Bloggers at LFW and freebie culture

 

“They are ruthless, hungry and dressed to kill.” – The Times on bloggers. And a blogger’s eye view on the bad behaviour of some bloggers. Manners cost nothing, that is true. 

I was at London Fashion Week in an intern capacity and some of the controversy surrounding the attendance of bloggers has reminded me of a general stress in my life: the way I’m devaluing my own work by participating in the free work culture. The drama boils down to bloggers getting seats at shows and clogging up the press room, drinking the free coffee etc. First things first: a pastry is not a “freebie”, it is a small, kind gesture by the organisers. I refuse to feel bad for eating a danish. Mmm, danish. 

Bloggers

Some bloggers feel the medium is being tarnished by those with a purely commercial or silly interest in fashion as a spectcale. Some professional writers and editors are getting increasingly annoyed with the presence of amateurs who don’t play by the rules. LFW is indeed an industry thing and there is a hierarchy – if you are a buyer for example and can make money for a designer, you sit front row so you can see properly. But if the PR company puts a popular blogger in a good seat, that’s just how it is as well. This industry showcase has been glamourised by Vogue et al as an exciting place to be but it isn’t. There’s no one to talk to, the parties are awful and if you don’t have something to do, like an article to write, you just sit there on your own feeling like a lemon.

But a cool-looking lemon in Topshop wedges, right? Cool-looking lemon not pictured.

I don’t disagree that at any decent magazine the standard of journalism is much higher than on any blog. Fact-checking and sub-editing: two elements that should be part of a paid-for news service and that I am concerned are dying out. But a little perspective: bloggers don’t get paid. And while I’m at it, interns don’t get paid and us amateurs find our work perfectly acceptable at many of the same companies those who are criticising work for. Everyone earning a wage in the fashion industry is currently underpinned by someone working for free. A few years ago, entry-level work was paid; now the entire rock-bottom tier of the work pyramid is being done for nothing.

At the moment, I am both a blogger and an intern and despite working hard on whatever I am given to do, my work is valued at £0 an hour. I am at companies, creating content for their websites and publications,  on the blog promoting stuff because I like it and at shows covering them for other people for free because I love writing and mouthing off. I know dozens of people doing the same. 

Interns

My work’s been completely devalued by the interning culture. When I go for interviews the work I did to the same standard as everyone else but with no holiday, no training, no NI contributions and no rights, is viewed as almost worthless. Why would they hire me for a paid position when I’ve only been an intern? At what point do I deserve to step up?

I feel quite degraded by the way I’m being treated by the world of work at the moment and I’ve done and am still doing my fair share of uncushy jobs so I’m not an overprivileged trust-fund kid who wants to walk into a plum role as soon as I stroll out of uni. I just want to be paid minimum wage, as per the law. 

Fashion Week is supposed to be glamorous, that’s why people want to go. So I find it bemusing that now the kids are  able to actually go, some people are up in arms. Some are blaming the PR companies; FYI, the job of sorting through applications for tickets is usually done by an intern. There’s been a tenfold increase in applications by bloggers since last year so it must be hard to know how to be selective.

I know there’s two different issues at work here but I feel double-scorned at the moment. If I am ever lucky enough to get properly paid for what I do I hope I never get so complacent that I resent those at the bottom eating a free slice of cake. 

S

Saw no reason to break with pictorial theme.

A little bit Disco, a little bit cups of tea

Hello devoted readers.  The blog has made it through its first year and to celebrate the blood, sweat and tears that went into our many posts about Topshop, we are throwing a soiree.

It is in the downstairs room at the lovely Scooter Caffe in Waterloo, tomorrow after work. My directions above are a little vague, try this Google Maps link instead.

The lovely Scooter Caffe.

There’ll be cakes, some little presents, tea and hopefully people who read blogs, write blogs, make clothes, make crafts, and generally people who are lovely. Feel free to turn up and introduce yourself.

xxx S & A, proud blog mothers

Paris – Part One

I went to Paris a few weeks, and the  trip was accompanied by the usual quandaries about packing.  I knew the weather would be chilly (10 degrees) I plumped for my red coat with blue rosette.

On winter breaks, it is often your coat that ends up in all the photos so it is worth wearing something you love and feel comfortable in. This red coat, from United Colours of Benetton, was a ‘coming of age coat’ when purchased 4 years ago. I thought about it for ages before shelling out the most I had ever spent on a single item, and I have never regretted it.

My red coat

My travelling outfit (purple skirt and black top) didn’t make the cut because I got too hot and changed as soon as reached the hotel. Black shorts, chequered shirt and pumps served me well (although I need hardier footwear next time).

I wore an even more relaxed outfit on the second day – light grey Whistles jersey dress, sequinned top underneath with a purple Gap sweater over the top. This outfit was all about the details.

Trying to find creative ways to show you my outfit in Musee D'Orsay

And the third day saw me crack out my new favourite red Vanessa Bruno dress with brogues. There was a little bit of red overload but I’m hoping that anyone who saw me that day has now recovered.

Arty.

Parisian shabby chic

And then it was time to go home.

But that wasn’t so bad because I ate more cake when I got there.

A

High tea with Lulu Guinness

Not Lulu herself, sadly, who was called away at the last minute, but her very charming minions. Ten or so lucky bloggers were invited to eat this beautiful tea at the Metropolitan hotel and A and I got to sit next to Katie and Joe from What Katie Wore. Katie is really beautiful in real life, as was Kathrin of Fashionista Diary who sat on my right (you can see Katie’s snazzy yellow Cos outfit from the event here). I have my charms but they are very much reduced after I have been caught in a major rainstorm. I was in good spirits though, as you can see.

Katie and Joe pronounced themselves winners of the cake-eating contest and I really wish I hadn’t tried to out-do them as I may have overindulged a little. It emerged afterwards that this is a low-fat “healthy” tea; those glass jars contain delicious “bread-free sandwiches”. I am suspicious of low-fat cake alternatives as a rule but these were nice and I guess it is aimed at Fashion Week nibblers and not bloggers. As RetroChick notes in her report, there were no bird-like eaters at this tea and everyone left with a doggie bag of extra cakes although I fed mine to hungry friends as I may have exploded and died if I ate any more.

I had already started on this biscuit because I am a greedy piglet.

What started off with earnest chats about online media etc inevitably got silly with some of the signature Lulu lips biscuits. It’s great being a blogger sometimes.It was cool to meet other bloggers and I found it quite amazing how generous Lulu Guinness were to us, laying on such a lovely tea. We do Disco Nap mainly for a laugh after all, as you can probably tell.

S

p.s. I want to clarify that my hair looked amazing when I left the house, and that despite the cliche, London actually has lower than average rainfall compared to most large cities in the world.

Competition: Win tickets to Paris!

As you may have seen, the A-bot was one of the lucky bloggers who got to go on Eurostar’s Little Break trip to Paris with lots of other very chic writers from the blogosphere. Another great perk of having been on this trip is that we now get to offer you, our readers, a chance to win a pair of swanky Leisure Select tickets to Paris. Apparently this is the Eurostar class that comes with pastries, which makes the train trip sound most exciting in itself.

To win the tickets, comment on this post with a few words telling us who your favourite French icon is and why. Whoever persuades us theirs is the best will win. Don’t forget:  you have to leave a form of contact so we can let you know you’ve won – an email address, blog or Twitter are all fine.

You have  a week to enter, must be over 18 and live in the UK. The tickets must be used before the end of October.

Good luck!

Below, Disconap presents our French icons.

A’s french icon: baguettes. Mine: croissants.

Why the Baguette is my French Icon
 

i) For starters, it is extremely tasty and the French are always telling Brits that French food is superior. I mean, they have a point. The baguette is that little bit of French food I can eat daily without breaking the bank (unlike my macaroon addiction).
 
ii) When I visited Vietnam, I had baguettes for breakfast every single day. It made a nice change to noodle soup and I became quite attached to this humble bread.
 
iii) It makes a nice film substitute to that other French classic – smoking and looking cool. Film censors say we can’t have cigarettes (see British posters for Coco Avant Chanel compared to French posters). I say, replace with a baguette; similar shape and far tastier.
 
iv) It is one of the few French words I can say with my crappy accent and still get served in Paris.
 
v) It is just so quintessentially French; more a normal part of British/French lives than Chanel or Breton striped Ts and less stereotyped than a string of onions.

You can see what we spend most of our time thinking about. Try to break free from our bread-based preoccupations and run free in the comments!

Why the Croissant is my French icon.

It’s a cake you can eat for breakfast.

x S

Finland – The country cottage

Well I’m now back in England after my week in Finland and it was lovely, although there was a lot of rain. The good thing about going to a country cottage in the Finnish countryside is that you’re not there to do anything anyway so it doesn’t really matter whether you are lazing about in the house or by the lake.

This is not the most picturesque bit of the surrounding countryside by any means but you get the idea.

We borrowed a cottage from my parent’s friends in a place called Lohja, about 50 miles from Helsinki. One of the friends is an architect and their son works for a Finnish design company called Lundia so although they haven’t had the cottage very long, it’s on its way to being really lovely.

The view from the cottage: mainly rain falling on trees for hundreds of miles.

All country cottages are different geographically and this one was on a long thin piece of land that was very steep and required all these little wooden stairs to get down to the sauna building and the lake. Sadly the jetty, which you can just see at the bottom, had sunk so we couldn’t sit on it, although we would have gotten very wet if we had tried anyway.

Actually we did have some beautiful weather while we were there as well as rain and the very long hours of daylight lend themselves to sitting around til very late. We mainly ate sandwiches and cake during the day and had really late dinners like this one, which I made. It’s smoked fish (YUM) with dill.

The cake of which I speak is the national cake of Finland, the pulla. It’s basically a cinnamon and cardamom roll, a bit like a chelsea bun without fruit, and you can get it everywhere and in all manner of variations. The one that’s killing me on the nutrition front at the moment is the “Dallas” version, which has some sort of vanilla custard piped into it and is absolutely delicious.

Here, for your education, is a pulla. My dad said this photo was too boring to put on the blog but I bite my thumb at him!

I might need to eat one of my stash of these now to prolong my Finland feeling.

S