Vestoj and Style Zeitgeist have teamed up in a dialogue and series of critiques of recent events in fashion media to raise more wide-reaching questions about the state of contemporary fashion media – and what that says about our industry at large. In the third instalment, we examine the notion of transparency, and how four different publishing platforms are dealing with the issue in relation to their respective funding models.

LOUIS VUITTON’S RECENT 2017 resort collection was presented last month at the Oscar Niemeyer-designed Niterói Contemporary Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The modernist building’s curvaceous ramp, set against a spectacular mountainous bay, was an ambitious venue that made for a photogenic catwalk locale, though its opulence, for some, jarred with the country’s current political and economic uncertainty.

Coverage delivered in the form of reviews and photo-ops ensured that the cost of its staging – from the elaborate set, to the flying in of overseas press, buyers and celebrities – was money well spent. This came via the typical set of high traffic fashion platforms like Vogue.com, T Magazine, High Snobiety and WWD, ensuring the event was thoroughly and successfully documented.

Within this slew of articles, The Business of Fashion weighed in with a piece that recorded the event by mostly addressing its economic and political significance. Against a backdrop of the otherwise mostly frivolous coverage, BoF attempted a more analytical, and much welcome, perspective of the event. However, more thought provoking was a short statement at the end of the article stating LVMH’s investment in the platform. It read:

‘Disclosure: LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton, is part of a group of investors who, together, hold a minority interest in The Business of Fashion. All investors have signed shareholder’s documentation guaranteeing BoF’s complete editorial independence. Lauren Sherman travelled to Rio de Janeiro as a guest of Louis Vuitton.’

The statement appears to be an attempt to reassure readers of the publisher’s candour, and their dedication to deliver unbiased and reliable coverage of the event despite the apparent relationship between host and guest. The gesture reflected a transparency rarely seen in the murky realm of fashion publishing.

Other publications have not gone so far as this. The fashion and lifestyle platform Nowness,¹ that has Dazed & Confused’s Jefferson Hack as creative director, is also funded by LVMH. Though editorially very different to The Business of Fashion, there is no mention of the funding from the luxury group anywhere on the site. Instead, this information is found only through a general internet search, or on the LVMH website.²

‘Nowness has built the influence and authority to genuinely curate and shape the future of cultural conversations, and goes beyond just delivering experiences. We provide solutions to the industry by creating bespoke content for premium brands looking to reach our premium audience. Nowness is truly an innovator.’

– Jefferson Hack, creative director at Nowness, as featured on lvmh.com 

When Nowness was launched in 2010, an article by The Guardian responded with a brief, but apt blog post shortly after, highlighting the project as one that, ‘promises to blur the lines between editorial and promotional content in a “beautiful” way.’³ Back then Nowness was one of the first of its kind in the digital realm, but the site has since become emblematic in the landscape of fashion publishing where sponsorships are often shadowy terrain, particularly concerning the agenda an investor might have. Though the funding model adopted by Nowness allows the platform to remain advertising-free, issues arise around selectivity and what is chosen to be featured as published content. For example, Nowness often releases exclusive features, such as collection videos, made by Louis Vuitton and other brands within the LVMH group.

The Talks,⁴ an online interview platform created and funded by Rolex, reflects another editorial venture for a luxury company. The website aspires to cultural capital with editorial featuring interviews with high profile figures from art, film and fashion – similar to earlier incarnations like United Colors of Benetton’s Colors or Acne’s Acne Paper. Unlike Nowness, The Talks’ website reveals its economic framework immediately and explicitly with the Rolex logo on the right-hand of the website’s banner, relying on this separation with the editorial as a brand-building exercise for Rolex. Within the industry, marketers and press teams place significant emphasis on ‘content,’ a buzzword that is seen to be a critical mode of generating cultural capital, and thus sales, for a brand.

A similar and recent example of brand-generated editorial is the print publication Porter, the in-house fashion magazine launched by Net-a-Porter in 2015. Porter models itself off the tradition of the seasonal high fashion magazine, and, though it is obviously affiliated with the Net-a-Porter group, still targets the same audience as its competitors, and is thus challenged by notions of transparency in terms of the brands they choose to feature – or not feature – in their fashion stories.

The relationship between advertising (brand) and editorial (publication) in fashion has never been straightforward, as scholar Lynda Dyson contends, ‘Editorial is […] perhaps, the most valuable form of media content because it is perceived to be unbiased and believable. Its ‘‘purity’’ (precisely because it is not advertising) derives from its aura of authority and neutrality.’⁵ But this merging of brand and publication has profound implications. The reality facing these relationships as they explore the paradigm of editorial-as-brand extension, beyond the era of print sales, is the compromise on editorial selection process. Even in posting a disclaimer at the end of their review of the Vuitton show, one could argue that BoF still faces the same issue of what is not said in the article. Thus the challenge facing fashion journalism lies in what an editor, stylist or writer chooses to feature.

The implications of commercial ties needs to go beyond a statement tacked on at the end of an article since it will inevitably permeate the editorial decision-making of what is published and written. For example, BoF’s Vuitton show review featured extensive quotes from an interview with LVMH’s chief executive, Michael Burke, who justified the show as an economic strategy for the luxury conglomerate despite the controversial locale, allegedly motivated by ‘generat[ing] dedicated global media coverage and activate regional markets.’⁶ The article appeared to defend the cultural implications of the event by choosing to feature a largely one-sided argument with a representative from LVMH, and so was not able to generate debate on the topic. In this case, as with others, the potential for self-censorship on what is written, so as not to compromise their source of funding (LVMH), is, arguably, as powerful as the choice of garments featured on the pages of Porter. Since, in the case of BoF, ‘investors have signed shareholder’s documentation guaranteeing BoF’s complete editorial independence,’ a risk might be that this apparent transparency allows the publishers to ‘get away’ with more.

The editorial content housed by these publications becomes a point of contention in negotiating reliable and balanced coverage. Though BoF, The Talks and Porter (among other similar brand-affiliated editorial ventures) function differently in terms of publications and have different investment models, they embrace new modes of funding that tread thorny terrain in maintaining a clear boundary between advertising and unbiased journalism. The final disclaimer at the end of the BoF article presents a move in a new direction in terms of editorial transparency, however it raises deeper questions about selectivity within editorial content.

Laura Gardner is Vestoj’s former Online Editor and a writer in Melbourne.

1. https://www.nowness.com/ ↩

2. https://www.lvmh.com/houses/other-activities/nowness/ ↩

3. ‘LVMH launches luxury online magazine Nowness,’ The Guardian blog, 27 February 2010, http://www.theguardian.com/media/pda/2010/feb/26/lvmh-luxury-online-magazine-nowness ↩

4. http://the-talks.com/ ↩

5. Dyson, L 2008, ‘Customer magazines: The rise of the “glossies” as brand extensions’, in T Holmes (ed), Mapping the magazine: Comparative studies in magazine journalism, Routledge, London. ↩

6. ‘Vuitton Investing, Not Surfing, in Brazil’ by Imran Amed and Lauren Sherman for The Business of Fashion, May 29, 2016 ↩

This is a response to the article ‘Renzo Rosso: ‘Galliano, Elbaz and Me’’ by Colin McDowall, published in Colin’s Column for The Business of Fashion, January 21, 2016.

COLIN MCDOWELL’S GUSHING RECENT profile on Renzo Rosso, president of the fashion conglomerate, Only The Brave (OTB), for The Business of Fashion presents Rosso as a passionate, but ultimately down-to-earth family man-cum-businessman. Filled with mentions of Rosso’s personal relationships with political and religious figures (the Dalai Lama and Shimon Peres, for instance, are both ‘proud to call Renzo as a friend’), sartorial anecdotes (Rosso’s home-made pair of bell-bottom jeans) and charity philanthropy (‘He helps people help themselves.’) that supposedly serve as evidence to this, instead leave the probing reader with the distinct feeling of the ensuing text having a hidden agenda.

Rosso has been portrayed as a boisterous, unpretentious and at times provocative figure before,¹ a one-sided persona meant to evoke a contrast with his French counterparts, and McDowell appears content to build on this stereotype. However, the fawning over Rosso blindsides the broader financial context of his company, and his powerful role within the fashion industry.

The personal affection we’re encouraged to have towards Rosso diverts our attention from his financial dealings as CEO of the OTB Group, the fashion conglomerate Rosso founded in 2000 which now overarches Diesel, DSquared2, Maison Margiela, Viktor & Rolf and recently Marni in its portfolio alongside the manufacturing and distribution company, Staff International. The OTB group’s total earnings exceeds €1.5 billion ($US1.6 billion) and, according to WWD, at the end of 2014 the group reported net profits of €5.5 million, ($US7.3 million), nearly four times the previous year,² pitching him in the arena of the major players in terms of fashion conglomerates.

An earlier, and much more candid article on The Business of Fashion went deeper with Rosso,³ with the platform’s Editor-in-Chief Imran Amed observing, ‘Let’s talk about Viktor & Rolf. If I’m honest, I find this brand a little bit confusing.’ Amed goes on to point out that, ‘[…] there are many other Italian brands that are now for sale. In a way, the difficult economic situation has been advantageous to you because it’s given you opportunities to seize…’ Both his comments raise pressing issues facing the industry, and the willingness of The Business of Fashion to ask them elsewhere on their site makes this toadying text all the more confounding.

McDowell goes to every effort to highlight Rosso’s benevolence and charity work with descriptions of his cultural and political clout (‘He is of a status that ensures when he calls, the call is taken — or returned in double quick time, regardless of what high level the recipient is positioned.’) offset by the story of his honest and hard-working upbringing in rural Italy. The stories build into an awkwardly rose-coloured narrative of Rosso: ‘When he is not travelling, which takes up quite a lot of his year, Rosso is essentially a family man who likes to go home at the end of the working day, be greeted by his kids and have a barbecue.’ Or more awkward still: ‘Rosso is not like other exceedingly wealthy men. He is, underneath it all, a man who accepts the responsibility that a lot of money brings.’ According to the article, Rosso the philanthropist works tirelessly to save the cultural heritage of his country: ‘Yes, there are tax breaks but the act was done for the glory of the country he loves.’

In McDowell’s description of OTB’s controversial acquisition of Maison Martin Margiela in 2002, Rosso is recast as the saviour of a flailing company: ‘Martin knocked on my door. […] Will you help me?’ We’re lead to believe that Rosso’s subsequent hiring of Galliano at Maison Margiela was a gesture of compassion to the fashion industry, the re-instating of a much-maligned design genius. The scenario, like many other elements in the piece, conveniently skims over Martin Margiela renouncing his company as well as the messy references to Galliano’s prior fall from grace. Instead we are offered the PR version of the story, with Galliano, as paraphrased by his boss, claiming to be just ­‘working for a dream of beauty.’

As with much fashion writing, what is most illuminating about this article is what isn’t said: the shifting roles and forces of power of CEOs and designers that face the high fashion system today, and the financial decision-making behind it. The article also strikes the question of what we should expect from journalistic coverage of the fashion industry. What level of rigour should media platforms have in order to deliver transparent and informative journalism on these issues? In his research, social anthropologist Brian Moeran writes of the economic paradox between cultural commodity and product facing fashion publications and journalism in delivering ‘independent’ editorial content in such close proximity to brands.⁴ In Vestoj ‘On Failure,’ fashion critic Angelo Flaccavento also comments on the manoeuvrings a fashion reporter is required to undertake in order to do his job without souring the relationship he has with the fashion brands on whose cooperation he depends for continued access.

As Flaccavento points out in Vestoj, the often-blurred boundaries between the press and the companies they are covering can lead to an insidious intertwining of professional gain and journalistic integrity. Reporters are invited on lavish press trips, and often made to feel as if they are an integral part of the inner circle surrounding any given powerful industry industrialist or creative. In an additional blurring of boundaries, fashion insiders know that writers often supplement their income from magazines and newspapers with the penning of press releases and other brand-related content for the very same fashion houses they are, supposedly impartially, reporting on in their day job. We can only speculate on the relationship between Colin McDowell and Renzo Rosso, or between The Business of Fashion and OTB, but considering the show of transparency that the platform otherwise prides itself on,⁵ and the investigative and impartial journalism that the site appears to encourage elsewhere, this article is particularly baffling.

It isn’t uncommon however for high profile fashion companies or personalities to demand a vetting of articles written about them, or to place additional voice recorders or silent PR agents in the room with the journalist in a tacit reminder that certain topics are off-limits. It also isn’t uncommon for publications or online platforms to have ulterior motives, or to implicitly agree to be the mouthpiece for a certain company in return for advertising revenue or other advantages. That the power dynamics between the fashion press and the corporations that control the majority of the established fashion houses are skewed has become an accepted truism, but articles such as this nevertheless raise broader questions about what we expect from media platforms covering the industry. In other words, progress where ‘Renzo Rosso: ‘Galliano, Elbaz and Me’’ fails.

Anja Aronowsky Cronberg is Vestoj’s Editor-in-Chief and Founder.

Laura Gardner is Vestoj’s former Online Editor and a writer in Melbourne.

1. ‘Renzo Rosso: Rags to Riches’ by Lauren Collins for W Magazine, August 22, 2013. http://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/features/2013/08/renzo-rosso-diesel/ ↩

2. ‘Marni, Margiela Parent OTB Sees Strong Profits’ by Luisa Zargani for WWD, April 30, 2015. https://www.otb.net/data/press_42993/fiche/90/11.apr_2015_wwd_otb_sees_strong_profits_9bedb.pdf ↩

3. ‘CEO Talk – Renzo Rosso, Chairman, Only The Brave’ by Imran Amed for The Business of Fashion, April 4, 2013. http://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/ceo-talk/ceo-talk-renzo-rosso-chairman-only-the-brave ↩

4. ‘Economic and Cultural Production as Structural Paradox: the case of the international fashion publication’ by Brian Moeran in International Review of Sociology, 2008. ↩

5. For instance, the site typically follows articles written about LVMH with ‘Disclosure: LVMH is part of a consortium of investors which has a minority stake in The Business of Fashion’ ↩