring 2006 in New York,
Fok and Town added their voices to a
swelling chorus of fellow fashion blog-
gers 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 loy-
alty of readers who range in age from
their teens through their mid-30s, 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 wom-
en’s style magazine. Readers identify
with bloggers’ idiosyncratic, rebellious
voices, said Holley, who has added two
online diarists to her stable of contrib-
utors. 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,’’ Holley said,
‘‘that readers find the blogs keep up
better than even the tabloids like Us
Week ly.’’
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 displa-
cing Vogue as a fashion authority, but
they are steadily gaining clout with
consumers and marketers.
‘‘In coming months we can expect
said Bob Wyman, the chief technology
officer and a founder of PubSub, a
search engine that offers a weekly rat-
ing 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 recently, Wy-
man said, were sites including Beauty
Dish, with a rating of 709, in which the
writer chronicles her adventures as an
Avon sales representative; and Shoe-
wawa, which dissects the world of de-
signer footwear. (‘‘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,’’ Wyman said.
Blogs like I am Fashion, which aver-
ages 1,000 to 1,200 readers a day, its au-
thors said, resonate with a hyper-com-
municative 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 Bucking-
ham, the president of Youth Intelli-
gence, a trend-forecasting company.
‘‘For them the establishment media
is just another resource, with no spe-
cial authority. In their minds, the indi-
vidual is the authority.’’
Fashion bloggers court their readers
with a down-to-earth, conversational
tone, offering a saucy mix of product en-
dorsements, pop culture and fashion
commentary. Many glean their informa-
tion from visits to showrooms and
stores, or random on-the-street surveys.
Others supplement first-hand obser-
vations with tidbits and images shame-
lessly pilfered from sources like Star
magazine and Style.com, giving the
news a perversely satirical spin.
The most popular sites generate at-
tention by taking aim at the stylistic
foibles of Hollywood stars in a tone
that is often more salty, savage and pos-
sibly actionable than that of the fashion
police features in celebrity magazines.
Lera, another first-name-only blog-
ger 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 fre-
quently 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 trend-
spotter, listing best sellers including
Edwardian blouses, pleated skirts, em-
pire waist dresses and T-strap shoes.
Some of these writers claim to be de-
mocratizing fashion commentary, aim-
ing at readers less likely to wear Gucci
than Gap. ‘‘To our readers, it’s more in-
teresting to find out what real people
are wearing, not just Jennifer Lopez,’’
said Gina Pell, the chief executive of
gossip with fashion news.
Her strategy has met with some suc-
cess. 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, 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 im-
pact 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 shop-
ping sites and smaller text ads along
their margins, which are generated by
advertiser clearing houses like Google
AdSense. The services places advert-
isers on Web pages with related con-
tent. When a reader clicks on a link, the
blogger gets a small commission.
Some smaller vendors have been
known to ask bloggers for free men-
tions 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 place-
ment, never mind the blogs’ reputation
for independence.
Jockey, the underwear maker, ap-
proached I am Fashion, which has no ob-
vious ads, and asked to be mentioned in
the text, Fok said. ‘‘We liked the product
and didn’t see any harm in writing about
it,’’ said 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, of-
fers fashion and celebrity commentary
along with tips on little-promoted
sales. ‘‘If you have really valid informa-
tion and news that’s sort of quotable,
that’s a good way to reach a lot of
people ,’’ said Melissa Payner, chief ex-
ecutive of Bluefly. The company does
not discuss Flypaper’s traffic, but
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.
Some bloggers, however, strive to
maintain at least a semblance of editor-
ial 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 mar-
keters’ Web sites, but does not accept
commissions. ‘‘That might compro-
mise what I have to say,’’ she said.
The New York Times