Sweet clone Alabama

screengrab design professor

The term “fair use” in copyright legislation allows for the unauthorised reproduction of limited samples of copyrighted works for the purposes of news, review, comment and criticism. Fair is fair however and fair use does not license the unauthorised lifting of unlimited material, notably with zero attribution to the original. Those who partake in the unauthorised lifting of volumes of material without attribution to the original, and who attempt to pass said material off as their own work, are known as plagiarists. They walk amongst us in the media and academia and hold their heads up high - until sprung. As a blogger, moreover, I, like many others, have to contend with "content aggregators" – blogs and other websites which scrape content from around the blogosphere and repost entire blog posts under their own banners, with no permission and usually, with no attribution. When you spend a lot of time researching original material and others simply sit on their asses and rip it off – worse still, even receiving remuneration in the process – it’s enough to put anyone off blogging. But I really did have to giggle at the net’s latest content aggregator: Alabama-based academic Dr Marcy L Koontz.

Dr Marcy Koontz claims to be an assistant professor in the Department of Clothing, Textiles & Interior Design of the University of Alabama College of Human Environmental Sciences.

Koontz appears to operate a blog called Design Professor - which links through to her website and business email address.

On her blog, Koontz goes to some trouble to promote the importance of original content.

Indeed, the blog’s headline logo, writ large in bold type across the top of the blog is:

ORIGINAL – THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE ME

Also at the top of the blog, in plain view, Koontz notes:

“I am an educator who tries to constantly inspire, encourage and motivate my students to be original and cutting edge.

To be successful, you have to think outside the box, and continually challenge the mainstream.

In a world full of imitators & second-handers, being original is unique.

BE ORIGINAL - do not copy the looks & trends you see in mainstream papers & magazines if you want to be taken seriously as a designer. Industry experts will not be impressed - neither will 12 year old Tavi !”

That’s all well and good and this journalist wholeheartedly supports original thinking.

Like many other fashion blogs, Design Professor includes a blogroll of well-known fashion blogs and websites. Koontz calls those listed on her blogroll, “Inspiring People”.

The problem arises when you start scrolling through the actual content of Koontz’s blog, only to discover just how much inspiration has been taken from material published elsewhere.

Now frockwriter would like to give Koontz the benefit of the doubt in assuming that this whole thing may be some kind of misunderstanding. Lazy assistant perhaps who forgot to include links? Still wouldn’t give Koontz the right to aggregate the content without permission. Or is it not Koontz at all, but some kind of joke?

Frockwriter is seeking comment from Koontz and will let you know her response. But do check the blog as it stands – and prior to the removal of any incriminating material. (UPDATE 19/04: the blog has now been deleted, see Koontz's response below).

The only reason Design Professor popped up on frockwriter’s radar is because of a news alert on the term “Australian Fashion Week”. One recent such alert drew our attention to Design Professor’s cut-and-paste job of our own recent RAFW and Diet Coke story. It’s the entire first half of the post, complete with images (which were linked to sources in the original post). No permission was sought for this and there is no attribution whatsoever.

Curiously, Design Professor also picked up this journalist's recent social media story from WISH magazine – but on this occasion, chose to merely highlight the opening par and link through to The Australian’s website. Which suggests that Design Prof’s plagiarism may be selective.

But the Diet Coke story is just one example of a litany of Design Prof’s ripoffs, which include a cut-and-paste job of a feature from Fairfax’s The Vine website on RAFW’s Fashion Design Studio designers and another wholesale ripoff, complete with original layout, of Forbes’ Most Powerful Fashion Magazine Editors story from September 4.

One of the more alarming examples is a reproduction of The Business of Fashion’s “Valentino: Still In The Spotlight” post from April 2nd. It’s another cut-and-paste job, with a few subtle differences.

Carefully edited out of the original - conveniently drawing attention away from the fact that Design Professor did not actually sight the Valentino documentary at a special screening, or talk directly to people in the industry – are the following phrases. The original words that have been edited out are highlighted in bold type:

“I enjoyed the film at press screening in New York in October and have been waiting to see what the broader reaction would be after its wider release”.

“I think what I took away most from The film shows just how much fashion has changed. Fashion has become a world where companies focus on image creation and the marketing of dreams and cultivation of aspiration to drive sales. And, the film frames Valentino as the last of the great couturiers which, in and of itself, is a depressing thought”.

“But, I hope this is not the case. The more I speak to people in the industry, the more I think we are returning to a time of great craftsmanship, design and timelessness in fashion. The hope this that this is not the case. The more you hear from people in the industry, the more you understand that they are returning to a time of great craftsmanship, design and timelessness in fashion".

All links to earlier BOF stories have been removed from Design Professor's version, with the exception of one retained outward link: the story’s reference to the French Légion d'honneur.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.




UPDATE 19/04 @ 10.16AM: Well if you did not get to check Design Professor after this post went up late yesterday, it's too late now because the entire blog has been deleted.

Overnight Koontz sent me the following, cryptic, email:

"This is | was an unfortunate and disappointing situation that is being corrected on many fronts."

Yes, extremely disappointing - and primarily because Koontz fails to provide any explanation whatsoever.

Koontz may have deleted the blog, however evidence remains via screen grabs taken by frockwriter - and of course all the material that remains cached on the web.

UPDATE 22/04 @ 8.15AM: Twenty-four hours after sending that initial, cryptic, email which offered no explanation, Koontz sent another, much longer, email, using what is known in cyber security circles as the "unknown hacker defence". Koontz now claims that her computer was hacked. In the interim I have been attempting to procure more detailed information from her - and other independent parties. Pending some other work commitments, will update as soon as possible.

Demi Moore Twips her Lowry cap to Burberry

demi moore via twitpic

In February, the iconic British luxury company Burberry launched a multi-platform social media initiative for its new Burberry The Beat For Men fragrance, embracing MySpace, Faceboook, Bebo and YouTube. But Burberry has just received an additional, and possibly unexpected, social media boost. With 415,469 Twitter followers, actor Demi Moore has the world’s 18th most popular Twitter feed according to Twitterholic. Last night she Tweeted a shot of her new Burberry handbag from the set of Five Killers, which is being shot on France's Côte d’Azur, starring Moore's husband, Ashton Kutcher – and directed by Australian Robert Luketic. No stranger to Twitter himself, Luketic may be creating cinema history by being the first director to Tweet live from a major film shoot.

Of course we don’t know for sure if Moore actually bought the bag, or if it was “gifted” from Burberry – with the express intention of having it turn up in some photograph or other.

It is however worth pointing out that this is the third time in as many months that Moore has mentioned a luxury or fashion brand on Twitter.

The first two occasions followed repeated enquiries from Moore's followers as to the IDs of a dress she had worn to an Oscars party and a pair of sunglasses she has been wearing on the Five Killers shoot.

Moore revealed that they had been designed by Temperley and Salvatore Ferragamo respectively.

According to the Fashionphile blog, the bag photographed on the Five Killers shoot is a Burberry Ruched Ribbon Lowry Tote.

Interestingly, Moore’s latest luxury Tweet follows six days after another expat Australian, journalist Ben Widdicombe, mused via The New York Times' style blog, The Moment, whether paid product placement via Twitter - which he dubs "Twipping" - could be a new Twitter trend.

Noted Widdicombe on March 31st:

“Surely the future, for underemployed fashion types, is paid product placement? It would certainly be a welcome source of income to many struggling writers.....But what about other frock stars with some capital in their name? Perhaps you’d like know the label of the latest horse blanket that Andre Leon Talley draped over his shoulders at the Paris shows. If he Tweets “Hermès, darling” into your electronic ear, it seems only fair that Hermès should tip (let’s call it a “twip”) for the service. Actresses could be “twipped” for dropping the names of their plastic surgeons... And wouldn’t you like to know exactly what new model BlackBerry Naomi Campbell threw at her latest maid?”

Widdicombe fails to take into account those currently employed fashion types, and celebrities, who already are being paid by luxury marketers – via gifted goods or additional financial sweeteners – for promotional services rendered.

Including those who are under so-called ethics contracts at mainstream newspapers.

A new media day dawns @ NYFW

the daily via bryanboy

Here is the daffodil yellow, hope-imbued cover of The Daily's first New York Fashion Week handout edition, which was distributed at the Bryant Park tents on Friday. Of course The Daily is owned by IMG, which also operates the central Mercedes Benz Fashion Week tented show event at Bryant Park - and which has been affected by show cancellations and other industry budget cuts due the current economic crisis. But life, business and fashion do go on. And as Anna Sui told The New York Times on Thursday, “It’s survival of the fittest at this point”. Sui talked about the costs of putting on a big show – US$50,000 to rent space and US$100,000 in production costs, not including models – and asks “Is it worth the investment”? Sui obviously thinks so because her show will go ahead. And Sui makes a very good point: the strongest and/or best-adapted to the changing environment, have the best chance of survival. While certainly some very good new-ish designers have closed up shop recently, it is no surprise to learn that the plug has been pulled on Australian brand Morrissey. Founding designer Peter Morrissey was long gone, all that remained was a name – and lacklustre merchandise which consumers could find at numerous other cheaper retail locations. But designers and retailers are not the only ones having a wakeup call at the moment. A media shift is afoot.

Those who are currently paid to report on fashion are having their budgets, retainers, word rates - and also, jobs - slashed by mainstream media outlets whose adstreams are evaporating. Over the next month it is going to be interesting to see just how many media reps front up to the shows.

Interestingly, this first FW0910 edition of The Daily devotes one entire page to four exponents of the new fashion media guard: the blogosphere.

The Daily ran four mini profiles of Bryanboy, Rumi Neely (Fashion Toast), Tina Chen Craig and Kelly Cook (BagSnob) and Natalie Hormilla & Britt Aboutaleb (Fashionista).

Dubbing these fashion bloggers “The Excitables!”, here is the intro to the spread:

“They love shoes. They love bags. They love Pre-Fall and resort. Their resilient passion for fashion will chase your disillusionment away”.

The Daily also calculates an “excitabality” ranking for each blog, with each excitability point represented by a graphic of a shopping bag-laden fashionista.

Bryanboy receives five excitability points and here’s what The Daily has to say about him:

“Manila-based blogger Bryanboy was an Aliona Doletskaya early-adopter; he described the discovery of Lanvin resort and Spring 009 T-shirts available for pre-order online as “STUNNING”; says watching old Dior shows on YouTube gives him “chills every time”; selected Clemaris, Iris Blue, Mouse and African Violet as his favorite Hermes ostrich-leather colorations; considers Marc Jacobs naming the Sunburst BB Shoulderbag after him “the best thing that has ever happened to me”; introduced the now-classic phrase, “Male fans of Pierre Hardy, rejoice”.”

The fashion industry has traditionally viewed fashion reporters as cheerleaders: mouthpieces via which to talk up its products. Hungry for advertising revenue, the fashion media has traditionally bent over backwards to provide positive coverage.

As such, it is interesting that the blogosphere continues to be so overlooked in this regard.

Although bloggers have generated quite some coverage from the mainstream media, the fashion PR sector continues by and large to look down its nose at bloggers, irrespective of their individual expertise, as second class fashion reporters.

As The New York Observer’s Irina Aleksander noted on February 4, while speculating about the potential impact of the Michelle Obama factor on attendance at Jason Wu’s upcoming show:

“Mr. Wu’s September show, held at the same venue, did have some prominent names; it was attended by Vogue editor Anna Wintour, for one. But it also had some fashion bloggers and mid-level reporters, who are typically deported to the second, third and fourth rows at the more high-profile shows, sharing the front row with Ms. Wintour. Now Mr. Wu’s dedicated attendees are probably wondering if their seats will be bumped back a bit”.

With the current economic crisis, it is going to be interesting to see which way the tide turns.

A very high percentage fashion gossip and news is now broken on fashion blogs, not the virtually moribund fashion news columns of newspapers, which, more often than not, contain news already reported online.

To be sure, there is a huge volume of low-profile fashion blogs which are more personal diaries than traditional reportage. Let's call it citizen fashion journalism.

Some of these personal diaries have, however, emerged as absolute must-reads - and their diarists, as media brands in their own right.

How many of The Daily's four featured fashion blogs are actually at the NYFW shows? Just one so far apparently, Fashionista.

But there are other fashion bloggers at the tents.

Now in its second year, Inside The Tents is an interesting portal of independent blog coverage of NYFW, offering an aggregation of multiplatform reportage via accredited blogs, Twitter, Flickr and video streaming.

Frockwriter understands the organisers may have had some difficulties with IMG. Judging from the sheer volume of coverage on the site however, this does not appear to have been a major issue. At the end of the day, individual designers decide who gets into their shows.


melissa hribar/the new york observer

One breakout ITT star so far is a new media specialist by the name of Yuli Ziv (pictured above).

Featured in a story in The Observer this week, Ziv is a co-founder and editor-in-chief of both the user-generated fashion/trend magazine MyItThings.com and a new organisation called Style Coalition.

A sponsor of Inside The Tents, Style Coalition aims to be a new "guild" for indie fashion bloggers.

According to Style Coalition's mission statement:

“We are a coalition of independent online publishers in the fashion and lifestyle vertical committed to building a bottom-up, content-driven alliance whose mission is to both advance professional standards in content creation and increase the effectiveness of advertising messages within this realm."

The Observer story noted that fashion companies exclude fashion bloggers because they are concerned about "inflammatory reviews" devised to drive "cheap Web traffic".

Noted Ziv in the story:

“It’s easy to be nasty. You can take the negative handle and you can survive for a while, but you’ll only get to a certain point. Eventually you have to change.”

On Wednesday, high profile New York media blog Gawker paid out on the Style Coalition, dubbing it as “Kiss-up Guild for Fashion Bloggers”.

Noted Gawker:

"The idea is to be as toothless and sold-out as fashion magazines.

If Ziv and her partners are so inspired that the internet allows a designer to "become very successful without any blessing from the big folks," they should go find those scrappy little designers, instead of clamoring to get in to events dominated by the major names. And they should think twice about trying to become one of the "big folks" handing out blessings.”

Gawker suggests that Ziv and co should take a leaf out of the book of The New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn. Horyn is widely respected as a fashion authority, in spite of the fact that she has been banned from numerous shows following her critical reviews.

Frockwriter cannot help thinking that Gawker - and Ziv - may be missing two key points here.

First up, although Cathy Horyn has certainly devoted some effort to establishing her online voice at the NYT, she is not an independent fashion blogger. Cathy Horyn works for one of the world's best-known newspapers.

Should Horyn ever leave the NYT to launch her own independent website, it remains to be seen precisely what access she would be accorded.

Secondly, on Ziv's personal website, she describes herself as a:

"Web 2.0 Entrepreneur, Online Expert & Strategist with extensive Marketing, Creative and Publishing background"

According to Ziv's bio, her background is exclusively marketing-focussed.

That's fine and best of luck to Ziv and of course also to the plethora of fashion bloggers who do not have journalism backgrounds either. A journalism background is by no means compulsory for blogging.

Nor indeed does it appear to be among the compulsory selection criteria for fashion writers on most magazines, and even some newspapers. And provided that, for instance, Australian publications such as Vogue and The Sunday Telegraph don't mind winding up on Media Watch on repeated occasions over ethics issues (as both have), then that should not pose a problem for anyone really.

In the specific case of Yuli Ziv, however, with no journalism background, how can Ziv possibly promote herself as the professional standard bearer of the fashion blogosphere?

Dude, where's my career?

the cobrasnake

“i want to be in the next Balenciaga campaign. And im really impatient, and feel like sitting here on the computer all afternoon is such a waste of time and i need to be doing more. But everyone in my house is doing the same thing right now. I guess everyone is human and the thought of another party right now, for once does not interest me. (I mean its not like Pip, Dangerous, Cat, Natedog, MattSaville, Mikey, etc all my other fun people) are in the house to make me definately think otherwise about starting a Half Party)”. So wrote Stephanie Carta on her Magna Carta blog on November 3.

An erstwhile muse of Balenciaga designer Nicolas Ghesquière – and a two-time runway model for the 2008 shows of the venerated French fashion house – such was the strength of Carta’s second international show season, models.com nominated her as one of SS09’s Top 10 Newcomers in October.

Sadly, while Carta did make Balenciaga’s SS09 show, reportedly she has not made the SS09 ad campaign - which is said nevertheless to boast 10 other models.

And nor it appears may Carta have scored any SS09 campaigns – unlike her compatriots Catherine McNeil, Abbey Lee Kershaw, Myf Shepherd and Alice Burdeu.

As a consolation prize, and in tandem with her buddy, Tallullah “Party” Morton, Carta has become a regular star on the party photoblog of Mark "The Cobrasnake" Hunter. Including this delightful cameo (^) from last week's ksubi/Cobrasnake/Steve Aoki et co NYE party at Kings Cross nightclub Club 77.


pedestrian.tv

In The Cobrasnake shot, Carta appears as a caricature of what everyone imagines to be wrong with the modelling business.

Perhaps taken at an (extremely) unflattering angle, Carta looks not only underweight (which is awkward in light of the weight controversy in which she found herself embroiled in Sydney last year), but totally off her face.

The party occurred of course during Carta’s downtime, while she is, like many other models, enjoying a summer vacation.

This afternoon I asked another photographer his position on the ethics of photographing those who may be momentarily mentally incapacitated due to the effects of alcohol or other substances.

Hunter is documenting the international party scene, came the response. And makes, by all accounts, a handsome living out of doing so.

If anyone walks in front of Hunter's lens, said my photographer, Hunter is entitled to shoot them regardless – and publish those shots on his high traffic website.

This is irrespective, he noted, of whether or not the subject happens to be professional model with an image to maintain. Or even a friend.

Carta cannot claim that she does not know who Hunter is, because she has appeared in previous Cobrasnake party reportages.

At 23, Carta is also most definitely a consenting adult.

Hunter is reporting the news, in other words.

And sometimes, of course, it's not pretty.

O what a tangled Web

On Tuesday, The New York Times published a story about the popular Michelle Obama style-watch blog Mrs O, which, as it now emerges, is not an independent blog at all - as many assumed - but operated by New York ad agency Bartle, Bogle, Hegarty (a fact which was originally mentioned in passing in this December 29 National Public Radio report). The blog was launched in September by BBH's new brand-building division, Zag, following a pitch by a BBH employee, 27 year-old account planner Mary Tomer. The company reportedly invested US$2000 in launching the site, not counting the salaries of 14 BBH employees who have worked on the blog in various capacities. The NYT story was not presented as an expose, merely a news story about ad industry initiatives. And when New York Magazine’s The Cut blog blogged a post purporting that Mrs O had duped readers, Advertising Age responded with a counter-piece entitled, “So a Blog Is a Marketing Ploy? Who Cares?”. Frockwriter shares The Cut’s disappointment – and wonders if both the NYT and Ad Age are not perhaps missing the point.

Bartle, Bogle Hegarty’s involvement in Mrs O is indeed mentioned on the blog - that is, buried at the bottom of the site, within the Terms and Conditions.

Supposedly last updated on September 26, 2008, one assumes this page has been live on the site since the blog first launched, as opposed to being added in the past few days.

More fool anyone, therefore, who failed to check the fine print - that's the position, presumably, adopted by BBH and its legal division, which must firmly believe that the company's duty of disclosure was well and truly discharged.

However the blog’s "About" section makes no reference to BBH:

“Mrs. O is a website dedicated to following the fashion of Michelle Obama. It was first inspired by Mrs. Obama’s wardrobe at the Democratic National Convention in August 2008. The site hopes to be a central, ever evolving resource to chronicle Mrs. O’s look, while providing fashion commentary and information. The site will encourage visitors to contribute tips, photos and commentary, and share enthusiasm for the budding style icon, Mrs. O”.

Only one of the bios of the site’s eight writers makes any reference to Bartle Bogle Hegarty: that of Mel Exon, who is described as a company director at BBH in the UK.

Elsewhere on the net, Exon is additionally described as a managing partner of "BBH Labs" - and was, and possibly still is, the director of the lucrative global Levi’s account.

Describing BBH Labs as "a new, independent innovation unit", Exon recently advertised for a creative director, and noted the company was "looking for someone who has proven experience leading radical change in communications".

Not twigging that BBH has any other involvement in the blog, the average reader might simply gloss over Exon's bio, assuming that she is just another wage slave with a blog on the side.

Tomer however, we now know for a fact, is also a fulltime Bartle, Bogle, Hegarty employee - and one moreover, who most definitely writes the blog on the company's dime.

There is no disclosure of Tomer's BBH affiliation on her Mrs O bio.

Nor is there any reference to Tomer's ad industry affiliations in her bio on The Huffington Post, to which Tomer has contributed at least one story. Amusingly, the story is entitled, “The Face of Fashion Democracy”.

Now of course the names may be purely coincidental, however frockwriter located UK ad industry connections to the names of two other Mrs O writers, both of whom Mrs O reports have links to London: Patricia McDonald and Kirsty Saddler.

There is a Patricia McDonald listed as Planning Director at Bartle, Bogle Hegarty London (also with Levi's affiliations).

And there are numerous net references to a Kirsty Saddler, senior planner with Doyle Dane Bernbach London.

Then there is the domain name of the blog itself, www.mrs-o.org.

With mrs-o.com already taken by an aspiring babywear manufacturer, frockwriter is curious precisely why Zag chose a .org URL – which is the type of URL that is normally reserved for non-commercial organisations, such as universities, libraries, NGOs etc..

The mrs-o.org domain name also happens to have been registered via Domains by Proxy, which obfuscates the details of the real registrar.

And while the deployment of proxy domain registrars may be relatively commonplace nowadays - at least with individuals, who are seeking to protect their privacy - this additional element nevertheless just adds to Mrs O's laundry list of less-than-transparent details.

In the Ad Age piece, reporter Ken Wheaton notes:

“Say what now? Firstly, if a blog is worth reading, it's worth reading. Period. End of story. Who cares who's funding it? Secondly, and more importantly, in what unicorn-inhabited landscape are people living in when it comes to Web 2.0 properties?...Such discussions are fine, but let's call a spade a spade. It's marketing. It's marketing Web 2.0; it's marketing yourself; it's marketing your company; it's marketing your services”.

But from where frockwriter is standing, it's one thing for a blogger to market themselves – and even accept and display advertising. Provided that any commercial affiliations are clearly disclosed and that any advertising is clearly defined as advertising.

By the same token, a blog attached to a corporate website is not misleading readers, in much the same way that an editorial-style catalogue is not misleading readers, because the commercial affiliations of both the blog/catalogue parents are, one hopes, clearly delineated.

It’s another matter, surely, to fail to mention that the vehicle that you are using to widely disseminate information, and via which you are touting yourself as a credible commentator and possibly also opinion leader, is being semi-covertly financed by a multinational ad agency?

If Tomer and co harboured a secret passion to blog about Michelle Obama, then why didn't they just do it in their own time?

Or fess up at the very beginning, making everyone's affiliations transparently obvious, pointing out that BBH was footing the bill? They may well have no hidden agenda, however by having their details disclosed for them, it makes them appear secretive - or worse, ad industry shills.

In a comment on the Ad Age story, “Jack Jones” makes the following salient point:

“The Web has already made it very difficult for the public to distinguish content from commerce – or politics. Studies show a significant chasm between being able to distinguish commerce/politics on the Web versus other media. There certainly are instances where the creator is questionable, particularly when they turn out to be some lobbyist or PR scumbag covertly pushing an agenda. Ad agencies and advertisers are really guilty in this area too. In this case, there could be controversies. For example, it's likely that a large percentage of visitors to the Mrs. O blog are African American women. How do you think they might respond to knowing the blog was owned and operated by an advertising agency on Madison Avenue, where African Americans have faced discrimination for decades?”

To the Manor bought: The engineering of an 'It' bag

Screen grab from The Times Online fashion blog.


Now we all know that luxury companies "gift" their new release handbags to the fashion posse. Don't we? "We" in the fashion press certainly understand it goes on, irrespective of whether we accept them or not. Truth be told however, Jo Public probably doesn't have a clue.

Truth also be told, fashion is not the only business that engages in duchessing. But latterly, it would appear, and certainly since the luxury boom of the late 1990s when handbags started getting equal billing to the clothes on the runways, the "gifting" of luxury handbags to major fashion editors appears to have gone on with greater gusto.

Coincidentally, over the same period, the sales of handbags and leathergoods have well eclipsed those of ready-to-wear at most luxury and fashion companies.

I have not personally witnessed the denouement of an it bag, until now that is.

It may well have something to do with the fact that this was the first time I had been dispatched to cover an entire fashion season, from go to woah. Although I'm sure the bag in question was out and about in New York, I didn't notice it. I did however notice "it" in London, indeed on day one of London Fashion Week. The bag, it seemed, was all over the event.

Which bag am I talking about? The quilted "Manor" bag launched by Burberry for the northern fall, as clutched by the ubermodel Kate Moss in the current Burberry ad campaign and as touted by Burberry since the fall shows in Milan in February as the "it" bag of the season.

Now quite obviously Burberry has the right to call its products whatever it likes, even if said products have not yet appeared on the market. Burberry spends quite a lot of money advertising. And to Jo Public presumably, these are quite clearly paid advertisements.

What is not quite so clear however is when a product such as the Manor bag starts getting spotted on the "right" people.

It was a handsome bag, I recall thinking to myself when I first saw it waft past in the February show in Milan. But had the Brit fash pack suddenly become so enamoured of the same it rushed en masse into Burberry boutiques to buy it? There seemed to be far too many Manor bags on the London Fashion Week market for that to be plausible.

When a member of the pack casually mentioned that, "Oh London fashion editors are paid shit money", my suspicions escalated.

It was at this point that I started asking myself, and others, the following questions: are there any it bags that have been granted it status purely on cool design, and, accordingly, via cool hunters seeking them out? Or do the companies in question have to actually offload bags to so-called fashion opinion leaders before anyone deigns to anoint them?

And if that's all that is required to catapult a new handbag into the "It" stratosphere moreover, isn't there a glaring differential between the must-have bag for which Jo Public has to fork out over $3000 (in Sydney) because she thinks it's a hot item, and the so-called must-have bag with which the poorly paid, freebie-loving fashion editor swans around shows? For the latter, surely, it's not a must-have bag at all – but rather, a must-take bag?

Then came the rather shocking answer from one luxury company source:"It's the only way we can get any publicity".

One senior fashion editor did however provide an interesting theory that purported some discretion might occasionally be involved in "It" bag selection.

Those power editors, she noted, who receive such a vast swag of luxury booty must by necessity make selections – and that in culling the must-haves from the must-have-nots, therefore their choices might genuinely carry some weight.

This begged the question of course, just what do "the editors who know" do with the rest of the booty? Auction it for charity? Give it away to minions? Sell it on eBay?

More than one magazine/beauty staffer has in fact been fired for selling promotional booty via same. Whatever the answer however, presumably if the luxury companies knew that those sporting cast-offs from the magazines were not must-have bags at all but rather, must-have-not bags, they wouldn't be talking them up quite so perkily in their press releases.

Just on press releases, I should include a special category here of editor who somewhat reluctantly finds herself suckered into the duchessing. Let's call her the "little bit pregnant" editor. I chanced upon one of these in London.

One day she had passionately slagged off the British fashion press for "regurgitating press releases". The next day she revealed that she herself had recently accepted a luxury handbag. She also revealed that a little note had been attached to the bag by the relevant company, with [words to the effect] "We hope you enjoy being an ambassador for X".

Would she show me the note? Fat chance of that.

"I don't want to bite the hand that feeds" she replied curtly, before insisting that the bag was strictly a thank you and under no circumstances a bribe aimed at influencing future content. No number of gift bags would corrupt the unfettered editorial integrity of her [independent] publication, she added.

There are few ethics in fashion glossies. Not only are staff members regularly asked to write about advertisers, even freelance copy can get "adjusted".

I came to the latter conclusion after a story I had written on luxury power players for one Australian glossy was tweaked in favour of one profiled company that was not a major player, but which in the published version had suddenly graduated to the ranks of LVMH, Richemont, etc. The company in question had taken out six pages of advertising in the same issue.

When we read, on a website such as www.edirectory.co.uk that the "Fabulous Burberry Manor bag in quilted beige leather" has been "tipped by top magazines to be autumn/winter 2006 'it' bag brand" we take it with a grain of salt, don't we? The website would say that because it is trying to flog Manor bags. And the magazines would say that, presumably, because Burberry is advertising in their pages and they want their ad reps to continue flogging ads to Burberry.

Newspapers are however a different kettle of fish. Or so I thought. And at this point, in the interests of full disclosure, I should add that ethics policies or not, every single fashion journalist who writes for a mainstream newspaper may well be a tiny bit pregnant.

Many of us – myself included – are bound by strict ethics policies that dictate that gifts must be returned. In some cases, journalists may also be bound by personal ethics policies. Suzy Menkes is renowned for her no gifts dictum.

But did Menkes drink Jean Paul Gaultier's champagne at his 30th birthday bash at Olympia on Saturday night? Since I wasn't at the party, I can't comment.

All I do know is that, while there is apparently no such thing as even a free lunch for Wall Street Journal journalists (or so one told me a couple of years ago), many of us who are bound by strict ethics policies regularly attend hosted lunches, dinners and parties. Perhaps all of our publications in future should pack us bento boxes and champagne hipflasks, so we can avoid quaffing LVMH and co canapes and piccolos at their events – and thereby avoid being accused of rigging the companies' respective stock prices.

But canapes and piccolos notwithstanding, I'm just not quite sure how far gone The Times of London might be in the duchessing gestation period. A little bit pregnant? Or completely up the duff? According to The Times' customer charter, which appears on its website:

"The Times in online format adheres to those principles which have guided the printed newspaper for more than 200 years: the integrity of editorial content and its complete separation and independence from the raising of revenue.

Advertisers and sponsors, essential as they are to our business, have never been able to exert any influence or in any way to compromise the editorial content. That remains the case online. In terms of sponsorship there will be complete transparency in any partnerships, the sponsors committing themselves to the understanding that they have no connection to, influence upon, or any power to shape, the editorial material or the judgments in it.

The Times Online, like the newspaper itself, abides by the codes of both the Advertising Standards Authority and the Press Complaints Commission".

But what appears on the blog section of The Times' London Fashion Week coverage [see top of post^] for spring/summer 2007? You bet, Burberry's Manor bag. Talked up, no less, as "the must-have bag at the shows".

We know for a fact that the bag was gifted to the paper. And although there is a – vague – disclaimer that free gifts abound at the shows, it is not clear that The Times team either accepts gifts – or indeed that the four-figure Manor bag was one of them.

In any event, the concept of "free gifts" would appear to be at loggerheads with The Times' "no gravy train" customer charter.

When it comes to the paper's opinion pieces on the spring/summer 2007 fashion season, we trust that they got off at Redfern.


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