Links of the Whatever – September 17th, 2018
Some stuff I've read, seen, or listened to recently and thought I'd share / collect here for future reference. I'm calling this series "Links of the Whatever" because I'm not always on a fashion media kick and don't have enough content worth sharing consistently for "Links of the Day/Week/Month".
Wools 101 with Zoe Hong
What is worsted wool? What's the big deal about merino wool? What are the different kinds of patterns commonly found in wool fabrics called? What are the different classes of wool fabric and what are they used for? If you've ever wondered any of these things, Zoe Hong answers your questions here, along with showing helpful close-ups of fabric swatches.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPWMMxsvkDY
Dressed Podcast: Egyptology episode with Colleen Darnell
The September 4th episode is about Ancient Egyptian clothing (an overview, of course, as you can't cover thousands of years of fashion in 45 minutes) and 1920s egyptian revival styles. Dr. Darnell also has a fantastic instagram account @vintage_egyptologist which showcases her amazing vintage pieces and features a lot of interesting educational Egyptology tidbits.https://www.instagram.com/p/BlvanavhDHV/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
Rent the Runway is actually a dry cleaning service
I've never used Rent the Runway myself, but I ran into this video from the Amazon Web Services blog about how one of the biggest logistics problems RTR has is managing the dry cleaning for their stock. Never thought about that before, but it makes sense.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idWnXudZ9jk
On Influencers and Microinfluencers
Two articles: One from Racked about top influencers can rake in tens of thousands of dollars per review, and one infographic from Influencer Marketing Hub about engagement rates on branded content posts for accounts with different follower numbers ("microinfluencers" vs "influencers").
Maybe it’s best to answer that question with another question: would you rather have 50% of $100, or 10% of $1,000? Of course, you’d rather go with option B. It’s a lower percentage, but it’s still more money. Likewise, that 2.21% engagement rate for the accounts with between 100k and 500k followers might seem like a small number, but it represents a total of 4,116 actual engagements. And what about that impressive 6.84% rate for the most micro- of all the influencers measured here? That’s a mere 154 likes and comments in total, a great number if you’re working with, say, 27 other accounts that perform similarly. There’s software that can make that incredibly easy for you (and Mavrck is one of those solutions), but that comes at a cost, too.
Trick question:
A few paragraphs back, to make a point, I asked a rhetorical question: Would you rather have 50% of $100, or 10% of $1,000? Because the 10% option is more money, you probably decided on it pretty quick. But wouldn’t you rather have both options? Of course you would! You only chose one for yourself, because the question demanded it.
I'd only recently heard the term "microinfluencer" but it looks like that's Definitely A Thing.
If 1,000-10,000 followers is a microinfluencer, then does that make me a "nanoinfluencer"? 😂 I think over the past two months I've had around a dozen messages on reddit and instagram from people who were seriously considering or actually bought those Uniqlo midi skirts after seeing me wear them so much. It gives me pause to think about how effective career influencers with literally a million followers must be at pushing product – I just reddit and instagram in my spare time and don't receive any commission for fanning the flames of midi skirt consumerism! I'm not in the Instagram/blogging game for fame or money, but it is always nice to hear when people get inspired by my outfits or enjoyed reading something I wrote.For another point of reference, Racked, a large Vox-owned fashion-focused website, collectively received $95,000 of free product in six months of 2017. This article has some neat infographics too. Speaking of Racked...
Racked is shutting down
I'm so sad to hear about this. I had just been reading it regularly for about a month! I don't know of any other equivalent site on the internet that focuses on all aspects of fashion, from trends to culture to history to production. I'm really glad they're at least keeping the site up. Here are some recent posts from them I really enjoyed, which is the type of content I'll really miss having in one spot:
Costume Design at Laika
An interview with Deborah Cook of Laika, the studio known for stop-motion films like Coraline (one of my favorite movies!) and Kubo and the Two Strings. There are lots of challenges unique to the teeny tiny costumes of stop motion puppets, including finding fabrics that look like scaled down versions of heavy fabrics like denim to putting armature wires into costumes to make them poseable.
Playtex bra seamstress' work on the Apollo program spacesuits
Someone had to actually make those space suits, and who better to do that than seamstresses who were already experienced in creating structured garments out of multiple layers of technical fabrics?