LES CLOCHARDESResearch and conclusions

Step 1: The Data Research 

Qualitative vs quantitativeThe first clue we had to dial with was, obviously, the methodology to use to collect the data. The topic at a first sight may inevitably take the observer to the qualitative way, but we decided to use both those instruments combined, starting from the qualitative to quantitative and the back again. 

Qualitative researchWhat we did was to take the initial data from people we know, asking what were the most important fashion blogs, and combining this data with the one of Google Blogs. The usage of this tool allowed us to choose the blogs using the famous Google SERP algorithm.We intended the SERP as qualitative because symptom of the trends of a specific moment based on the links and views of people. 

Quantitative skimmingAfter the qualitative research we had a lot of data and we needed a skimming of that data to arrive at the number of 30 blogs. For the skimming we used mostly quantitative methods as Alexa rankings, Facebook fans and Twitter tweets and followers. By the way there where some blogs being very visited and linked, but with a few fans or followers (as an example rockandfiocc.com), we decided to inset those exceptions bypassing this quantitative data because they where expression of a particular culture, based on a different style of surfing the web (as an example a lot of people use to look for vintage clothes, but just a few subscribe to blogs based on the vintage culture).During this phase we actually had the real feel of how much this scene is alive and growing. After some ours or even minutes the Facebook fans and the Twitter followers where way more that before. 

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Making of the clouds and “The Sartorialist” caseWe made the word clouds with both Tagxedo and Wordle. We used Wordle because it was easier for us to manipulate the data with this tool in comparison with Tagxedo, but in some we used it to maintain the interactivity brought by Microsoft Silverlight. If you look to the excel table above you would see that “The Sartorialist” blog is one of the best in almost every category, but you wonʼt find it in the clouds. That was a specific choice we made. The Sartorialist is one of the most visited blogs of the entire world, so it was an obvious choice, but we donʼt have to forget that our work is also based on self-branding. In fact “The Sartorialist” is different from every other blog because it posts photos of stylish people found by case in streets, and not, like the others, photos of specific objects or outfits chosen with care by bloggers themselves.

Keyword 1: Jeans

Keyword 2: Vintage

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These two were made with Wordle, to view the interactive ones made with Tagxedo is necessary to open the links below:

• Stylebubble - http://www.tagxedo.com/artful/bb1c82ce6c114264

• The Blonde salad - http://www.tagxedo.com/artful/6eaf932308ee4e2d

As was mentioned before The Sartorialist was left out from these Word Clouds, but it was inserted in the one about the Twitter Influence. To calculate the influence we made a proportion between the number of tweets and the number of followers (Followers/Tweets). Because Wordle doesnʼt accept decimal numbers we multiplied every outcome by 100.

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Step 2: Issuecrawler and Gephi

After the making of the word clouds we took our 30 blogs and we inserted them in Issuecrawler to analyse their network.After the extrapolation of the data made by Issuecrawler we managed to understand it using Gephi with different layouts, both automatically made and manually made, aiming to focus the attention of the viewer on different aspects of the network.In this document we are somehow forced to use low-quality images, but the same images are linked as high-quality pdf at the end of our post at this link: http://corsonuovimedia.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/188/

Image 1

Image 1 has the more weighty nodes in the middle and as we can see Twitter is the most important, this was the only network made with an automatic and default layout.

Image 2

Image 2 is the same layout, but we emphasized the principal social networks (Facebook and Twitter) colouring the nodes and the edges and moving them to the sides.

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Image 3

Image 3 is a circular layout where nodes are positioned clockwise by their weight and the only coloured nodes and edges are the ones of the social networks. After making this one we were surprised to see that the edges directed to the social network where coming from the less important blogs and not directly from the most important ones, so we did another layout, the Image 4, where this phenomenon is even more clearly visible.

Image 4

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Step 3: Werelse or “when the bloggers are unite”

 The three bloggers

Bloggers: a cultural phenomen or an epidemic issue?There are many questions about the invasion of fashion bloggers. Why are they so credited? Why do they sit in front row? Why does the Chamber of Italian Fashion thinks so highly of them, so much as to provide them with a driver during the shows as it's happened during menswear?

Franca Sozzani – Vogueʼs director

For the last part weʼve decided to analyse the Werelse group, a collaboration made by t h r e e f a m o u s b l o g g e r s (theblondesalad.com,  stylescrapbook.com,  fashionsquad.com)    from our Issuecrawler/Gephi network.Werelse made a joint-venture with Mango, designing a capsule collection and this is the starting point of our work.We would like to analyse qualitatively these blogs making a comparison amongst these three realities as singulars and as a group.

ABOUT THE GIRLS:

CHIARA FERRAGNI www.theblondesalad.comCHIARA FERRAGNI www.theblondesalad.comCHIARA FERRAGNI www.theblondesalad.com

Chiara lives in Milan and studies International Law at Bocconi University. In October 2009 she opened a fashion blog, named The Blonde Salad. It has about 600,000 visitors per month and it is continually growing. She launched her 3rd season shoe line "Chiara Ferragni" (made in Italy) and she won the Bloglovin Award 'New Comer of the Year' in New York.

ANDY TORRES www.stylescrapbook.comANDY TORRES www.stylescrapbook.comANDY TORRES www.stylescrapbook.com

Andy Torres is a Mexican blogger based in Amsterdam. She started StyleScrapbook 4 years ago and was one of the first personal style blogs to emerge. Andy's blog has evolved through the years and her hard work has landed her amazing opportunities which include designing a camera bag for Kipling and becoming Mango's it girl for their Autumn Winter campaign. Andy has also won numerous awards including Best Personal Style at the Polyvore Awards 2011, best Fashion blog on ELLE.nl and was listed as one of the 10 best dressed women in Holland. 

 

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CAROLINA ENGMAN www.fashionsquad.comCAROLINA ENGMAN www.fashionsquad.comCAROLINA ENGMAN www.fashionsquad.com

Carolina started her blog in the beginning of 2006 and it has since grown to be one of the world most followed fashion blogs. She combines blogging with freelance work as a stylist and model. In 2011 she won the magazine CHICʼs annual award for 'fashionista of the year' and was ranked in 8th place  in Best International Fashion blogs on 'The Most Wanted Fashion 100 list'.

Weʼve elaborated a chart through which weʼve found analogies and differences at different levels:

ANDY TORRES CHIARA FERRAGNI CAROLINA ENGMANHYPERLINK About

PressBloglovin’FacebookTwitter

Contacts

AboutPress

Bloglovin’FacebookTwitter

ContactsWebPressMy ShoesYoutube

AboutPress

Bloglovin’FacebookTwitter

ContactsCategoriesFreshnet’

LAYOUT • Simple• Ordinary:

-photos to left-links to right

• Confusing• A lot of:

-collaborations;-sponsor;-advertising;-famous’s interview

• Advertising on the background

• Photos with description

AUDIENCE • Target:-Age 18-24-Female-School/College

• Facebook:-97648 likes-2939 talking about

• Twitter:-40469 followers

• Target:-Age 18-34-Female-Work/Graduate school

• Facebook:-186368 likes-35016 talking about

• Twitter:-91945 followers

• Target:-Age 18-24-Female-Work/Graduate school

• Facebook:-39070 likes-3138 talking about

• Twitter:-22068 followers

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The logical conclusions that come from this analyse are:PRESSWeʼve noticed that all the three bloggers have a strong connection with and large influence on journalism (especially online journalism).As a matter of fact they present a “Press Area” where they show their featuring in many major international publications such as Vogue Nippon, Vogue.com, Vogue.fr, Vogue.it, ELLE, Glamour, Nylon, Vogue Girl Korea Grazia, Cosmopolitan, Teen Vogue, Marie Claire, New York Fashion "The Cut", Fashion TV and many more. Even if most bloggers have nothing to do with journalism world, they operate close to or within   journalism, processing and publishing information in a manner that resembles journalistic routines. So we can easily affirm that bloggers have shaped   online journalism.SOCIAL NETWORKSClearly Andy, Chiara and Carolina give a great importance to social networks because they are the sources of their success.As an example Chiaraʼs fame started from an Italian social network (duepuntozero).So social networks are useful in order to create a large and international audience, to make themselves and their blogs well-known and this idea is confirmed by numbers: as we can see from the chart , for Andy there are nearly 100000 followers on FB. It is a datum that let us reflect on how Social networks are foundamental for Bloggerʼs popularity.FINANCIAL SUPPORTObserving the blogs it came out that the layouts are characterized from several advertisements.It is interesting to notice that are not bloggers to look for sponsors but the opposite: sponsors must be chosen by bloggers.So much as that there is a great selection among the different ads due to the fact that sponsors have to reflect the style of the bloggers. The discourse becomes even more clear if we consider that weʼre talking about “Self-Branding”. The goal of Self-Branding is that of creating an indelible impression that is uniquely distinguishable. Consequently to reach this porpuse it is essential a supervision of all the aspects reffering the Brand to be sell, such as themeselves. Therefore neither Chiara, Andy or Carolina will ever accept the publication on their weblogs from Vans for a simple reason: it doesnʼt represent their Brand Identity. AUDIENCEFor what concern the audience weʼd like to highlight the specific target connected with these Blogs:From “Alexa”, a web information company, it emerged that their supporters are girls, from 18 to a maximum of 24 years, with a graduate school education.It is also for this reason that they have a so high popularity: girls looking for their identity find in these “fashion experts” not only an example on how to dress but a real pattern of life-style.

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Consequently, amongst their followers grows a kind of affection, at the point that on FB we can find fan-groups of Chiaraʼs dog, or at the point that someone prepares cakes o gives presents in the occasion of bloggersʼ birthdays. However weʼve got to hand that Chiara, Andy and Carolina are real specialists on how to search a close contact with their followers.Even if bloggers of this top-level are considered as celebrities, they enter in contact with their supporters in a very familiar and intimate way: “Follow ME, Contact ME etc” are sentences that put themselves at the same level of their audience and let feel the readers at ease.Also the nature of Weblogs helps to establish this kind of relation, thanks to the fact that blogs readers can answer and give feedbacks.Lastly, we cannot hide that all this popularity lead from the opposite site to a great criticism from other readers that considered them as snob, and superficial.For instance, on FB we can easily find several groups against Chiara Ferragni.

 The Werelse project

Knowing the success that Chiara, Carolina and Andy have reached alone, just try to imagine what they can do together; maybe create a concept brand that sold out all the products just a few hour after their launch on the web. And this is exactly what theyʼve done. Weʼre talking about “Werelse”; as you can find on the official site (http://www.werelse.com/index.html):

“WERELSE is a concept brand bringing three international fashion bloggers together, pushing their creative talents and sharing their inspiration.Seasons and trends are brushed aside and a platform has been created for limited edition products, all inspired and styled by Andy, Carolina and Chiara.Based in a renovated loft in the creative heart of Milan, the WERELSE headquarters is where the girls bring their ideas and inspirations to life, and share them with the world.”Their first capsule collection is with MANGO Touch, one of the most famous low-cost clothing storesʼ chain in Europe. The collection is characterized by a few pieces that perfectly reflect bloggersʼ personality and personal style and itʼs distributed by about 15 stores in Europe. Obviously Chiara, Andy and Carolina widely publicized it on their blogs, wearing their creations and showing how versatile they can be.

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The official video for the campaign brag about the collaboration of a famous actress, Rossy De Palma and, of course the presence of the three girls. (As you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojgDR9-58CM )Werelseʼs Facebook page counts 20,115 likes and collects photos of the collection weared by the three girls, fashion bloggers and fans. On twitter the brand has 2,725 follower .Thanks to the support of their fans who voted them, they won the prize “ Best blogger Business of the year” for the Werelse project at the Bloglovinʼ awards in New York City last February. This is an important annual event for the “fashion-blogger” world, that awards every year the bloggers in different categories. Win it only a few months after the launch of their collection is a great result. On their blogs, facebook and twitter immediately after the ceremony Chiara, Andy and Carolina posted warm thanks to their fans writing that this has been possible just with their help and support, showing that their followers are one of their first interest. Now Most of the items Werelse for MANGO Touch are sold out or almost sold out and their official pages doesnʼt betray if a new collection is coming soon or if they will re-stock the items (even if fans ask for it quite loudly!) . but weʼre pretty sure that it will be another great success in any case.

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