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Famous American Fashion Bloggers with potential in China

Some bloggers have become very popular through the internet. Through the blogosphere, they give lifestyle pieces of advice and findings in fashion as well as news from brands. They are called “IT girls”. They use the internet, blogs, twitters, SNS (social networks) with a high dexterity. Some of them even launch businesses through their blog. Let’s have a look at 4 of them.

Gwyneth Paltrow

The actress Gwyneth Paltrow was one of the first to become an active blogger. Despite skepticism and sarcasm, she was the first to begin a blog on fashion and lifestyle. Her website,www.goop.com , was launched in 2008. It was the first famous star to blog actively. On her blog, she plays a model with the products she finds and likes. On her blog, she talks about everything she is interested in: beauty, health, outdoor activities, and discover the biological products of Dr. Bronner, the classes of gym from Tracy Anderson, the cheese « roquefort » and many other private details. She also suggests some websites with low prices such as www.zara.com. She is posting an article every 2 days. She even created an application called Goop for smartphones. It is a city guide of New York but is going to cover other cities soon. On her blog, she has been quite direct, criticizing openly Madonna for instance. Below are some pictures of the website / blog Goop.

Aslaug Magnusdottir & Lauren Santo Domingo

Aslaug Magnusdottir and Lauren Santo Domingo are real business women. Initially, they are socialites. Lauren is an ex-stylist and cousin of Tatiana Santo Domingo; Aslaug was the president of the jewelry company House of Waris. They began with the will to get the pieces of art during the catwalks that creators then transform for the mass-market. In order to be able to buy these products, they created a website to make it possible. In February 2011, they created www.modaoperandi.com. Their words are: Fashion from the catwalk. It is a very high-end website. As soon as the catwalk is done, the team of Moda Operandi goes to the backstage to take pictures of the pieces of clothes. These pictures are posted on the website. The clients give 50% to the website and 5 to 6 months later, the designers produce the same piece of clothes and deliver the client. Missoni,Isabel Marant, Proenza Schouler are some of the designers participating in the adventure. This is quite a revolution of e-commerce and fashion. The prices are very high and belong to luxury products.

Olivia Palermo

Olivia Palermo has more followed the crowd than innovating. She is openly criticized for just using her fame to monetize through the internet. She is basically copying another IT girl called Alexa Chung. Her website is www.oliviapalermo.com. At the same time, she is modeling every week in magazines and presenting on MTV. She is also representative of Mango. She is known as not providing anything new and using opportunities to gain some revenues and fame. Her blog is not very well updated as well. The website has recently added a coupon business to get discounts on products she displayed. Typically, that is what bloggers doubt of: the credibility of the tips when they are sponsored by companies.

Tatiana Santo Domingo & Dana Alikhani

Tatiana Santo Domingo and Dana Alikhani are great travelers. They are very famous and come from wealthy families. They are often on magazines with their other famous friends Margherita Missoni, Bianca Brandolini or Eugénie Niarchos. The first one is the grand child of one of the richest family in Columbia. She was born in New York, raised in Switzerland, studied in London and is splitting her life between Paris, London and New York. The second one comes from Iran, born in Chyprus and settled in New York. As old friends, they started their website together and created www.muzungusisters.com in 2009. Their website displays many new products. They go around the world to find new products, 100% made by hands. Each product is unique and explained through culture with insights.

Market Analysis of These Bloggers

These persons are between journalists and business women. Many of other people are what we can say “citizen journalsits”or simple opiniated consumers. Most people on SNS are opinioated consumers talking about some products they bought. Among all these internet users, there is a wide range of different users and commentators with different intensity and for some of them as opinion leaders (KOL = key opinion leaders). People will rely more on people with a blog with 2,000 followers than on wealthy people who sells real estate. Even though blogs such as Beauty Addict, Café Mode, Who What Wear are sometimes managed by the brands, they have been a good examples of what can be done online.

All these blogs are all the more important since 75% of people consult a blog before a purchase and 65% seek other opinions, 48% for light entertainment. The adoption rate of blogs among wealthy less than 55 years old is as high as x5 from 2007 to 2008. 10% of the wealthy in the US (more than 300,000 USD a year) have a blog. On the range of 35-75 K USD income, 43% do have a blog. Online luxury consumers belong to at least 2 forums. One third of active bloggers have been approached to be brand advocate. 20% of bloggers talk about one brand at least, 90% of the bloggers only write on products they like or they hate. 40% of bloggers are said to be influent (influence at least a dozen of persons). As we can see, the wealthy segment is online.
Edited by Amy Wang from Daxue China Consultants.
Picture source: Google Image