The fashion industry is the most insecure on earth. I mean, who knew, right? she said, with a deep eye roll.
That desperate desire to be seen as the most elite can make you either cry or laugh and I know what I prefer to do.
Occasionally, though, the insecurity emerges in a way so tiresome and self-defeating you have to call it out. This week for example, I was researching a trend piece about tailoring for a luxury magazine.
I talked to PRs about the pieces relevant to my story and asked for background info, credits, fabrics, price points. Most people responded in a helpful manner. But one big label got sniffy. I seemed to have raised their hackles by even daring to inquire about their tailoring.
They would, they said, only impart any information about their collection if I sent them a list of every other brand I was writing about. Right.
Apart from that being a colossal waste of my time, this seemed nuts. Isn’t a fashion label a commercial business? Isn’t the point of PR to tell people what your fabulous brand is doing so that they’ll want to buy it?
The magazine I’m writing for is known throughout the world as only being interested in luxury brands and highly-crafted pieces. Common sense should have informed them – before they sent that email – that I wasn’t going to be throwing their beautiful brand in with the supermarket labels. There’s image control – and then there’s a point where you’re doing your brand a disservice and creating unnecessary friction. I would say, don’t go there!
