Fashion Blogging: a blooming career

Fashion today is people’s commodity; they want to explore it, try it, judge it and be enlightened about it. If you are an avid follower of fashion and are often found scrutinising and exploring the latest trends in fashion, then you might want to explore the world of Fashion blogging.

Fashion is trend-driven and fashion blogs provide a new way to follow and oversee these fast-paced trends.“I see so many friends who are successful fashion bloggers. I feel that fashion blogging in India is going to be the next big thing and supersede journalism at many levels. Hence, as a professional writer and artist, I felt that fashion blogging is the perfect way to amalgamate my two loves,” says AnikaVerma, a fashion blogger herself.

Here are some handy tips for those longing to make it big as a fashion blogger:

• You could start by making your own blog, by joining Blogspot, Tumblr or Wordpress.
• Make sure the blog has its domain name.
• Always keep a track of latest happenings in the fashion world. For instance Fashion weeks, launching of designer stores etc.
• Try and include quotes by designers or fashion gurus, to make the blog more credible.
• Pictures are always a good watch. Keep a camera handy and post pictures of latest trend spotting, designer collections and fashion weeks.

Apurva Saxena, fashion blogger

Talking about fashion blogging as a career and sharing her views about the Indian fashion blogging scenario, here’s Apurva Saxena creator of Kalapalette blogspot.in, in a candid chat with Tuulika Misra of shiksha.com.

Going through the struggle period of my professional life, I found comfort in surfing through various Indian and international blogs and websites. I really wanted to start my own blog, where I can show my creative side, and maybe have few followers and friends to make it more interesting. This is where Kalapalette came into being. It took me whole lot of time to design the blog page and come up with a blog name which defines me. Kalapalette is made out of two languages; Kala means art in Hindi which signifies my vision of Fashion being an art, whereas palette defines the blog where I weave my creative side.

Building a huge following absolutely depends on your skills. It didn't come suddenly to me! I observed the pattern and likings of the people who are net savvy, and at the same time pushed my creative limits to build an interesting yet unique blog. This process started getting appreciation from fellow people, and gradually the number grew.

Making a blog profitable is bit of a challenge here in India. But still if one works up wisely then various brand collaborations do generate some profits. Mostly the profits are paid in kind, but in some cases the profits can be monetary as well.

It feels great when I get invited by renowned designers to review their latest collection, or invited to attend prestigious awards and fashion weeks. This not only establishes a niche for the blog, but also benefits in gaining contacts with important people of this industry.

There is a huge difference between the Fashion blogging scenario of India and abroad. The biggest reason being the definition of a blogger in India as somebody who has taken up fashion writing as a "hobby" or has loads of time to invest in fun writing experience and some freebies. Whereas internationally, the fashion bloggers are taken as the social network journalists. In abroad people can take up blogging as a full fledged profession, whereas, here in India it’s a struggling profession. Indian market still follows the old rules of marketing, they do not understand the benefits of utilising online media to promote their features quick and on a much larger scale.