Do you know that celebrities make your brain react in a particular way? When processing an image of a famous person endorsing a product, there’s a burst of activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex. So if you look at a picture of Kate Moss in hot pants, this neural response suggests that you’re accessing all the positive associations you have about Moss and transferring them to her shorts. This was reported by the Journal of Economic Psychology last month, and reading it was kind of a relief. No wonder we want to buy so many things, because you can’t look at anything fashion related at the moment without seeing a celebrity. They have colonized the catwalks and the front rows; their clothes jostle on shop rails against those created by designers.
The new trend is to move online and open up: celebrity wardrobe diaries are the next big thing. Presenter Alexa Chung and models Daisy Lowe and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley are just a few of the names who’ve recorded each day’s outfit for a month on vogue.com’s Today I’m Wearing, which averages 50,000 hits a day.
Last month Courtney Love launched What Courtney Wore Today, which presents a rapidly growing gallery of current and archive photos all captioned by Love and her small army of blog helpers. Love has shared, through her bloggers, everything from the lack of credit on her debit cards to the worst row she had with ex-boyfriend Edward Norton.
“Today I’m Wearing works brilliantly,” says Dolly Jones, editor of vogue.com. “Street-style blogs proved that voyeurism is the way to go with the Internet. Our challenge was to maintain an exclusive allure but make fashion accessible. So rather than Rosie Huntington-Whiteley shot by Mario Testino, you get an image texted from her direct. They’re still alluring, but they’re in their own bedrooms.” Style diaries are an obvious step for celebrities. The Internet has revolutionized fashion in recent years, making new trends a daily occurrence and letting anyone with broadband enjoy the seasonal catwalk shows. While style blogs have played a huge part in this democratization, personal diaries featuring the blogger’s own wardrobe have proved particularly inviting, which means that they gather large online fan bases.
Blogs such as Jane Aldridge’s Sea of Shoes, Rumi Neely’s Fashion Toast, Susie Lau’s Style Bubble, and Katie Mackay and Joe Sinclair’s What Katie Wore have all shown the impact that snapped self-portraits teamed with well-written captions can have. What Katie Wore started as a challenge from Sinclair, digital director for a PR firm, to his girlfriend, who works in marketing, to wear a different outfit every day for a year. She easily managed this goal about eight months ago, and the blog continues because of its popularity. There’s something oddly compelling about the albums of images — you’d be surprised how quickly you can start to care about a complete stranger’s wardrobe.
This personal involvement is something Jones thinks appeals to her celebrity bloggers. “[Socialite] Olivia Palermo obviously loved her fashion; Daisy Lowe was more quirky, jumping round her bedroom in funny poses. They can present themselves however they wish.” That was the motivation for fellow blogger Courtney Love. She launched her site because when she googled images of herself there were “nine pages that were fucking me at my worst.”
Celebrity blogging also has obvious rewards. “Two things motivate celebrities: more fame and more money,” says Sinclair, who writes What Katie Wore. “A daily blog can answer these two ambitions relatively well. On a less cynical note, it’s a powerful way to build a personal dialogue with the celeb’s fan base.”
There’s ego, too. “The navel-gazing aspect is probably there,” admits Love. “It is kind of vain.” Sinclair agrees that “writing and posting pictures of yourself online forces the author to tread a fine line between solipsism and narcissism.” But while these clothing diaries won’t ever be logged alongside Samuel Pepys’ or Ralph Waldo Emerson’s work, they say something about our times and the way we look at ourselves and each other. It may be a bit of a guilty pleasure, but there’s something fascinating about watching these women and their daily changes in dress and location. As Dolly Jones says: “We all get up and wonder what we’re going to wear. To see someone else do it is quite interesting.” And if you get hooked, remember it’s not your fault. Your brain is wired to respond to celebrities and their clothes. Fact.
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