Vogue faces backlash after criticising fashion bloggers in “borrowed clothes”

Fashion magazine Vogue courted controversy last week after it published an article naming bloggers as ‘pathetic’ ‘desperate’ and ‘embarrassing’ during Milan Fashion Week.

Fashion magazine Vogue courted controversy last week after it published an article naming bloggers as ‘pathetic’ ‘desperate’ and ‘embarrassing’ during Milan Fashion Week.

The four US Vogue editors have been told to “get back to their Werther’s Originals”, after complaining about the presence of “pathetic” and fashion bloggers in “borrowed clothes” as the high profile event.

In recent years, fashion bloggers such as Susie Lau, Chiara Ferragni and Shea Marie have garnered huge followings on social media, taking the younger generation of fashion fans away from the iconic Vogue magazine tin the process.

Ferragni, whose blog is called The Blonde Salad, has 6.7 million followers on Instagram and has her own shoe range.

British blogger Lau, known as Susie Bubble, has 277,000 followers on Twitter; 302,000 on Instagram and attends about 140 shows a season

Shea Marie – who calls herself a “fashion influencer, designer, stylist, creative consultant, TV host, photographer, model” – has a million Instagram followers.

The senior staff members at Vogue criticised bloggers for changing their outfits every hour, going as far to suggest that by “trolling up and down outside shows” they were risking traffic accidents.

The article read: “Note to bloggers who change head-to-toe, paid-to-wear outfits every hour: Please stop. Find another business.

“It is beyond how funny is that we even still call them ‘bloggers’ as so few of them even do that anymore.”

Continuing to poke at bloggers, the Vogue contributors expressed their unhappiness with fashion bloggers attending fashion shows. They wrote: “Rather than a celebration of actual style, it seems to be all about turning up, looking ridiculous, posing, twitching in your seat as you check your social media feeds, fleeing, changing, repeating…it’s all pretty embarrassing.”

The article stoked up much criticism on Twitter. Blogger Susie Bubble tweeted: “Bloggers who wear paid-for or borrowed clothes are merely doing the more overt equivalent of that editorial-credit system.

“Its just that bloggers sadly don’t have prestigious titles/publications to hide behind and represent themselves soley.”
Here are a few of the tweets that followed the article.