Back from the Long Blogging Pause: My Thoughts on Fashion Weeks Today

Hello dear reader and thebaghagdiaries blog! I hope you don’t mind my Sunday ramblings (and apologies in advance if none of this makes any sense haha)! I am just waxing nostalgic today because I came across one of my earlier fashion week photos which I had also posted on my IG feed. So here I am, writing on my blog again, after over a year of inactivity!

I attended my first Paris Fashion Week show 12 years ago this year (lol yes I’m ancient) as one of the blogging pioneers in an industry then-populated by print media.

Fashion blogging was still so new to everyone.  Bloggers who were invited to shows were mostly style bloggers who documented their daily, still-unsponsored outfits for their readers. I was never a style blogger. I just liked sharing my thoughts through words and not through OOTD photos. I just really liked documenting experiences. Back then, there were so few street style photographers — there was of course, the OG Bill Cunningham, and then-newcomers Scott Schuman, Tommy Ton, Phil Oh. Sure there was chaos on the streets, but it was manageable.

Times have changed, as they should (haha over a decade later). My last fashion week attendance was in 2020 before the pandemic shut everything down, and I haven’t attended shows since. Pre-pandemic fashion week, surrounding areas of show venues had become mad-congested with well over 200 street style photographers, industry folk (buyers, journalists), celebrities (and their posse), influencers (who are show goers) and influencers (who are just there to be photographed but are not show goers), celeb fans and fashion watchers crowding the streets. Also somewhere along the way, the publicity about actual brand collections would get overshadowed by the amount of mainstream press focused on celebs who attended the shows. It also became more about the flex of getting invited, wearing fancy outfits loaned by brands (in exchange for exposure on the ‘gram), and being seen & “discovered” by blue chip fashion publications and fashion industry’s high priests/ priestesses.  To be fair though, one can easily get drunk on the energy during this period, as it was both electric and contagious with a lot of adrenaline-highs. It’s good to see the industry slowly bouncing back again after a near 2-year hiatus. I do wish though that more of these show goers and influencers pay attention to and promote not just the bigger, more commercially popular brands, but also the smaller, independent ones.

All of these walk-down-memory-lane moments just got me thinking about how grateful I am and remain for the decades-long stint I had in the industry, for having been given a chance to view everything from the inside very early on (pre-Instagram!). I have forged some wonderful, lifelong relationships in the process because of all that. I still love visiting showrooms to personally inspect and touch products so I can share them with you all, but as far as physically attending shows go, I can say I’m happy to retire and view all the action from behind the screen, wearing comfy clothes and slippers (haha bye bye heels). I have to say this though, it’s great to be able to pass the torch on to the younger show goers who have the stamina (oh yes this is a prerequisite) and “passion for fashion.” I do hope that their purpose for attending goes far beyond providing flex and hype content for their followers, and that they can use their influence in their platforms of choice to also help young talents who don’t yet have the financial resources to mount big scale marketing campaigns. I remain hopeful that these younger influencers step up 🙂

Happy Sunday, everyone! It’s good to be back here to share my thoughts without the need to edit the whole story for grammatical errors haha! Don’t judge, please lol!

Be well and stay safe always, everyone!

x

Ingrid @thebaghag

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