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The fashion world has been an ever changing industry since the boom of fashion bloggers that emerged on the internet in 2002. From them on, normal people with no association to the business of fashion began to share their passion through personal style blogs where they posted everything from inspiration for upcoming seasons, their outfits of the day and even beauty and health routines. Bloggers such as Kristina Bazan gained so much momentum and following (1.5 Million on Instagram) that they now attend all of the major fashion week's around the globe, do collaborations with major fashion houses and have most importantly become a go-to destination for fashion enthusiasts that prefer an intimate approach to fashion over the old-school Vogue magazine.
What is attractive about these personal style blogs is sort of geting to know the blogger, and his or her style. Looking at their outfits of the day and what inspired them and finding inspiration in them. Us as viewers trusting that what they are wearing is something that they love and picked out themselves. Below is a post of one of Kristina's outfits, here there is no mention of brands so we just get to see the overall ensamble as inspiration.
Unfortunatly though, with fame fashion bloggers have turned what began as a hobby and a passion into a business. Now they receive gifts from brands and get paid to feature their products since the traffic of their blogs is an attractive advertising opportunity. This is a form of Native Advertising, which means it is paid advertising that flows or blends in with the experience where it is placed. In this case, the advertising is not direct and blends in with the original outfit of the day posts which users are searching for. Take for example these two posts by Kristina, at first glance it may look like an ordinary post about her style and her outfit, but it is in the comments section, where she refers to specific brands that we see the hidden advertising.
In these posts she mentions particular brands that she is trying to feature or advertise to her viewers. This then could be native advertising, by either Valentino paying her to mention their rockstud heels or Chloe for featuring their bag. Althoug this is a perfect example of everyday Native Advertising in the fashion world, and how easily viewers might be tricked into believing that it is actually just an outfit posts, we will never know for sure. Here is where this differs from other types of native adverstisin say on Buzzfeed, where they specifically show: "sponsered by" and the brands name. On blogs and on Instagram bloggers don't have such commitment so it makes it difficult for us to know for a fact if Kristina or the many other famous bloggers post what they really want to wear or what they are getting paid to feature.
Keep your eyes open fashionistas!
xoxo Nicole