the blogger cult of a certain brand, what is this about?

a thing I noticed on the internets, where women are writing shopping-dedicated blogs (and making $$$ via clicks to retail sites, and good on them for making money, that's cool).

there is a particular blogger thing about J Crew, where they know the specific inventory, season, color name, style name, etc. of all these items. it's like 'look! i am wearing the spring 2007 georgina shirt in fern with the fall 2009 something tweed trousers in acorn with the ashley necklace and something heels in rose gold.' afaik there's no cult of ann taylor or banana republic or any other stores in this range.

but they are collector nerds about crew! and they go to the stores dressed in total outfits from the stores and try on clothes at the stores and take pictures and review the items, and sometimes they meet up wearing total outfits and then go to the stores and buy more things.

don't get me wrong, I like crew and own about a dozen t-shirts, and some sweaters and blouses and scarves, and one navy pea coat. I tend to buy by color, and they have good colors. otherwise I wish they would tailor their menswear to women's sizes and sell that.

i guess that's what marketing and styling can do. such as giving names to all their clothes (but only certain kinds of names of course, they have to be waspy/preppy/vaguely french, only). and having models wear awkward belts or strike awkward poses to play down the fact that a top is cut boxy and not made of good fabric, or a sweater is made of a knit that is too thin to hold up or flatter anyone. and the jewelry imho insanely overpriced, looks nice in photos but cheap irl.

and suddenly it all becomes collectible! and now.. I got a jacket there on sale and it's nice, but because of this phenomenon, I almost don't want to wear it without doing something to mess it up, so that it doesn't look like it just walked out of a particular store that has collector nerd fans.

You know far more about this than I do, and I am totally boggled by the whole idea. The thing that strikes me is that, if you wanted to be a kollector nerd, wouldn't you pick either a better line, or a much much worse one? The mid-level boring faux-preppy label thing is incomprehensible to me, unless the whole point is the "WTF"ness of it, but I don't think fashion bloggers are that noize.

http://lordwhatsmymotivation.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/best-in-show.jpg

I would like links to these blogs you mention so I can check out this phenomenon, which is news to me iirc!

starts here: http://jcrewaficionada.blogspot.com/

^^ discovered this when ordering something a ways back & googling for promotion code, it is handy tbh, but man.. has to be a lot of work

this person has pix of these gatherings: http://3pennyprincess.blogspot.com/
they are in DC ahem the DC suburbs. of course :)

see i think they pick this line because.. hmm.. they are constantly producing new stuff, the styling is pretty clever, the items have names, they come in lots of colors, and they have jewelry and shoes to match and everything.. and it is accessible, the stores are in the mall and they have a range of sizes. i remember looking at crew catalogs when i was in catholic school in the early 90s, everyone dressed really preppy. aside from the required uniform skirt you could put together your own stuff as long as you stuck to certain colors. i finally got my mom to order me a gorgeous pair of dark brown ankle boots from crew and wish to hell i still had them.. the stuff used to be v good quality. it's not anymore.

i like preppy a lot, but not the lilly pulitzer candy colors and loud prints side of it

also i feel like wearing a shirt from a certain store when you go to shop in that store, is sort of like wearing a tshirt of a band when you go to see that band? i'm also against dressing up to go shopping in general. it's not like i go in pricey stores much, but i don't care about bothering to look like you normally shop there.

No, my sense of contrariness/reverse snobbery kicks in exactly the same way. It's lame to wear one brand's clothing while shopping there, as a rule.

This phenom sends my Grouch-o-meter to 11. I'm not even arguing the merits of J. Crew generally (I agree they have nice colors and I find a lot of their styling appealing) but it's just so freaking boring to collect all of one manufacturer's (not designer's, manufacturer's) clothes, and then super freaking boring to pick J. Crew as your sole clothing provider of choice.

Whoooooooa at that 3 penny site:

a sexy "power suit"

Um I'm sorry but if your "suit" is "sexy," it isn't "powerful," it's "inappropriate."

i'd be willing to do this for Nike ACG... provided that i get samples, etc.

i highly, highly, highly doubt that these people are not plants though...

i don't think they are plants.. more like, some of them are part of affiliate networks on the internets, so that they don't get money from the brand directly, but if you click a link they post and buy something, they get a commission via whatever network that brand works with.

and.. eh, i'm not trying to be a hater. i hesitate to link to ppl's blogs sometimes because.. they are just doing their thing, it's just a phenomenon i've noticed lately.

re "power suit" .. idk, i think a nice suit is pretty hot, but it has to be very very nice and fit perfectly, not flashy though. a bad ill-fitting suit is the worst.

BLAME MICHELLE OBAMA

Having never shopped at J Crew (are there any in Canada?) I was interested to look at the pictures of the meetups.. pretty enough women, fine, but those are some ill-fitting, ugly clothes! you have to figure they wore their favourites/best to these parties..

also i feel like wearing a shirt from a certain store when you go to shop in that store, is sort of like wearing a tshirt of a band when you go to see that band?

I see this at work! Not J.Crew though.