Jayson Brunsdon's models, Sydney Overseas Passenger Terminal, Australian Fashion Week. May 2nd 2008/Getty
Yes well, one week after the good, and clearly terribly fashion-savvy, folk at the Sydney Chamber of Commerce declined an interview with a leading international fashion business publication on the grounds that fashion is "not relevant" - the Global Language Monitor has just ranked Sydney as the world's seventh Top Fashion City. After New York, Rome, Paris, Milan, London and Los Angeles. Not only that, Sydney is ranked as the number 1 fashion city in Asia. Who knew?
And what the hell is the Global Language Monitor?
A five year-old, Austin, Texas-based not-for-profit that's operated by a bunch of cunning linguists.
They track the frequency of words, phrases and names across all sections of the media, including the blogosphere - and then rank them using a proprietary algorithm doo-dad called the GLM Predictive Quantities Index.
The organisation has been analysing world city names and terms related to the word "fashion" since 2004 - however only published its findings for the first time last year.
In 2004, at least by GLM's calculations, New York outranked the city which most people usually consider to be the world fashion capital - Paris - and New York has kept its number one ranking ever since.
A city's fashion ranking can be very much a reflection, GLM conceded this year, of marketing and literally "getting the word out there".
With an aggressive global marketer such as IMG now at the helm of at least the Bryant Park component of New York Fashion Week - not to mention both LA and Australian Fashion Weeks, the latter whose biggest showcase takes place in Sydney - it's not hard to fathom why those cities should fare so well in terms of media mentions.
Even so, Sydney would appear to be punching well above its weight.
Below is GLMs Top 30 list for 2008, with each city's 2007 rank where applicable. Separate to this I was also given other figures.
Sydney and Dubai are the biggest surprises: the first surging forward by five spots from 2007; and the second, by twelve.
Melbourne fell three spots to 18 which may well piss off Melburnians.
A number of cities are new to the 2008 list. Not seen here are Sao Paolo (which fell 12 spots to 33rd) and Bangkok (-17 to 34th).
1. New York (1)
2. Rome (2)
3. Paris (3)
4. Milan (5)
5. London (4)
6. Los Angeles (6)
7. Sydney (12)
8. Las Vegas (9)
9. Berlin (11)
10. Tokyo (6)
11. Hong Kong (8)
12. Dubai (24)
13. Shanghai (14)
14. Singapore (10)
15. Madrid (New)
16. Moscow (16)
17. Santiago (19)
18. Melbourne (15)
19. Stockholm (New)
20. Buenos Aires (22)
21. Johannesburg (23)
22. Mumbai (18)
23. Cape Town (New)
24. New Delhi (New)
25. Barcelona (13)
26. Miami (New)
27. Krakow (25)
28. Prague (New)
29. Toronto (New)
30. Rio de Janeiro (20)
3 comments:
Rather than mocking the results completely, I think in some aspects yes they may be correct but tracking fashion in terms of media popularity? How constricted is that? Their website also mentioned that even though in the hearts and minds of people Paris is number one, New York is. I love the fact that it is also an American based organisation making us think that we listen to everything the media says.
Why didn't they spend the 3 to 4 so years actually spending their time and money by travelling to the cities to talk to people rather than stick their noses in a computer? We all know if we want to seriously get a proper results list, the major fashion industry councils are better indicative to tell us which cities are the best.
There is also a flaw with this list as it isn't clear sharp compared to say 1993. New York is top but they receive a lot of media coverage, the fact that it's an English speaking city and much easier to travel to than say Paris. Paris as far as I am concerned is still number 1 and will be for a long time because of what the city has contributed.
I don't have a clue what L.A. is doing there. I think Berlin should be higher and my god, Melbourne should be much higher and as close to Sydney. Melbourne lost Australian Fashion Week to Sydney but I think which city is better in some respects.
If only sbs' old doco director Pria Viswalingam did this, i would be happy.
By the end of this, I'm laughing already.
Second from left,
Is my sister Hannah Glasby :)
Not so anonymous then!
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