FASHION'S BROKEN TELEPHONE

Having covered fashion for a while now, I know all too well how designers often feel like their work has been misrepresented in the media. It's a fair complaint. Journalists, and bloggers for that matter, should make sure that at all times whatever they commit to ink is factual or at least representative of every side of the story. It is a responsibility that we need to honour if we are to be taken seriously as critics or reporters. The one thing that designers neglect in their thinking, however, is how they put their brands out there. More often than not, South African designers don't leave brochures in goodie bags to inform the audience at fashion week, for example, of the thinking behind their collections. And, even worse, press days are a myth and this leaves many writers to their own devices in terms of trying to construct meaning out of collections that are hardly ever cohesive to start with. This, for me, simply spells a public relations failure on the part of the designer. At the end of the day, it is your business that is being written about. What are you doing to make sure that whatever you stand for is what's reflected in the media? Acting as if the press doesn't exist really doesn't help. It only works to your detriment. 
Yves Saint Laurent, or whatever it is they are called these days, learnt this the hard way after they decided on a branding overhaul but neglected to fully disclose their thinking in this regard. How one decides to change the look and feel of a decades old brand without explaining how this is going to play out is rather puzzling. Business Of Fashion's Imran Amed pens an informative piece on how YSL was let down by its PR team with regards to the rebranding. It is a piece that is guaranteed to get you thinking. Click and read!