Last week when I spoke with Yuri Lee, the creator of LookBook.nu, I asked her if she could put me in contact with some of the site’s top users. Just a few days later, I heard from Lookbook’s forum moderator, Brook Bomber.
The 24-year-old, Columbus, Ohio native, says,
“Fashion is something that I’ve really had to learn to deal with. If anything, my basic idea of fashion stems from an anti-fashion ideal. I was born an identical twin, you could say I used fashion from a very young age as a tool to set myself apart from the carbon copy of myself….I’d say that the aesthetics, the idea of letting someone know what you are all about upon first glance, is what truly intrigues me when it comes to fashion. I really love the way that, through our exteriors, we can manipulate people’s reactions to ourselves.”
Bomber has been a member of the fashion forum since May, 2009. As moderator, she sorts through the site’s photographs, making sure that they adhere to the rules set up by the community. When it comes to advantages of online forums as opposed to traditional magazines Bomber says,
“In both print and online fashion mediums, it is really all about the model and the photograph. The major difference we have here is that LookBook.nu’s idea of fashion comes from anyone who has access to the website–either as a contributing model, or one who contributes hype. Fashion magazines might be showcasing what is coming next in fashion that might still be unattainable for the average person, while LookBook.nu sticks more to a everyday, pedestrian idea of what is ‘in’.”
To me, this sounds very much like the “democraticization of fashion,” a concept that LA Times Fashion Critic Booth Moore explained last week.
Overall, when it comes to the changing fashion industry, Bomber sees positive things happening, especially when it comes to the presence of LookBook.nu.
“One thing I have personally noticed, is that you see more affordable, current fashion in chain stores. A lot of designers are making lines for the everyday woman that are available, even all the way out here in the ‘cornfields’ of the midwest. What massive online communities for fashion, like LookBook.nu, have really shown is that a lot of women can afford to buy Vogue and drool over the editorials, but it’s much more appealing for us to be able to afford what we are lusting after.”
Bomber’s thoughts made me think a lot about Kristine Shine’s “Why Y Women,” and the results of the current study conducted by Radar Research. Perhaps we could look at the availability of more affordable fashion as the industry’s response to online fashion forum activity and the desire of individual contributors. It makes sense, doesn’t it?
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