MRTHOMASWHITEHEAD

The magnificently quotable Kanye West delivered some rather interesting insight into the psychology behind the latest wave of style blogs such as jjjjound in his recent interview for the OMM

While one should have no illusion that for a great many of these blogs, the appeal is the prospects of “monetising” or at least getting some free clobber, for a great deal others, the modus operandi of these journals seems to be merely to serve as a showcase for the bloggers impeccable curatorial abilities. Although the interviewer denies us a direct quote, he mentions that:

“He thinks the blog ’saved me a whole bunch of money’, reasoning that instead of spending millions on several homes, a fleet of cars and a trophy wife to prove his taste and success like a traditional pop star, he can simply showcase his impeccable taste on his blog.”

While perusing blogs and tumblrs full of endless pictures of lovely shoes, lovely watches, lovely bikes, lovely jackets, lovely cameras, lovely speedboats, lovely architecture and lovely girls all strung together is compelling, it is also more than a little creepy. It also has rather dire economic implications for the luxury goods sector. A Burberry Prorsum regimental trench on Net-a-Porter costs over a grand. A jpeg of it on a blog costs nothing.

Still- i’m cautious about criticising- just as in real life, while some people will use their public front to show how impeccably refined they are and some may use it to work through their emotional turmoil, others will just try and use it to hold other’s foibles in the light for comparison.