fashion blogger

Ah, Fashion Week. The freshest high fashion looks draped on sexy models. Camera flashes blinding those lucky enough to sit front row. Fashionistas swarming to New York in skyscraper high heels to catch a glimpse of Anna Wintour or Phillip Lim. And, wait… the Internet?

The Internet, or more accurately, social media, is becoming increasingly infused with high fashion marketing techniques. And this year, social media plays the biggest role yet in Fashion Week history.

New York-based Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of MyItThings.com Yuli Ziv has found that in the past year alone, social media based fashion marketing has increased due to three factors: the economic situation (which causes brands to get innovative with their marketing), the platform for brands to directly interact with customers and the image control brands can maintain by responding to customers’ complaints or questions.

Crosby Noricks, founder of PR Couture: a blog focusing on fashion PR, marketing, social media and promotion, agrees that social media is playing a growing role in how fashion brands are marketing themselves.

“As brands work hard to build their following on sites like Facebook and Twitter, there are new opportunities to engage directly with the brand. Whether that is a photo contest, live chat or a design your own handbag contest, individuals begin to own a piece of the brand and to tell their part of the story,” San Diego-based Noricks says.

However, others are also adding to the story.

This year, more than 80 bloggers have teamed up to cover New York Fashion Week through InsideTheTents.com, a site dedicated to exposing the world to what really goes on inside the Bryant Park Tents through technologies like Twitter, Flickr, live blogging, and video streaming.

Nadine Kam, features and style editor for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and fashion writer/stylist for HI luxury magazine, is one of these bloggers. Kam, who’s been doing fashion writing for about 12 years, covered New York Fashion Week as a blogger two years ago.

“This time around, I’ll also be adding a video component to my blog and I may do some live Tweeting,” Kam says.

Noricks, who’s attending New York Fashion Week as a blogger for the first time (and also part of InsideTheTents.com), followed the site’s coverage last year and found it very informative.

“InsideTheTents does a great job of providing a format to showcase all the great content that comes out of Fashion Week in a way that legitimizes the voice of the fashion blogger and respects their contributions,” Noricks says.

Hawaii-based Kam finds that social media has allowed her to quickly stay up to date and in touch with the fashion centers of the world, and she believes that it will help everyone keep up to date with Fashion Week this year.

“I think Twitter will be indispensable this year in getting out last-minute party, fashion tweet-ups and event notices,” Kam says.

Follow Yuli Ziv, Crosby Noricks, Nadine Kam and other InsideTheTents.com bloggers on Twitter to keep up to date on their Fashion Week adventures.