Brands are always looking for new and innovative ways to tell their story. Social media has provided new channels for PR and marketing, and the core of this new promotional mix is often centered around engaging the the almighty Fashion Influencer, the early adopter, the brand ambassador. While many fashion PR pros may be well versed in the rationale and purpose of pitching fashion bloggers, few brands have gone beyond the fashion blog to engage with fashion influencers in the other places where they are connecting with each other and producing content online.

American Apparel has a history of working directly with fashion influencers as well using real people, aka not models, in their advertising. To recap, they made a series of ads with Chictopia members last year, held an in-store modeling call/shoot for customers during New York’s Fashion’s Night Out, and photographed style bloggers such as The Chic Muse in Mexico City and The Cherry Blossom Girl in Paris.

However, the partnership with LookBook.nu is the most extensive to date, and is rooted in AA’s true appreciation for the LookBook.nu community, as well as a company commitment to use resources as a big company to do cool artistic projects with artists whose work they enjoy. In case you aren’t familiar, LookBook.nu is an invite-only international community of members who post their outfits. Members then vote up the looks that they like, and the more votes, the more your reputation grows. LookBook.nu regularly runs contests with fashion brands that engage their community around producing content.

As a representative from AA explains, “basically, we were intrigued with LookBook.nu when it first came out, which led us to eventually advertise and feature their users on our site. We decided to do a bigger collaboration late last year and as part of it hosted a contest where their members submitted photos featuring their favorite American Apparel pieces. Now there are something like 7,000+ looks of people using our basics. Our 132 favorites became The LOOKBOOK.nu Lookbook by American Apparel.”

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"The Secret Garden" behind the scenes, FBYA Interns

Industry Creative PR, a new boutique PR agency in Dallas, Texas that caters to creative professionals and businesses, has announced new client, Fashion Benefiting Youth Artists. FBYA is a non-profit organization that provides mentorship and scholarship to young artists and fundraise through fashion events. FBYA interns will be producing a monthly “Lookbook” to be presented on their Young Fashion Artists blog, website, and other fashion related media outlets.

For more information, please contact CJ Johnson at betheindustry[at]gmail.com

The decision to fly up for Portland Fashion Week was rather spontaneous, a few tweets exchanged with Bethany Waggoner, the voice behind the @portlandfashion account and, conveniently front of house for the event, and I packed my bags. After recently returning from Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York City, I was interested in attending a smaller event and was especially looking forward to PFW’s eco-fashion focus.

Lizzie Parker, Aundrea Harrell/Ephraim Studios Photography

This was PFW’s sixth year, Project Runway winner Leanne Marshall is known for showing here in 2006 and in 2007, Portland Fashion Week became been the first sustainable production of a fashion week in the world. The 2009 event was executive produced by Tito Chowdhury and Christopher Cone and attracted airline Luftansa as well as Spin and Surface magazine (and others) as sponsors.  The event was held at the Vigor Shipyards in Swan Island and featured over 50 designers over four days who walked an eco-sustainable bamboo runway.

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