Fashion Industry discussion, review, analysis, news, and information

Weronika Cwir of American Apparel paid me a visit the other day. She was commenting on my earlier post about the hoopla with the company and Clamor, the Ohio magazine that is publishing the article about American Apparel.

I agree with Weronika in one respect:

“The writer of the piece that just came out on Knowmore.org disagrees with American Apparel policies, but it's an article we consider to be very good, because it is very well researched and it presents facts in an objective way. That's good journalism.”

However, I think that Weronika may be a little naive to the power that many bloggers have as compared to print magazines...

“I don't think any intelligent reader would assume that something she reads in a blog is necessarily a correct statement of fact, or base her opinion of a company on some blog entry. But readers of print publications have a reasonable expectation that stuff they read in those publication was produced by competent journalists and approved by fact checkers.”

Not necessarily. I, for one, consider myself a pretty intelligent reader and I don’t believe things I read in print publications. In fact, I read more blogs than I do other publications or news websites. There are many bloggers out there who are far more competent writers than people who write for newspapers or print publications. However, I’m not saying that there aren’t bad bloggers out there whose sole purpose is to talk crap about other people and tell lies.

Now, my point here is that American Apparel is focusing too much on one little publication with only a few thousand or so readers - a publication in Ohio, for that matter (no offense, Ohio!) My point is, what they should be paying attention to is those blogs that have thousands of readers from all over the world...with readers who are loyal readers and do base their opinions on what that particular blogger has said.

I have a few hundred visits a day to this blog with readers from all over the world...and who knows how many people read my posts at Coutorture. So, what if I had talked trash about American Apparel and those readers each told five of their friends what I said? I think it would make a much bigger impact than a few thousand people in Ohio.

In closing, Weronika gave this comparison:

“It's like this: if someone scribbled on a bathroom stall "Maria is stupid" you might erase it, or cross it out, or just ignore it. But if a professor wrote in a reference letter "Maria is bad student," and you felt that this unfair description of you might damage your carereer, you'd probably do something about it, no?”

I welcome your thoughts on this!