13th
How the Fashion Industry is Embracing Social Media
What’s the hottest trend in fashion right now? Social media of course.

As part of fashion week prep on Wednesday, I decided to do a quick search for #nyfw (New York Fashion Week, going on right now in New York) on Twitter. To my surprise, conversations ran the gamut — some Tweeters chimed in about the pending snow storm waiting to blanket the city, and others were buzzing about the Alexander Wang, Marc Jacobs and Rodarte shows being streamed online. When I turned away for half a second (literally) to grab my coffee, I was met with the words “43 more tweets since you started searching.” 43 more tweets? Really?
What was most shocking wasn’t the sheer volume of people talking about the week-long event, but the actual people who were participating in the conversation. Journalists, fashion incubators, retail gurus and people who were just plain interested in the industry were weighing in on a topic that has notoriously shut its doors to anyone deemed an outsider. Why the transparency now?