Remediation is, how Bolter and Grusin put it, an “import [of] earlier media into a digital space to critique and refashion them.” In the fashion media, this could be incorporation or representation of one medium into the other, such as the old media into new media and vice versa. While Rocamora agrees that “new and old media feed into each other”, she goes further by addressing that remediation can be clearly recognized between fashion blogs and print publications. Her argument that each of them is borrowing elements from the other has been proved in many ways, with fashion magazines copying terms such as ‘shop the look’ and bloggers taking editorials as visual inspiration for their own shoots. With digital media becoming...
Remediation is, how Bolter and Grusin put it, an “import [of] earlier media into a digital space to critique and refashion them.” In the fashion media, this could be incorporation or representation of one medium into the other, such as the old media into new media and vice versa. While Rocamora agrees that “new and old media feed into each other”, she goes further by addressing that remediation can be clearly recognized between fashion blogs and print publications. Her argument that each of them is borrowing elements from the other has been proved in many ways, with fashion magazines copying terms such as ‘shop the look’ and bloggers taking editorials as visual inspiration for their own shoots.
With digital media becoming the dominant format in the fashion media, it is constantly remediating old media formats, including television, radio, and print. To briefly return to Rocamora’s argument, it can be said that the concept of remediation has become more refined in the digital age. A live-streamed catwalk show on the Business of Fashion website, for example, remediates a real-time event that is then distributed to digital screens. In this sense, the mirroring of the live event becomes a one-of-a-kind experience for the observer, who gets to experience fashion in different formats. In light of this, I further argue that remediation has fed into the role of the digital fashion journalist throughout this chapter, who is no longer solely focused on fashion writing but on representing the ideal powerful persona through him or herself.
In ‘Hunt for the Incipient Taste,’ Lantz describes magazine editors – journalists – as intermediaries and tastemakers who “have the power to make a mark on fashion.”
Furthermore, I argue that Sykes’ persona is strongly reflected in Figure 4.1 who has become known over the years as “the Kate Moss of fashion styling [who masters] the cool ‘I just rolled out of bed like this’ effortless look.” Despite remediating the typical fashion blogger, Sykes’ also enacts as a mediator between production and consumption by “directing consumers’ daily fashion choices.” Through wearing the garments, she becomes not only a promoter of brands but also “create[s] the conditions for consumers to identify their tastes in goods.”
