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Originally Posted by
F. Corbera 
I'm not sure that I would call each time in stitches clicks through to a page a "unique" visit, although he is special to all of us.
lol. It's actually counting unique IPs, so, certainly there is overlap, and I believe that there is some algorithm for lowering the impact of proxy IPs. So, the tracking system is not perfect, but it is not as easily to skew as you might think. And... everyone uses Google analytics, so, at very least, you have a pretty good sense of relative impact.
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Originally Posted by
dopey
I would love it if you wrote more about this topic. Apart from the subject being very interesting, I think you are one of the few people in a position to know what you are writing about.
Do you know how much the manufacturers pay attention to the blogosphere to spot trends and tailor their offerings. Does it divide along lines like youth v. mature or cutting edge v. established high-end brands, low cost v. high?
Manufacturers certainly pay attention to bloggers and large forums. The fact that an internet sensation like Nick Wooster can get a group of the 20 top tailors and other influencers (the picture of Kanye sitting next to Mariano Rubinacci is priceless) into a restaurant together to document the entire affair, that speaks volumes to the impact of the internet. At Pitti and at other tradeshows, there are entire sections devoted to outreach to bloggers. Isaia held a very nice party for larger forums (mainly, that was us), and bloggers. Great fresh mozzarella. My only complaint is that it was that there are very few women with blogs about menswear, so the thing was a bit of a sausagefest. I'm not sure if there are dividing lines among youth/mature, because, even on the forum, the generational lines are increasingly blurred, but there is definitely very little dividing line between low and high cost brands.
I guess that the one thing that I have noticed is that younger brands are more adroit in taking advantage of newer media. Oh, and Italy, because of Berlusconi, has been a little behind in their use and understanding of the internet. So, Italian brands with no significant presence outside of Italy have suffered because of this.
Some retailers are definitely affected by having been on featured in prominent blogs. For example, "Tie your tie" is a tiny shop in Naples. It's the size of a New York apartment. In St, Marks place. Over a curry house. But, it has been featured prominently in The Sartorialist. There was a thread not so long ago that questioned whether certain tailoring houses were legitimate, and cited that their goods were not sold in top "luxury stores", like "Tie your tie", which was quoted prominently, and only mentioned on Styleforum, and then the author asked if we could enlighten him.
This was someone writing form East Asia, which a significant fact. In those developing economies, where luxury brands have traditionally dominated the high end market, there is a growing hunger for the next echelon of goods, and because a lot of the smaller, truly high end stores, and tailors, do not have large, or any, marketing budgets, a mention by a prominent blogger (in the case of Simone and Tie your Tie, that prominent blogger was Scot Schuman) can really make an impact. While I was in Tie your tie, there was a guy who had flown in from Hong Kong for a fitting.
Re, trends, like always, the relationship between the street and the runway (or even the tailoring houses) seems to be an Ouroboros, which is nothing new, except that the "street" has expanded to include bloggers and forums, and that there are often financial agreements, which previously did not exist. For example, I'm going to assume that Caruso did not give Andy Gilchrist a tour of Europe just because he is a good guy, though I do not doubt that that is true. And Michael Williams (A Continuous Lean) is actually 1/2 of a PR firm, and other bloggers also are the digital media reps for large companies.
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How about at the bespoke level? Do the tailors pay attention to what is being written about them? I think some do, or at least their customers may tell them, but I wonder what your perspective is on that.
Some do, and some don't. Luca Rubinacci, for example, is pretty vocal about the bloggers and forums, with a love/hate relationship with both, and he is the heir apparent of a very old, venerable tailoring house.
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What do you think of SF's role in helping the blow-up (in the positive and negative sense) of someone like Ambrosi and now Napoli su Misura?
Well, until we DT'ed it, Foo's thread on Ambrosi was the number 1 or number 2 google hit on Ambrosi, and I know that Ambrosi was not happy with this, at all, and claimed that he could suffer financially, so yes, chatter, good or bad, on a large forum, can help or hurt a tailor. I know that there are some who would like to believe that tailors live in a rarified world where only the opinions of several rich men matter, but I don't think that that reflects reality.
Am I going to be the butt of a lot of jokes?
