The Labour of Fashion Blogging

Agnès Rocamora

This is a pre-publication version of a book chapter published in Armstrong, Leah and McDowell, Felice

(eds) (2018) Fashioning Professionals: Identity and Representation at Work in the Creative Industries.

London: Bloomsbury.

Introduction

Much writing as been devoted to the words and images of fashion discourse, however studies

investigating the work of those agents involved in the discursive construction of fashion, including

stylists, makeup artists, photographers, remains scant. The present chapter attends to this neglect by

focusing on the labour of fashion bloggers. The ideas presented here are part of an ongoing project on the

professionalization of fashion blogging, in which I am interested in questions including: What kind of

labour is blogging? How does one become a professional blogger? How can fashion blogging help us

better understand the nature of work in digital culture?

Some scholars have started to address the idea of professional fashion blogging (see Duffy and

Hund 2015; Luvaas 2016; Pedroni 2015; Pham 2015) and I share some of their interpretations, some of

which I return to in this chapter, further elaborating on some key points whilst also attending to other ideas

and teasing out new avenues for analysis. I do this through the lens of ‘immaterial labour’, which I briefly

introduce in the first part of the chapter. This notion is useful for mapping out and interrogating fashion

blogging, and in particular for looking at the forces bloggers have to negotiate to go about their practice,

to legitimate as well as to invent it. Indeed, as I discuss in a second part, bloggers have encountered a

barrage of criticism, to which they regularly respond on their own sites. For blogs are both a platform of

expression of the bloggers’ take on fashion, but also one on which they actively participate in the

discursive production of fashion blogging. In the third part I look at the strategies bloggers develop to

negotiate the ideals of trust and authenticity central to the logic of blogging and to their fashioning as

professional or hobbyist bloggers. I then move on to the ideas of immaterial labour as free labour and then
as invented labour to elaborate on the issue of bloggers’ relation to brands and the idea of

commodification.

I draw on a series of semi-structured interviews I have been conducting with bloggers since 2013.

Twenty six interviews took place in 2013 and 2014. In late 2015 I started conducting follow-up interviews

and had met again with eight bloggers at the time of writing this chapter. All the bloggers were based in

the UK, bar one, living in Ireland. Thirty two interviews have been face-to-face; one on Skype; one on the

phone. I have met with a broad range of fashion bloggers: male; female; mainstream fashion; 40+; plus-

size; vintage fashion; fashion for mums. Some were very popular, others were less well-known. Some

were professional or in the process of becoming professional, some were hobbyists. All the interviews

have been anonymised.

Immaterial labor

In this chapter, I draw on Maurizio Lazzarato’s notion of immaterial labor, a notion useful for thinking

through digital labor (see Cardon and Casilli 2015; Coté and Pybus 2007; de Peuter and Dyer-Witherford

2005). Lazzarato (1996) developed this concept to point to a redefinition of work in the post-industrial

economy. Immaterial labor, he argues, is a defining feature of post-Taylorist production and of the skills

needed in new communications technologies. It is also a type of labor that includes: ‘the activity that

produces the ‘cultural content’ of the commodity, immaterial labor involves a series of activities that are

not normally recognized as ‘work’; in other words, the kinds of activities involved in defining and fixing

cultural and artistic standards, fashions, tastes, consumer norms, and, more strategically, public opinion’

(132).

‘Immaterial workers’, Lazzarato adds ‘work in advertising, fashion, marketing, television,

cybernetics, and so forth’ (143). Whilst it might be argued that fashion as a whole, defined here as a ‘field’

(Bourdieu 1993) made up of a broad range of materials, individuals, institutions and practices, might not

easily be subsumed under the category of immaterial labor, the term certainly is applicable to fashion

blogging. Indeed, by virtue of participating in the production of the cultural content of fashion and in their

capacity as taste makers, which the marketing term ‘influencers’, used in reference to fashion bloggers,

reinforces, fashion blogging can be seen as immaterial labor. It is also a form of labor, following Lazarrato

(1996: 133), whereby the split ‘between author and audience’ is transcended, an idea which the notions of

prosumer or pro-user captures, and fashion blogging exemplifies (see Rocamora 2012).

Immaterial labor is not bound by the walls of the factory, nor is it the preserve of a small number

of privileged workers. Rather it is to be found across the whole of society. Lazzarato talks about ‘mass

intellectuality’, an idea fashion blogging also captures. Indeed, although many fashion bloggers have

attained a high status, often correlated to financial wealth, it is an activity that has been embraced by a

wide constituency of individuals, from a variety of social backgrounds, whether as a hobby, or as a

possible career. This is not to subscribe to ‘the idealistic cyberdrool of the digerati’ Terranova (2000: 44)

warns against, and deny that hierarchies inform the fashion blogosphere. Indeed, many of its successful

members, such as the bloggers behind seaofshoes.com, manrepeller.com (who also both come from

economically privileged families), for instance, display the hegemonic young, thin, white body still

favored by the fashion industry. Rather, it is to recognize that the fashion blogosphere is also populated by

a broad constituency of social groups, including amateur bloggers many of whom are members of the

‘long tail’ of bloggers that may, or may not want to, generate profit but nevertheless blog actively.

Immaterial labor also involves the investment of the personality of workers, a call to ‘become

subjects’ being ‘The new slogan of Western societies’ that serves the interest of capitalism (Lazzarato

1996: 133, 134). As Hearn notes, in the post-Taylorist era ‘we see a shift from a working self, to the self

as work in the form of a self-brand with reputation as its currency’ (2010: 425). Titton (2015) and Duffy

and Hund (2015) have commented on the way fashion bloggers can be seen as brands involved in self-

branding. Indeed brand is a term nine of my respondents used when referring to their blog or to

themselves by way of their blog. In that sense too can fashion blogging be seen as immaterial labor.

Lazarrato’s definition also points towards an idea that is useful for teasing out the ambivalences

and tensions involved in fashion blogging whilst underlining the many ways through which it is

approached. In the quote cited above Lazarrato refers to immaterial labor as ‘activities that are not

normally recognized as work’. This begs the question, ‘activities that are not recognized as work by whom

and why?’ There is, for instance, the case when it is not recognized as work by other fashion players such

as fashion journalists; the case when it is not recognized as work by the bloggers themselves; or the case

when it is not recognized as work by the brands and companies that work with them. Thus, when

Lazzarato notes that at the start of ‘immaterial labor’ is ‘a social labor power that is independent and able

to organize both its own work and its relations with business entities’ (1996: 138), what are the

implications of the lack of recognition he also talks about on immaterial labor, here blogging? That is,

when it comes to fashion blogging, how do bloggers organize their relation with business entities such as

fashion brands? A question I turn to later in this chapter. For now, and looking at the first instance of lack

of recognition of blogging, I comment on the idea of the discursive construction of fashion blogging.

The discursive construction of fashion blogging

Foucault invites us to treat discourses ‘as practices that systematically form the objects of which they

speak' (1989: 49). Discourse is performative and has tangible consequences. It shapes ways of seeing and

doing. Objects of discourse may come into existence through processes of material production but they

also come to reality through the words and images (and arguably, even, the sounds) that are attached to

them and produce their values and truths (see also Rocamora 2009). In that respect the blogosphere, and

the fashion blogosphere in particular, cannot be seen outside of its discursive construction. This includes

the statements of bloggers during the interviews I conducted. For not only are interviews invaluable in

providing accounts of experiences and feelings, they are also interactions during which respondents

actively construct themselves.

The discursive construction of blogging also includes the words of bloggers on their own blog as

well as the discourse of media commentators and scholars, on and off-line. Indeed, the emergence and

development of the blogosphere has been concurrent with the proliferation of discourses on bloggers.

Many are dismissive, Lovink (2008: xxiii), for instance, referring to the ‘cynical spirit of the blogosphere’.

A parallel is often made between journalism, seen as authoritative and informed and blogging, depicted as

unreliable and subjective (Carlson 2015). Notwithstanding the fact that journalism itself is a fairly newly

invented profession and one with unclear boundaries (Carlson 2015) blogging has faced difficulties being

recognized as a legitimate occupation, not least by journalists.

This is true of fashion blogging, which has been greeted with much criticism, including by

established fashion journalists, (Rocamora 2012; Rocamora and Bartlett 2009; see also Duffy 2013).

Stephanie (2013)1 says ‘people, they don’t take you seriously’. Oscar (2014) argues ‘there is some anti-

blogger feelings in the industry, in the press industry’. In July 2014, mademoisellerobot.com reads: ‘About

Time we Respected Fashion Bloggers’. In 2016 Sarah acknowledges the growing legitimation of blogging

in the field of the media (see Carlson 2015: 11) but also thinks that ‘not everyone really understands what

we’re doing and why we’re doing it.’

Amongst the many articles criticizing fashion bloggers, Suzy Menkes’ (2013) ‘circus of fashion’

has become well known in the blogosphere. There she contrasts bloggers with ‘fashion pros’ and derides

them as peacocks ‘gagging’ for attention. The article went viral not least due to fashion bloggers

commenting on it. For fashion bloggers not only blog about fashion, they also blog about fashion

blogging. Within a single textual space - a blog - blogging is both discursive practice and object of

discourse; it is both occupation in the making, and occupation being made by its makers through practice

and discourse on the practice itself. In that respect fashion blogging is discourse and meta-discourse, and

the two tightly intertwine in the bloggers’ discursive construction, and invention, of blogging. Its

performativity is internal; it is naming itself into being.

Thus, Menkes’ article was in turn criticized by bloggers, allowing them to become active in the

discursive construction of the subject position ‘fashion blogger’. In a post entitled ‘Blog is a Dirty Word’,

manrepeller.com, for instance, observed that ‘reducing an entire generation of sprouting professionals (the

bloggers) to the perpetual black (well, actually neon) sheep of fashion just doesn’t seem very open

minded’, adding, ‘Many of us couldn’t land the jobs we wanted, so we just made our own’ (Medine 2013).

In September 2016 a new fashion journalists vs. bloggers row erupted following Vogue.com’s

(2016) dismissal of professional fashion bloggers as ‘pathetic […] girls’ with ‘borrowed outfits’ on ‘paid-

for’ appearances, to which bloggers such as Susie Lau (Twitter, 26 Sept. 17) responded by pointing at the

equally commercial nature of the ties between brands and print fashion editors.

The struggle that opposes established journalists and bloggers is typical of the struggles that,

following Bourdieu’s (1993) field analysis, opposes established players and newcomers in all fields of

cultural production. Here the newcomers are bloggers and the established players traditional journalists

(Pedroni 2016; Rocamora 2016). Chalaby reminds us that ‘texts are weapons that agents in a struggle

employ in their discursive strategies’ (1998: 65). Posts on blogging, like the statements bloggers use

during the interviews I conducted with them, are weapons they employ in the discursive construction and

legitimation of fashion blogging.

Strategies of authenticity

Immaterial labor is labor not recognized as work, and this includes the case when bloggers themselves do

not recognize blogging as work, as an active desire to blog as a hobby, and keep it separate from their

main occupation. In that respect a distinction can be made between hobbyists and pro-bloggers. However,

a further distinction can be made amongst hobbyists along the lines of monetization. Susan (2014), for

instance, states that blogging ‘is still my hobby, I haven’t looked to make it into my career, it’s something

to do for fun and the benefits I get are just benefits, they’re not earnings for me’. Juliette (2013) refers to

the money she makes through her blog as a ‘bonus’. Vivien (2013) is not against monetization but ‘would

never expect to be paid for’ her reviews: ‘I write about companies that have never sent me anything that

have never spoken to me, but I like them, so it’s not always about getting paid or getting something for

free’.

Some hobbyists are opposed to monetizing their blog, a decision they explain by mobilizing the

ideas of independence, honesty and trust. Julia says ‘I want to maintain the total ability to say and do as I

please without somebody thinking that somebody’s paid me to do it’ (2013). Emile (2014) ‘refuse[s] to

accept money’ as it ‘puts limitations on what you can write or what you can’t write.’ Blogging, he argues,

‘needs to be sincere, because if it’s not then what’s the point’, whilst John (2014) states that: ‘I think part

of me not allowing any sort of advertising is to be true to the reasons why I did it. I didn’t do it to make

money’ […] if I monetise it […] I don’t think people would trust it as much […] I’d like to think I treat

my audience with more respect than that’.

When invoking trust and honesty, the respondents are mobilising ideas at the heart of the logic of

blogging. Indeed, the success of fashion blogs is largely premised on the related notions of honesty, truth,

realness, and authenticity (Rocamora 2011a; 2012; Duffy 2013; Duffy 2015; Luvaas 2016), notions that

recur in the discourse on my respondents, whether hobbyists or pro. As Monica (2014) puts it: ‘I want to

write as me, like how I would speak, honestly, to my friends and how we talk, not in the style of a

magazine.’

The ideal of ‘authenticity’ has underpinned capitalism for decades (Guignon 2004). Boltanski and

Chiapello (1999), for instance, have discussed the way it was first mobilized in discourses against

consumerism in the 1960s, but was then incorporated in, and neutralized by, capitalism through its very

commodification. Bloggers have been able to tap into the ideal of authenticity, and, when monetizing their

blog, have participated in its further commodification.

Where the hobbyists opposed to monetization can draw on this decision to adhere to and convey

the ideal of authenticity, pro-bloggers have developed strategies to reinstate this principle into their

practice. There are aesthetic and linguistic strategies. The former includes posting outfit pictures that are

not too glossy (see also Duffy and Hund 2015 on US bloggers). In that respect the mirrors bloggers use to

take outfit selfies act as signifiers of realness and authenticity. They hark back to the early days of fashion

blogging (see Rocamora 2011a; 2009) when the practice was not yet professionalized and photographs

had an amateur aesthetic. Susie Lau and Caroline Blomst, for instance, still use mirrors to take selfies (see,

e.g. their 16 April 2016 and 4 March 2016 posts).

With the professionalization of blogging and the concurrent construction of fashion bloggers as

brands some blogs have become as lavishly glossy as traditional magazines. However, the ideal of

authenticity has not disappeared from blogs. It is reinscribed into them by way of the Instagram feed that

frequently features on sidebars and which readers can access through hyperlinks. There, snapshots of the

more mundane life of the bloggers appear, which, although edited, still inscribe them and their blog in the

ordinary and the real of everyday experiences.

Linguistic strategies of authenticity and realness include the use of informal language in posts

(Rocamora 2011a), as well as bloggers distancing themselves, during interviews, from the idea of

commercialisation. When I asked Nathalie (2013), for instance, what new skills she feels she will have to

learn to consolidate her blog she says:

Probably business skills. Which is sad.

This brings to mind McRobbie’s (2011) comment on the creative workers scene in Berlin. With its art of

making do it is ‘seemingly non-commercial and under-capitalised’ (17). She refers to it as ‘a novel form

of neo-liberalism which comes almost with apologies. As though the guys behind the bar are saying “we

don’t like to have to think or act in a commercial way. We are not in this for the money, we are doing it

because we find it enjoyable”’ (19).

All the bloggers I interviewed also insisted, a statement they regularly voice on their blog too, that

they would never post about an item they did not like. This allows them not to be perceived as a ‘sell out’,

as Duffy (2015) also observes of American bloggers. When I ask Penny (2014) how she negotiates the

balance between sponsored and non-sponsored posts, for instance, she says: ‘it’s tricky sometimes, but it’s

just kind of making sure that the brands you work with are brands that you actually like and the product

you wear is product you’d actually spend money on. […] it’s just kind of staying true to your readership

and your blog, even if there is money involved’.

Another discursive strategy involves the use of ‘disclosure’ to reveal when a post has been

sponsored. Much of the criticism levelled at bloggers has involved the issue of lack of transparency with

regards to gifting and monetizing. As part of the ‘contemporary credibility contests’ that informs the

formation of the ‘boundaries of journalism’ (Carlson and Lewis 2015) journalists have responded to the

rise of citizen-journalism and the threat it is seen as representing on their profession by invoking the ideal

of transparency (Carlson 2015). Transparency is seen as that which guarantees truth and trust (Carlson

2015; Hermida 2015) and, in the process, the legitimacy and seriousness of journalism, in contrast, it is

suggested, with the deceptiveness of blogging. When disclosing gifts and sponsorships, bloggers in turn

mobilize the ideal of transparency, aligning their practice to journalism and hereby benefiting from the

symbolic capital this alignment generates.

In the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority – the body in charge of regulating advertising -

started approaching the topic of online advertising in 2011 and has since developed codes of conducts for

bloggers and YouTubers. However, the practice of disclosure is still open to interpretation and not strictly

regulated, followed and enforced. In a 2015 statement ASA’s Chief Executive noted that bloggers and

vloggers say ‘they need more help knowing where the line is between advertising and editorial’, adding,

‘This is not an easy line to draw’ (ASA 2015). And it is not always drawn. In 2016, for instance,

TheFashionLaw (2016) pointed the finger at US Blogger Aimee Song for not sufficiently declaring her

collaboration with a brand. Commenting on the feature BritishBeautyblogger (2016) wrote:

 Song is just one of many, many breaches that happen every single day. […] The ridiculous ASA
rule that as long as the brand has had no influence on the post, it doesn’t need to be declared that it
has been paid for needs to be changed as a matter of urgency. This anomaly is a get out of jail free
card for both brand and blogger.

The lack of disclosure of payment or gifting, which unclear regulations supports, muddies the distinction

between blogging as an unpaid hobby and blogging as work. This is compounded by the lavish pictures

bloggers often post of blogging as a glamorous life, which veils the labour that goes into the blog (see

Duffy and Hund 2015 on US female bloggers, but a comment true of UK bloggers too, irrespective of

gender).

The thin line between blogging as work and blogging as hobby is also articulated in the discourse

of my respondents. Karen (2013), for instance, defines her blogging as ‘a part-time hobby’ and

‘hobby/part-time venture’. Her use of an adjective, ‘part-time’, usually mobilised in relation to work,

underscores the blurring between work and hobby blogging often involves. Rose (2014) says of her

blogging whilst at university ‘I do see it as kind of a job almost.’ Conversely, although Bill (2015) blogs

‘almost the hours one would spend on a fulltime job, including weekends’, he insists that ‘I wouldn’t see

myself as a professional blogger’, although, ‘In the sense of earning money, yes, I suppose I am heading

that way.’ For Oscar, full-time blogging is ‘work, work, work, all the time. […] But, I’m completely

happy because once you try that one thing that you actually love doing, it does not feel like work’ (2014).

In its acknowledgement of the love of blogging, a love all my respondents share, Oscar’s statement is also

illustrative of the ‘romance’ of work which feeds into the neo-liberal ideology of self-governance and

‘passionate work’ and thereby serves the interest of capitalism (see also Duffy and Hund 2015; McRobbie

2016).

When not recognising blogging as work bloggers also support the blurring of the distinction

between work and leisure which, Lazarrato (1996: 138) argues, is characteristic of immaterial labor. In

this context brands have been able to capitalise on the activities of bloggers by expecting them to promote

their goods as a hobby, working for free, as I know discuss.

Immaterial labor and free labor

Much media attention has been paid to those bloggers who, it would appear, have become

multimillionaires. If there is indeed a top tier of bloggers that can demand high fees in exchange for their

blogging there is a also a ‘long tail’ of bloggers who get little or no remuneration. In the fashion

blogosphere bloggers often complain about brands expecting them to work for free, a complaint my

respondents also voiced (see also Duffy 2015). Referring to the Facebook page she shares with other

bloggers, Juliette says: ‘everybody’s getting a bit frustrated basically that we can’t expect bloggers to do

everything for free’ (2013). Sarah states: ‘It’s a lot of experience that I’ve built up so I should be

compensated. […] They think, we’re giving you something, that’s your payment. But I’m at this point

where I have so many things, stuff doesn’t mean as much to me’ (2016).

Furthermore, although starting a blog is relatively cheap it is not without cost. Jane (2013) explains:

editors are paid a salary […] nobody pays us a salary. And so if we work with brands, you know,
we’ve got to earn some money somewhere. Most of us can’t afford to do it, because even if we
have our fulltime job you have to pay for your camera […] line rental, web tech guy. […] there are
costs, it isn’t all just free.

Boltanski and Chiapello note that ‘A theory of exploitation must show that the success and strength of

some actors is in fact due, at least in part, to the intervention of others, whose activity is neither recognised

nor valorised’ (1999: 444). By not being recognized or valorized blogging is not remunerated. This is part

of a wider context of appropriation of users’ work for free, which various scholars have commented on,

not least in relation to digital work (see Bucher and Fieseler 2016). This is also where the notion of

immaterial labour meets another recurring concept in scholarship on the digital economy: ‘free labor’

(Terranova 2000; see also Coté and Pybus 2007; de Peuter and Dyer-Witherford 2005),

Drawing upon the work of Lazzarato Terranova writes, that free labour is ‘about forms of labor

we do not immediately recognize as such: chat, real-life stories, mailing lists, amateur newsletters, and so

on’ (2000: 38). It is ‘the moment where this knowledgeable consumption of culture is translated into

productive activities that are pleasurably embraced and at the same time often shamelessly exploited’ (37).

All the bloggers I interviewed mentioned how much they enjoy blogging (see also Duffy and Hund 2015

on US bloggers). This is an enjoyment, which, digital culture scholars have argued, is seen as making up

for precariousness and lack of remuneration in the job market, but in doing so also serves the interest of

capitalism and the neo-liberal ideology of entrepreneurship and prosumption (Duffy 2015; Duffy and Hunt

2015; Fisher 2010; Gill and Pratt 2008; McRobbie 2016; Hesmondhalgh 2010; Manzerolle 2010).

 Moreover, free labour is never free. When not initially or sufficiently generated through the blog,

income has to be relied on elsewhere to sustain bloggers through every day life and help them buy the

time that goes into blogging. Bonnie (2014) would like to blog more but lacks ‘time and money’: ‘I don’t

make any money from it [the blog], I want to do it much more than I do, but I have to think actually if I

spend an hour doing that, I get a lovely post out of it but I’m still worrying about making money’.

Amongst the bloggers I interviewed some had a full-time or part-time job, some had waited for the blog to

take off to leave their full-time job, some were still at university, some could also rely on their relatives,

whether partner or parents, for some financial support.

Discussing one’s financial situation with a stranger (which I was to all the bloggers I interviewed)

is delicate, and it was not always possible for me to ascertain to what extent my respondents may have

been, or may still be, dependent on the financial support of someone else for the running of their blog.

However, it is clear that in the fashion blogosphere as in most fields a privileged social background can

facilitate access to the economic, symbolic and social capitals (Bourdieu 1996) needed for the

development of one’s enterprise. Indeed many successful fashion blogs have been created by individuals

from wealthy families, witness the case of top tiers fashion blogs such as manRepeller.com,

seaofshoe.com or theblondsalad.com which, being led by young, white, thin and pretty women, as

mentioned earlier, also conform to the traditional canons of the fashion press (see also Duffy 2015, and

Duffy and Hund 2015 on US bloggers). Betty (2013) notes:

if you’re putting all your time into something you need to make a living unless, you know, you’re
very lucky and have a whopping great trust fund or something. But most of us don’t. But then
yeah, it’s difficult because you don’t want to end up just doing paid stuff.

You cannot blog for free because you cannot afford to blog for free, but also because you might be seen as

compliant with the capitalistic appropriation, and exploitation, of labour as free labour, and therefore

compliant in the reproduction of the structural inequality free labour feeds off.

Free labor, then following Terranova, is ‘pleasurably embraced and at the same time often

shamelessly exploited’ (2000: 37). However elsewhere she nuances this position when writing that ‘Free

labor, is not necessarily exploited labor’ (48). It is often exploited but not necessarily so. Where, following

the work of scholars such as Fuchs (2011), unremunerated digital activities such as blogging might be

seen as exploited labor, unless one attributes bloggers a false consciousness hardly respectful of their

sense of agency, when it is the bloggers themselves who do not wish to be remunerated can one talk about

exploitation? As Hesmondhalgh (2010: 277) notes ‘There has been a tendency to bandy about the phrase

“free labor” as if it describes one huge, interconnected aspect of inequality and injustice’. Whilst a living

wage is crucial, he insists, wages are not necessarily the only way of rewarding one’s work, and it would

be a mistake to think that people who work ‘on the basis of social contribution or deferred reward’ are

‘duped by capitalism.’ Rather, he observes, it would risk naturalizing ‘capitalism’s own emphasis on

commodification’ (ibid, 278).

Invented labour

In post-Taylorist society, Lazarrato (1996) writes, ‘it is no longer a matter of finding different ways of

composing or organizing already existing job functions, but of looking for new ones’ (135). Or, more

exactly, of inventing new ones, as is the case with fashion blogging, for in the process of blogging, fashion

bloggers have gradually invented a new career.

This often takes place in improvised ways. When I ask Jenny (2013) ‘how do you acquire the

necessary skills?’ She answers: ‘You kind of just make it up as you go along’, echoing the words of Karen

who is ‘learning as I go along really’ and ‘Anything that I don’t know I just tend to google’ (2013). Sarah

went on a business course in 2015: ‘I’m having to become more businesslike, which is a learning curve,

because initially it wasn’t a business’ (2016). In 2016 Monica says of blogging: ‘I’m still trying to work it

out. It’s all so new, isn’t it? […] no-one knows how it’s going to pan out. […] I think everyone has the

same problem. How do you make it work. It’s a financial thing.’

There are various options for monetization, including: sponsored posts, banner ads, affiliate links,

brand partnerships. However, it is not necessarily the blog itself that directly generates income but the jobs

that develop out of it, or are supported by it, such as styling, writing, and photography for other platforms

and brands, consulting on fashion or social media. In that respect the blog acts as a sort of ‘portfolio’

bloggers ‘can get work from’ as Monica (2014) puts it of her site. Although she does not directly monetize

her blog, Bonnie sees it as ‘completely interwoven’ with her online business of selling vintage clothing,

especially ‘now that it’s all linked to Twitter and Facebook as well’ (2014). Similarly Lucile observes that

her blog ‘has been very important for getting me paid work. So people read my blog and they would ask

me to write stuff for their website’ (2014).

When it comes to tariffs, bloggers have had to improvise too. Laura says: ‘this is where blogging

becomes very confusing in the sense that there are all these mixed rules and it’s just a very grey area’

(2014), whilst Penny observes: ‘knowing your value as a blogger is so tricky when there’s no-one kind of

saying, this is how much you should be charging’ (2014). For Bill (2015) ‘That’s incredibly difficult [to

decide how much to charge]. I’m probably starting very low and seeing what… I’m quoting a figure and

seeing what response I get’, and for Monica (2016) deciding how to charge is ‘still a bit vague. People still

think they can get something for nothing, they do.’

However, fashion bloggers can draw on a range of resources to decide how to best go about their

activity and make attendant decisions. The bloggers I interviewed mentioned other bloggers themselves as

well as online platforms such as forums, Facebook groups, Bloglovin, Independent Fashion Bloggers

(IFB), where bloggers share tips and advice, as they also do on their own blogs. Users can find anything

from information on blogging equipment, photography tutorials, tips on how to start a blog or increase

traffic and followers, to advice on ‘how the heck do you figure how much to charge?’ (IFB May 2014) or

‘How to negotiate as a new blogger’ (Zanita 2016). A whole market has emerged aimed at teaching ‘how

to’ blog, from magazines (e.g. Blogosphere Magazine), books, workshops to online resources such as

tutorials and courses, including as developed by successful fashion bloggers themselves such as Zanita

with her site Azalle.

The invention of blogging can be seen as an act of ‘self-regulation’ (Kennedy 2010), where the

self, here, however, is not individualized but collective. It is that of the bloggers and their community – a

term my respondents regularly used to refer to their peers - who exchange tips and ideas, and in the

process invent their activity.

The invention of blogging has itself spurned the invention of new occupations, most notably

perhaps bloggers’ agents and agencies such as Socialyte, Unsigned GRP, IMA. Similarly, fashion

blogging has created in its stride new job opportunities such as blogger photographer. When I interviewed

them again in 2016 three of my respondents were working closely with their own photographer. Betty

(2016) describes her experience:

 I now pay her [her photographer] kind of a retainer to do, it’s either one day a week or two days a
month where we’ll do a full day, we’ll shoot a bunch of stuff. So we might shoot an editorial, two
outfits, a beauty and then a restaurant, it would be in a day, so then any projects that we’re doing
within that, she’ll get 20% of my fee.

The presence of on and off-line resources for blogging might make it less of an unknown venture than in

its early days, but my respondents regularly expressed uncertainty in the future. When I asked Oscar

‘How sustainable is it as a business, your blog?’, he says: ‘I don’t think anyone can answer that. Nobody

knows what the future is, how long this is going to last. […] for all we know, [it] could just be one big

bubble that may burst at any time’ (2014).

Uncertainty can come with anxiety. When I ask him about his future plans James (2013) says: ‘I

don’t know. Once again, there is the scary thing with the blog, you never know. You never know’. More

recently Betty (2016) tells me ‘I don’t trust to have that much longevity […] none of us know what’s

going to happen with it [blogging] and I don’t know where I’m going to go with it.’

Precarity and uncertainty is endemic to creative labour (see Lazarrato 1996). In the case of blogging

it is compounded by the fact that it is a newly invented occupation, which, furthermore, operates in the

ever shifting and rapidly spinning sphere of the world wide web and social media. This invention also

takes place in a context of a saturated labour market. Gaining secure remunerated positions in the fashion

industry in particular can be challenging. James was not able to find a permanent job and decided to

develop his blog fulltime. After graduation Bonnie (2014) tried ‘to do costume things’, but ‘you’re not

being paid’, so she did some office work and started working for herself ‘selling things on eBay and

making quite a lot of money’ alongside blogging. Monica (2014), who also freelances for women’s

magazines, was motivated to start her blog in 2008, with ‘the economy completely tanking […] the

freelancer stuff, it had been so precarious I thought, you know what, I’m just going to write for myself.’

The blog became the ‘portfolio’ that allowed her to gain further freelance work.

It is still early days in fashion blogging time. With both the field of fashion and the internet

economy changing at such a rapid pace, whether the pro-bloggers I interviewed will be able to carry on

sustaining themselves through their blog and build the ‘longetivity’ Betty was referring to is uncertain. As

she jokingly told me at the end of the second interview, ‘we should meet again in 10 years!’.

Conclusion

The fashion blogosphere is in a permanent state of becoming, with new avenues for practices and

monetization being consistently invented not least because of the constant creation of new social media

platforms. New institutions and professions such as blogging agencies and agents are being created and

participate in the transformation of the fashion blogosphere. To better understand it and the new forms of

work that are emerging in digital culture interrogating the rise and establishments of such agencies as well

as the ways PR and social marketing departments approach fashion bloggers would no doubt be useful.

Other researchers may want to undertake this project to contribute to a better understanding of the process

of fashioning professional bloggers.

Yet fashion blogging must be seen as a continuum of practices where hobbyists meet pro-

bloggers and where the distinction between work and leisure is not always clear-cut. Understanding

fashion blogging means understanding this continuum. There, as with much digital labor, ‘hybrid relations

[..] cut across the commercial and non-commercial social networks and markets’ (Banks and Humphreys

2008: 402), which problematizes the relation between hobbyists and pro-bloggers, as it does the equation

of all free labor with exploited labor. This also points to the usefulness of fashion blogging for

understanding contemporary forms of labor, and more generally, to the importance of fashion for thinking

through social, cultural and economic practices.

Participants:

Betty was a fashion student when I interviewed her in 2013. After graduating in 2014 she became a full-

time blogger (personal style). I interviewed her again in 2016. Currently active.

Bill started blogging (40+ personal style) as a hobby in 2011 during his retirement whilst also teaching

part-time. I interviewed him in 2014 and 2015. Currently active.

Bonnie was selling vintage clothes online when she started blogging in 2006 whilst also supporting

herself through ‘office work’. Her online vintage selling took off and she carried on blogging. She lives

off selling vintage clothing. Currently active.

Emile is a student and has been blogging as a hobby (fashion news, designers) since 2008. Currently

active.

James started blogging in 2012. When I first met him he was also teaching for financial support. When I

interviewed him again in 2016 his blog (personal style) had become a Limited. Currently active.

Jane started blogging in 2009 as a hobby (personal style and fashion-related news). She has a PhD in bio-

chemistry and was working as a lecturer when I met her. No longer blogs.

Jenny is a fashion blogger (fashion industry, fashion news) and free-lance fashion journalist. She started

in 2007. I interviewed her in 2013 and 2016. Currently active.

John works full time in a non-fashion related company. He started blogging (menswear) as a hobby in

2010. Last post July 2016.

Julia is a personal style blogger and also free-lances as a fashion journalist and stylist. She started

blogging in 2001. In 2016 she stopped blogging on fashion and has been blogging on travel since.

Juliette started her personal style mommy blog in 2012 whilst working full-time as a civil engineer. Last

post November 2014.

Karen started blogging on second-hand fashion as a hobby in 2008. She was working part-time in a

library when we met. Currently active.

Laura started her personal style blog in 2006, aged16. In university she started monetizing it. After

graduation, in 2011, she became a full-time blogger. Currently active.

Lucile started her vintage fashion and personal style blog in 2008 whilst being a full-time marketing

copywriter. In 2009 she became free-lance (marketing copywriter and social media account manager).

Currently active.

Monica blogs (40+ fashion) professionally alongside her free-lance journalism for women’s magazines

and is considering being a full-time blogger. I interviewed her in 2013 and 2016. Currently active.

Nathalie started her personal style blog in 2008 whilst in university studying graphic design. When we

met in 2013 she was working freelance in web design whilst becoming a pro-blogger. When I interviewed

her again in 2016 her blog had become a Limited. Currently active.

Oscar started blogging (product news, fashion events) in 2010 whilst working in a production company.

He lost his job and decided to ‘make a go of my blog’ (2014) and became a full-time blogger. Currently

active.

Penny started her personal style blog in 2010 whilst in sixth form. At university and working in a fashion

shop her blog took off and she became a full-time blogger in 2013. Currently active.

Rose was a fashion student when I met her and had started blogging in 2012. She was ‘trying to get

established’ (2014) as a blogger. Currently active.

Sarah started blogging in 2008 whilst at university studying knitwear. She then worked for two years in a

fashion company whilst still blogging. She’s been blogging full-time since 2015. I interviewed her again

in 2016. Currently active.

Stephanie is part blogger part personal shopper and started her personal style blog in 2009. She was

building it up as a business when we met (2013). Currently active.

Susan started her plus-size personal style fashion blog in 2010 whilst working full-time in a non-fashion

related company. Last post July 2016.

Vivien started her plus-size fashion blog (personal style) in 2012 and was working full-time in a call-

centre when I met her. Last post June 2016.

Endnotes

1. The date mentioned after a blogger’s name refers to the year of the interview.

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