Diesel enlists Finnish blogger

Yes I can!

Almost six months ago FashionNetAsia published a blog entitled Anyone can be a fashion critic highlighting the power of the internet, blogs, opinion pieces on fashion and last but not least the social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. These platforms allowed “unknowns” with no place in the corporate media to become fashion critics simply by launching a blog using free, off the shelf software.

At the same time there are stories about designer brands teaming up with hot fashion bloggers to re-establish their labels into the modern day.

Now, according to Fashion United the flagging denim brand, Diesel, has turned to hot Finnish blogger, Sandra Hagelstam, behind successful blog, http://5inchandup.blogspot.com/ to collaborate in a re-design of their label.

"They're trying to completely re-launch their brand, and it caught my eye," Sandra said.

She admitted that Diesel had seemed outdated; a brand she was interested in when she was 17 or 18. Now, Diesel has a Finnish designer at the helm, and Sandra feels connected with her countryman and jumped on board.

"They showed me the new collection and I feel really good about it," Sandra said. "It is stuff I would pick out to wear myself."

She initially started blogging to create a daily log of what she wears and admits to not knowing exactly why her blog, which she created in February 2010, started receiving heavy traffic, but thinks it is because she finds some "non-traditional" ways to "look good" by mixing and matching designer clothes with vintage pieces she scoops up.

Surfing Sandra´s blog is interesting. Populated by catchy photos, many posts have well over 150 reader comments and since February 2010 Sandra has received over 8 million visits to her blog. Something has gelled here and gelled very well. No wonder Diesel contracted her.

So not only can people out there in cyberspace be a fashion critic but bloggers are now overlapping with marketing consultants, brand launches and re-launches and so on. Will these bloggers with a sharp and often non-traditional eye for fashion encroach on the full service agency working from expensive offices in Soho, for example?

It is like the social media bloggers in the US who blogged and wrote about Coca Cola and ended up working for this global multinational.

Will this be the start of a new trend? Although we have no concrete evidence it must be more economical to engage a blogger to re-launch a brand rather than a full service marketing agency.

If you can run a blog and have a steady stream of around 84,000 visits per week over time and generate hundreds of reader comments then, as Sandra Hagelstam has shown, this must be the prerequisite to be a fashion consultant in the blogosphere.