Not just any fashion blogs either. All of the blogs included in the index used for the ranking are recently up to date (as of March 5th), and have a majority of content focused on fashion or beauty.

Personal style blogs dominate the top 99 – 48% of the blogs are about what certain girls (and  guys) are wearing and wanting, but even within that subgroup there’s a diversity in content. Consider the personal style blogs like Man Repeller and Style Bubble – a blog that’s been in the top 99 of every ranking we’ve done, where the thoughts of the day generate as much interest as the outfit of the day. Then there are sites like Style Like U and the Coveteur where the style is personal, but focused on a different person each week – the ultimate for those looking to shop their own closets for inspiration.

A few highlights from within the personal style category:

Gabi Gregg of Gabi Fresh is the first plus-sized personal style blogger to crack the top 99. Le Blog de Big Beauty is at #101, and incredibly close to pushing through. While the personal style category has a certain formula, the “f*** flattery, I want fashion” approach from both ladies is resonating with readers. Runways may follow an exclusive formula (taller than average, thinner than average, less Asian, Black, Latino or Middle Eastern people than the world actually represents), but readers are showing that style inspiration comes in a diversity of shapes, sizes and colors. We can only hope designers and brands eventually take note.

Camila Coutinho of Garotas Estupidas is the top personal style blogger in this ranking. In Fall 2012’s ranking she entered the Top 10, and continued to climb to number 4 overall with a mix of personal and celebrity style. She leads the Brazilian bloggers, who represent the largest number of non-US bloggers in the top 99 – something remarkable in the fact that none of the Brazil-based blogs are translated into English. With national audiences alone, Portuguese speaking readers are pushing these independent publishers to levels most often achieved through international expansion (through English-translated) content. Parabens! to all of the stylish girls from São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and beyond. We don’t have a girl or boy from Ipanema in the top 99 just yet, but there’s no doubt there will be soon. Beyond the top 99, blogs 100-199 have a strong Brazilian presence as well.

Personal style newcomers to the top 99 include Keiko Lynn at #99, Revenge star Ashley Madekwe at #98, Olivia Palermo at #96, Julie Sarinana of Sincerely Jules at #83, Karla Derass of Karla’s Closet at #82, Bruna Vieira of Depois dos Quinze at #50 Wendy Nguyen of Wendy’s Lookbook at #63, Laureen Uy of Break My Style at #61, and Camille Co of Camille Tries to Blog (she’s doing more than trying) at #25.

Among the guys, Pelayo Diaz of Kate Loves Me proves that the only bad publicity is no publicity, and moves to #65 (previously #83). Joshua Kissi and Travis Gumbs of Street Etiquette move up 7 spots to #31.

While a visual response to the “what are you wearing?” question is one of the surest ways to building a successful audience, it doesn’t always have to be about one person.

Newcomers outside of the personal style category include Black Fashion (#89), Fifi Lapin (#76). We’re almost certain Fifi is the first rabbit, and non-human to make the list. Take that fashion cats!

As for top movers and shakers, no one moved more than Ari Seth Cohen‘s street style blog focusing on a certain demographic.

Advanced Style, which focuses on style from the 60+ set jumps to #2 worldwide on the strength of strong social engagement, proving that when it comes to style, size and age are nothing but numbers. At least according to the numbers (read more about the methodology here).

Vogue

Lucky magazine recently launched the Lucky Style Collective, a network that will make a network of fashion and beauty bloggers true partners of the magazine. {NY Times}

In contrast to the Vogue network, which is closer to a consumer panel than actual network, the Lucky Style Collective will see bloggers contributing content to Lucky‘s website and the print edition. Lucky will also share online advertising revenue with the bloggers on a 50/50 split – fairly standard terms for online ad networks.

Considering that network participation offers both exposure and financial benefits, it’s not surprising that the 50 Lucky Style Collective bloggers are generally more influential than those in Vogue’s network. Mrs. O, the blog that tracks Michelle Obama’s style, and Honestly…WTF are both ranked among the top 99 most influential fashion blogs, and many of the others have immediately visible signs of engaged audiences either directly on their blogs or social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

In our look at how fashion magazines would stack up against fashion blogs online, we noted that recently appointed Lucky editor-in-chief Brandon Holley’s online experience (she formerly led Shine, Yahoo’s US women’s site) would likely make a difference in increasing the magazine’s online influence.

As Lucky joins influential print and web publishers like Glamour and Elle in offering blogger opportunities that extend beyond simple association, it looks like that was more than a lucky guess.

We just explored how fashion magazines are faring online against fashion blogs (they’re not failing, but the bloggers are doing pretty well on their own). Unsurprisingly, the magazines who are doing it (engaging an audience, that is) as well as bloggers are the ones who’ve been active in bringing bloggers into the fold through partnerships or special site sections.

So when we heard about Vogue‘s 1000-strong “Influencer” network, we thought it was a smart move. Then we read more and wondered if we’d overlooked the benefit to the participating bloggers.

Here’s AdWeek’s summary:

“The Influencer Network is a panel of some 1,000 women deemed to have sway over other women, based on how active they are on social networks like Facebook and Polyvore, a fashion site where people create collages of outfits and share them with other members.

“There are a lot of people who are self-appointed experts,” says Susan Plagemann, vp, publisher of Vogue. “The biggest difference is, weâ€re developing a program of ambassadors who spread the word digitally across a very big network about the access thatâ€s been given because of Vogue.”

Panel members, who arenâ€t compensated, are asked to provide feedback for clients on anything from new products, upcoming fashion collections, and ad creative. Theyâ€re encouraged to talk about the products on their social networks, raising awareness of the products and Vogue itself.” {AdWeek}

Emphasis ours.

So let’s get this straight: bloggers and others who’ve proven* themselves to be influential in building followings on different social media platforms provide free market panel feedback (usually part of qualitative market research, usually paid for) to companies who have enough money to pay Vogue for a $150,000+ ad (the average cost of a one page, color advertisement in the print magazine). Vogue, a magazine that had over $100 million in revenue in one quarter last year, gets to add a premium to ads which cost $150,000+ per page by advising advertisers on how the products or ads will perform online and pushing the products and ads through a network of people who will seed them to help ensure their success. And the bloggers and influencers get… shafted.

While this sounds like an amazing business model for Vogue and their advertisers, it doesn’t sound like anything remotely beneficial to the people participating as currently structured. Which brings us to the * behind the proven portion of the pitch.

Styleite notes that many of the influencers don’t actually seem to have much influence. We know that quantity isn’t everything in social media – an account with 1000 engaged followers/fans can perform as one with 10,000 passive users attached. Needless to say, on the web we’re firm believers that influence isn’t just about which fashion blog has the most traffic. That said, almost none of the bloggers featured have an Alexa ranking below 2 million, or enough traffic to register on any other traffic estimation site (Quantcast, Google AdPlanner, Compete), and one has a grand total of 11 links from other blogs and sites.

We’re not going to call any out by name, because many of the blogs are fairly new so it’s understandable that their traffic, links, social media activity and other signs of influence would be low. There’s no shame in that at all, but it is a stretch to call them influencers at this point. This sounds more like a qualified consumer panel, but the difference is that consumer panels normally get something these ladies don’t: payment for their participation. It’s not anything to retire off of (typically $20-$100 depending on the time involved), but it’s something that reflects the fact that consumer feedback to the type of companies who can pay $150,000 for an ad can afford to pay people for giving them feedback that will help them increase brand awareness and sales. Helping to spread their commercial, promotional messages has a value as well.

You know who is influential in fashion? The Sartorialist. He may rub some people the wrong way with his description of “sturdy” legs and indifference towards personal bloggers, but even there it takes off on social media and causes controversy because he has online influence that’s backed up by the number of people linking to, following and sharing his content. There are 98 other fashion blogs here who are influencing people, and we’re pretty sure that most aren’t in Vogue‘s network.

And though we haven’t asked him, do you know what someone like the Sartorialist would probably say if someone asked him to be an ambassador for a commercial brand with a (minimum) 6-figure ad budget by providing feedback to said brand on ways to improve their $150,000 ad and tell people about it online for free? No.

Granted it’s the power blogs that consistently take the top spots in our ranking of influential fashion blogs; but using the exact same ranking criteria, bloggers are edging out magazines who (often) have larger staffs and larger budgets when it comes to influencing readers online.

Dolce & Gabbanna's 2-year-old front row lineup seems smarter than ever

That’s not to say magazines aren’t influencing people online: each of the magazine websites we used for comparison would rank in the top 99 if pitted against the fashion blogs in our list. Not to mention that although it took them a while, nearly all of the magazines on the list are actively investing in their websites, rather than using them as digital subscription forms. Glamour created their own blogger network; Elle hired the editor of an influential blog to breathe new life into theirs (a move that’s paid off); and though Style.com is now a property of its own, the former online home to Vogue and W was a big part of propelling the reigning influential fashion blog (the Sartorialist) to where it is now. While magazines aren’t exactly the ostriches they once were when it comes to building an online presence, the fact that a single teenager from the Chicago suburbs is influencing nearly as many people as the entire online staff of Teen Vogue can’t be ignored though.

The reason why we spend so much time on an objective ranking of fashion blogs, however, is precisely because there are people who still do ignore bloggers and independent publishers and try to write off the significant audience shift in fashion media as a passing fad. Print isn’t dead – advertisers will keep it alive; but digital is the future, and it’s a future where a multitude of strong individual voices can rival the influence of a more prominent, institutional few. That said, the structure of influential blogs is increasingly similar to that of print publications, and probably not so different from their online departments. While there are more than a few solo acts topping the rankings, increasingly it’s blogs with multiple editors, writers and support staff competing with and pushing the magazines out of the top spots.

This list of magazine sites isn’t as exhaustive as the index of fashion blogs that we rank. You’ll notice that most are for the US editions of international magazines, but in nearly every case the US editions receive more traffic, link and social activity than their international counterparts so we thought they were a good place to start. In our September update, we’ll examine the influence of international magazine websites compared to bloggers in more depth.

Style.com

Score: 84     Rank if included in the top 99: 2

The former home of Vogue and W helped establish the Sartorialist, so perhaps it’s fitting that if included, the Sartorialist is the only blog that would rival (and top) their influence.

GQ.com

Score: 79     Rank if included in the top 99: 3

The men’s print style bible would just barely push men’s online style bible Hypebeast into 4th place.

Glamour.com

Score: 77     Rank if included in the top 99: 5

Style.com certainly has the strongest lead, but Glamour‘s put a respectable effort into building their online presence with a blogger network and dedicated online content. Looking strictly at current magazine websites, Glamour‘s is the most influential women’s style site in the US.

Elle.com

Score: 74      Rank if included in the top 99: 6

Elle is a few points away from Glamour, but the popular magazine has worked with bloggers through the Style Coalition for some time now, and brought in former Fashionista editor Brit Aboutaleb to lead editorial for their online efforts. The Elle blog is one of the few magazine blogs with enough influence to rank in the top 99 independent of the parent website.

Vogue.com

Score: 73     Rank if included in the top 99: 9

Vogue got off to a late start with their website, and there have been a few notable bumps along the way, but they recently received a Webby and Anna Wintour has been vocal about making the website a priority. For the moment though they still can’t beat Stylelist, the super blog formerly led by AOL, now revamped and revitalized by chief executive blog builder Arianna Huffington.

And men’s style blog High Snobiety leads them both.

MarieClaire.com

Score: 71     Rank if included in the top 99: 10

InStyle.com

Score: 70     Rank if included in the top 99: 11

Allure.com

Score: 70     Rank if included in the top 99: 12

Marie Claire is the closest to catching up with Vogue online, but both InStyle and Allure are only marginally ahead of Refinery29, who are blogging their way towards a $20 million valuation.

Seventeen.com

Score: 70     Rank if included in the top 99: 14

TeenVogue.com

Score: 69     Rank if included in the top 99: 15

Readership for teen print publications has been dropping off for a while, and many people blamed the web. While Seventeen and Teen Vogue are doing well online, they’re only slightly ahead of  the Fug Girls, Garance Dore and Tavi, indicating that teens probably weren’t exactly sitting on their hands while waiting for the print publications to get themselves together online.

HarpersBazaar.com

Score: 66     Rank if included in the top 99: 22

Harper’s Bazaar has never had the circulation of Elle or Vogue, but the pronounced focus on building their online audience hasn’t been there in the same way either. Again, we wouldn’t say they’re exactly suffering on the web, but the entire online Harper’s Bazaar team would still be behind the singular efforts of Yvan Rodic’s FaceHunter, Rumi Neely’s Fashion Toast and Alix of the Cherry Blossom Girl.

LuckyMag.com

Score: 65     Rank if included in the top 99: 23

Of all the major fashion magazines, Lucky’s online site is lowest on the list. Sure, readers are visiting for the Lucky deals and different online shopping collaborations, but the site still has a long way to go. Newly installed editor-in-chief Brandon Holley has print experience and led editorial at Shine, Yahoo’s US-targeted women’s site, so hopefully come September a bit more attention to online partnerships and audience building will lend the beleaguered publisher a little more luck.

Of the 99 most influential fashion & beauty blogs for the April/May 2011 ranking a full one-third are new to the Style99 from the previous ranking, but it’s worth noting many were included in the previous full index, though they didn’t make the top. In other words, though we say it with each update, there are many blogs not in the top 99 that are still incredibly influential. In the coming days, we’ll cover a few of them, but for now we highlight those blogs building influence at a breakneck pace.

Jennine Jacobs may have had a bit of a distraction earlier this year, but it didn’t stop her from organizing the popular Independent Fashion Bloggers conference, Evolving Influence. From the huge year over year jump, the IFB blog’s influence is evolving quite nicely. Sticking with blogs that cover the business aspects of online fashion, the aptly named the Business of Fashion also had a significant gain in influence year over year.

Other blogs gained influence as a result of consolidating content. Refinery29 benefited from a site redesign that brought all of their content together in one super blog. Previously feature and blog content were separated, but they’re now all in one place. Another big blog that gained due to a rollup of content is AOL’s Stylelist. With Luxist and other lifestyle blogs shuttered and rolled into Stylelist (along with the traffic boost from the Huffington Post), the site is actually the most trafficked fashion blog online. Traffic is only one part of our ranking, but the increase has positively affected the number of sites linking to Stylelist as well as the number of people sharing the site.

While personal style blogs like Style Rookie, Fashion Toast and the Cherry Blossom Girl had smaller gains, they also appeared pretty highly on our last ranking list so the significance of the moves shouldn’t be discounted.

New to the Top 99

When compared to the previous ranking, 35 – more than a full third – of the top 99 influential blogs were newcomers. In some cases it was simply a matter of expanding our index. That’s an area we spent considerable time on, and the starting index now contains more than 1000 blogs (previously, it was more than 500). That includes blogs that previously weren’t included like the hilarious Man Repeller, wonderfully crafty P.S. – I Made This and the full on fashion fanaticism of Vogue editor turned style blogger Anna Dello Russo.

In other cases however, it was simply a matter of dedicated efforts from blogs in our older index. In our 2010 blogs to watch, we suggested keeping an eye on Street Etiquette, the men’s personal style blog from Joshua Kissi and Travis Grumbs. Previously not in the top 99, the dapper gents from the Bronx are now ranked number 53. Swedish personal style blog KenzaS was listed within striking distance on the previous ranking and is now in the next place at 54.

Though they didn’t make the top 99, Nerd Boyfriend and Park & Cube were also two of our picks for blogs to watch  and are now within striking distance of the top 99. We know what can happen from there, so never underestimate the blogs that are slightly under the (top level of) influence.

View the April/May 2011 Style99 for links and detailed ranking information on each blog.

Say what you'd like about Alexa Chung, if you're a fashion blogger she won't be reading it anyway.

Here’s one… different fashion blog trend: turns out a lot of fashion blogger favorites aren’t that into most fashion blogs.

“Blogs are ridiculous; they’re just mood boards – unless you are Tavi [Gevinson, of Style Rookie]”

– Alexa Chung in the June 2011 edition of Vogue UK {via Fashion Foie Gras/Lockerz}

A point of view that it seems the New York Times‘ Cathy Horyn shares.

“Itâ€s a lack of original content. Sooner or later, itâ€s like anything, people change, people look at that and say ‘This is boring.†And some young journalist will come along and distinguish themselves with original reporting. And they will hopefully be fluent in French and very good at reporting whatâ€s going on at the luxury goods companies and the big brands in Europe, because thereâ€s a complete need for that kind of reporting. You can be tough and feisty and a little bit of a guerrilla reporter, for want of a better word, and I think thereâ€s a need for that. I donâ€t think a lot of the blogs are distinguishing themselves by linking and just being snarky or being opinionated. Do some reporting.”

– Cathy Horyn in an interview with ($20 million fashion blog) Refinery29

And even the most influential fashion blogger of them all.

“Iâ€m not really a fan of personal style blogs—you know, the ones [on which] these girls just shoot their outfits and all this stuff. I havenâ€t seen one that I really like or that draws my attention every day. The good and bad of that is that most these girls only have a limited wardrobe; they donâ€t have many clothes to shoot and I donâ€t think most of them have come up with looks that are that interesting, that draw me.”

– Scott Schuman, aka the Sartorialist in an interview with (Style.com fashion blog) StyleFile

Schuman does give some credit to the time capsule that all of the personal style blogs will become in decades to come, but in general let’s remember that “fashion blog” covers a lot of territory these days. As evidenced by the fact that 2 out of 3 of these quotes came from…wait for it… fashion blogs.

To Ms. Horyn’s point, speaking purely from personal experience there are plenty of fashion stories we try to report on, but big brand representatives tend to not reply – not even to give a “no comment” – to people who try to do reporting when they don’t have a major news organization behind them. An example? Sure. For weeks, we reached out to retailers who’d participated in Fashion’s Night Out to try to paint of picture of the real financial impact of Fashion’s Night Out. We love the excitement it generates, but we’re not convinced it’s actually a sales boon for participating retailers. Unfortunately, since no one would comment, we can’t be sure. Another example? You’ve got it. There was an interesting piece in the New York Times (you probably saw it) on the expense that went into producing Marc Jacobs’ most recent show. You know what we were really interested in? What happened to those 1100 yards of vinyl that were brought in for the even after the show. After all, if a company spends that much on props for a show, you’d hope they would find an interesting way to reuse them. Unfortunately, none of our emails or phone calls requesting comment or more information were returned. US or Paris. Not that we’re complaining: there are a lot of emerging fashion companies doing some really interesting things who are happy to reply to us, and more often than not, we learn about them via blogs like the Business of Fashion or FashionablyMarketing.me or by actually getting out to events and doing some reporting.

A new fashion blog comes along every day, so inevitably at some point it becomes difficult to separate the signal from the noise, but let’s not write off an entire category because you tune out for a bit.

Yesterday we were taking a look at tweets when Style Blog Fuck Up popped up on our radar. First on Tumblr, the blogging service that’s put a good deal of effort into nurturing it’s fashion community, it’s since moved to WordPress.com.

It seems that Tumblr has proactively closed the account, and there are some questions of copyright infringement facing the unnamed UK person behind the blog.

In the UK and the US, sometimes usage of a photo – even one marked all rights reserved – is allowed to be reproduced for discussion, criticism or news value. This doesn’t mean news agencies can grab any photo they want and say “news! We can do what we’d like here”, but an article which discusses a controversial image can include that image in the discussion.

For example, Ralph Lauren’s attempts to have images of it’s now infamous Photoshop disaster ad pulled on grounds of copyright infringement fell flat because much of the discussion was surrounding just how terrible the retouching in the photo was (it gave an already slim model alien-like proportions, skinnier than those of a concentration camp starvation victim).

While SBFU has the right to use the images in commentary, Tumblr also has a right not to host the content or the blog. It ultimately goes to the larger question of whether style bloggers can expect to become public figures of some sort, and maintain total control of their images. In the case of derivative illustrations of style bloggers being used on commercial products (sans blogger notification or permission), we noted that while the illustrations were probably legal, it really just rubs people the wrong way to see their image on a product they have nothing to do with. Inditex eventually pulled the shirts.

That said, here’s our take. The discussion of the style blogger outfits and some use of images is probably permitted, but SBFU is just mean for the sake of being mean, banal and totally lacking in terms of any comedic value.

On Tavi: “people are lining up to tounge fuck her arse. I guess being a try hard gets you somewhere.”

On Carrie from Wish Wish Wish: “This girl has probably the most popular style blogs in the UK. Only god knows why. Shes a quintessential upper middle class girl born with a silver spoon in her arse. Add this girl to the “made with paint” category, cross referenced with cunt.”

Then there was the “smile” at an American blogger who has since removed her blog on “Fashion for the Economically Challenged.”

Look, we enjoy a laugh at people who take fashion a bit too seriously as much as anyone. Man Repeller? Hilarious, we await the next roundup of things that look like vaginas. The Fug Girls? Brilliant. Regretsy? Love it. Michael K‘s continued descriptions of Karl Lagerfeld as a fashion zombie (we have to quote this)?

“Lily Allen, Florence Welch, Clemence Poesy,and Emma Roberts. They crawled through the tundra for miles to get a picture with the exquisite demon whose mop of bone dust threads holds the broken dreams of 12-year-old models in its tips.” {Dlisted}

Or his description of John Galliano as “the secret love child of Boris and Natasha Fatale” and Captain Hook? We wish he’d write about fashion more often, because it’s pure comedy.

“You’re a stuck up cunt with money” and “haha, you don’t have money and your attempt at style makes me smile, silly American”? More of a sophomoric personal attack from a small mind that doesn’t contain any of the wit, style or education that makes the aforementioned blogs worth reading. SBFU’s own f*ck up isn’t necessarily critiquing style bloggers (which is more likely to happen the more popular they become), but completely failing at finding a style of its own.

Now, two of fashion’s largest companies find themselves facing questions over what constitutes inspiration and what constitutes copyright violation.

Trending Topics, a blog from Spanish newspaper El Pais, reports (in Spanish) that Spanish retailing giant Inditex has once again used illustrations of fashion bloggers for a line of t-shirts without prior permission from the bloggers.

In May 2010, Betty Autier of Le Blog de Betty noticed a t-shirt in Zara that featured an illustration bearing a striking resemblance to one of her photos. The only problem? Autier was never contacted by the illustrator or Zara about usage of the image.

Michèle Krüsi is a 19-year-old blogger from Switzerland who, like many other bloggers, posts personal style photos to Lookbook.nu. Lookbook.nu serves as inspiration for plenty of personal style fans, including those at some of fashion’s largest brands. Someone from Stradivarius, a Spanish retailer also owned by Zara’s parent company Inditex, took inspiration from this image of Krüsi and created a t-shirt based on it.

Image compilation via El Pais

“If they had asked me there would be no problem, and of course I would have told them they could use the photo if I had been offered one of the shirts or something,” Krüsi says. {Trending Topics/El Pais}

Louise Ebel, who is known to readers as Miss Pandora, also found herself an unwitting subject of Stradivarius’ new line via an illustrated appearance on two different shirts.

Ebel says “I’m really disappointed to find my work, and the photographers with whom I made the photo shoots, on T-shirts, and without having been warned. I think it’s disrespectful and it detracts from our work. I have been used and undervalued.” This actually marks the 3rd time Ebel has been illustrated for a t-shirt by an Inditex brand. The first time was in the same collection with the image of Betty Autier that sparked the debate. {Miss Pandora}

The legal issues here are a bit fuzzy though: while using the photo as is for a commercial purpose would be an obvious violation of the photographer’s rights, do those same rights extend to a derivative work? Those were the issues Fairey and the AP were to argue before settling their case, but with the settlement they still remain. In the US there is a pending fashion copyright bill, but even if it should become law, the issue of what’s protected and what’s fair use in derivative design isn’t totally clear.

As far as any moral questions, the fact is that fashion brands don’t even agree on the basic issues as an industry.

The Hermes Birkin bag is a coveted style status symbol, and fairly recognizable. Independent fashion label Thursday Friday decided to print an illustration of a Birkin bag on a canvas shopping tote. {She Finds via Styleite} Something of a wink and nod to the classic bag that normally retails for thousands of dollars. The Thursday Friday website says:

“We realized we were using the shopping bags as proxy accessories and wanted to take them a step further, to have the bag itself declare what’s going on.  So we ended up with a surreal design that references luxury but ultimately works as an anti-status status symbol.”

Except Hermes found nothing surreal about the design, and is suing the company for “riding on their reputation” and “confusing, misleading, and deceiving the public.” Seemingly placing Hermes on the same side of the table as those who were angered over Zara’s usage of blogger photos for illustration inspiration without notice.

Ganymede Kids posted an interesting analysis of the first Zara situation, which is worth reading regardless of which side of the issue you find yourself on; and this TED talk from Johanna Blakley raises interesting points as well.

When bloggers and decades old brands, who’ve never looked upon imitation with any feelings of flattery, end up on the same side of an issue it’s a sure sign that new media mavens aren’t the outsiders the old guard likes to believe they are. Welcome to the inside.

We still have yet to receive a response to any of our queries, but Jennine Jacob of The Coveted put out a tweet yesterday letting her followers know that the issue with TheCoveted.com has been resolved without going to court.

Fashionista received an official statement from Erin Kleinberg and Stephanie Mark on the matter:

“After the recent on-line buzz regarding our use of thecoveted.com, we write to advise you that as of tomorrow our business will be rebranded as The Coveteur and henceforth we will be using that name and our new website www.thecoveteur.com. Using the name “The Coveteur”, we will transition to a brand identity that we feel better encapsulates our concept. In regards to the legal issues surrounding our dispute with the-coveted.com, we refer you to our statement on www.thecoveted.com and are happy to be able to put these issues behind us. So, as of February 2, 2011, we will be known as “The Coveteur” and we look forward to bringing you new and exciting content weekly. Thank you for all of your support.

Sincerely,

Erin and Stephanie”

Above all else, changing names was the right move, even if it’s a move that came late. Still if you contrast their statement with Jacob’s:

“I have been advised by the operators of “thecoveted.com” that they are prepared to amicably resolve this matter and that at no time did they have any intention of capitalizing on any goodwill or reputation of “The Coveted” at the-coveted.com. They have indicated that they are in the process of re-branding their project. I and Coveted Media wish Erin and Stephanie the best in their endeavors, look forward to seeing how their venture develops and am happy that we will be able to co-exist with them going forward. I thank all of my supporters for their posts and am hopeful that we can all now put this behind us.”

we can’t help but go back to the same thing that soured us on the Coveted in the first place (besides the possible trademark infringement thing): there’s a distinct feeling of a lack of respect for those who dare to pursue a place in fashion outside the establishment of glossies and big brands.

They feel a different name “better encapsulates their concept”? Why didn’t they use it in the first place? The Coveteur is a good name for their blog, and one that could have saved whatever it cost to have their lawyers (who must have discovered Google by now) draw up that nasty response that did them no favors legally or publicity wise. Not to mention, it was probably freely available for registration from the start, unlike thecoveted.com which was purchased from a domain reseller (likely at a price much higher than the reseller originally paid).

They’re happy to put the legal issues behind them? We bet they are, but not a hint of an apology for their role in kicking the “online buzz” off in the first place? That was a bit of a rhetorical question: surely, they’ve been advised by their attorneys to not accept any responsibility for anything that could be seen as willful violation of Jacob’s trademark, but a little humility here would go a long way – and on that front it looks like they still have quite a way to go.

To end on a more positive note, the petition in support of Jacob’s use of the name ‘The Coveted received more than 1,000 signatures from around the world, including Canada (Kleinberg and Mark’s base), and countries as wide ranging as Indonesia and Ghana.

Fashion magazines: not dead yet

Fashion blogs are undoubtedly part of fashion’s future, and give a platform to everyone from the intelligent young teen to the photographer who sees editorial opportunities on the street. Without worries about publishing costs, newsstand placement, licensing costs and salaries, blogs in every category are leaner operations than magazines. Blogs don’t have legacy costs, but they’re nowhere near print magazines in terms of revenue either.

When it comes to numbers, few individual editors or writers can compete with the most popular bloggers. Mario Testino may be more established, but in terms of sheer numbers, Scott Schuman reaches more people looking for style inspiration on a daily basis. Though they’ve captured respectable fashion audiences, bloggers have yet to capture the advertisers.

Allure, one of the few fashion magazines to show a year over year decline in revenue and ad pages, still sold more than $33 million of advertising in the 3rd quarter. People Style Watch, a relatively new title that focuses on celebrity fashion, brought in $15 million. That’s one quarter, or 3 months. Granted that the 3rd quarter includes September, when fashion magazines often receive the most ads; still, it would be difficult to find a single fashion blog that brings in $15 million in advertising in one year, probably even two or three.

Part of the allure of many fashion blogs is an alternative point of view that’s not tied to how many ad pages a company controls. In an industry where legitimate criticism can result in revoked show invitations and snubs, the outside status of bloggers is seen as more trustworthy. So much so, that the FTC created specific regulations for bloggers that don’t apply to the people who write for print publications. Especially in fashion, where there’s rarely a hard hitting look at business practices and it’s commonplace for editorials to feature many of the same products that appear in paid ads, it may also be what keeps fashion blogs from ever becoming big business.

In fairness, it’s not only bloggers. Style.com, owned by Vogue publisher Conde Nast, is well established and well regarded. For years, it was backed by both Vogue and W magazine, yet even that hasn’t been enough to draw the kind of revenue that the print publications command. Vogue claims a readership of 1.2 million, while Style.com claims 2.3 million. Yet a 1-page color ad has an estimated CPM (cost per thousand) of $125 while the last media kit to include rates has Style.com commanding a $30 CPM – which is actually fairly high for online display advertising. Vogue increased both ad pages and revenue by more than 30% in the 3rd quarter. The raw numbers? $109 million in revenue in 3 months, and over $255 million from January through September. There’s no single fashion site online – including Style.com -  that even comes close.

3rd Quarter Fashion & Women’s Magazine Revenue