I was just twenty-two when I decided to launch Preo PR: young by most peoples' standards. When Preo launched, there was just a handful of independent, boutique fashion PR companies, whose clients were exclusively womenswear and accessory designers. These days you might be forgiven for thinking that there are more PR companies focussing on fashion and lifestyle than any other industry, such is the pace at which similar Public Relations firms are launched.
Is it the glamorous facade that has tempted so many in to this niche area of PR? Perhaps the term 'niche' no longer applies to the fashion industry? Certainly I have noticed fashion applying to an ever growing range of disciplines over the last decade. The Guardian's Saturday fashion pages are a perfect illustration of how fashion is now anyone’s business, regardless of age. When I was at school, a pair of Kickers and a Chipie jumper would be suitable attire for non-uniform day (perhaps explaining my dislike of branded clothing). These days however, many young teenagers - females in particular - are styled to a level I grew up seeing only in the pages of J17 magazine. Occasionally very impressive, sometimes clichéd, one could ask what these super-styled kids will look like in their 20's, 30's and older. Like the friends that were gifted the BMW for their 17th birthday, what will they look forward to driving in their 20's? Surely it's all downhill from a 3 series soft top? Unless you fund a shopping addiction with a part time job, looking good (whether that be down to TopShop purchases or a charity store scoop) costs money. And if Mother/Father isn't prepared to pick up the tab of their thirty year old daughter, then how can she possibly maintain her wardrobe and feed her habit?
Growing up in North London, 'looking good' was a basic requirement and from what I see on the streets of Golders Green, Hampstead and Winchmore Hill, it still is. Well groomed, with a hint of street, the North London girl knows her brands and is adept at combining designer with high street. But how soon this knowledge should be exhibited is, for me at least, a question worth asking. When I was ten years old, my favourite dress was covered in blue newspaper prints. I'll be honest with you, it was cool, very cool in fact. But I don't love it retrospectively, I loved it then. Cart wheeling around the garden, stopping to read an extract of news on the skirt, the dress made me happy. It mattered not where the dress came from, the label was an irrelevancy. I appreciate the modern influences, I understand why a young girl might like to have Cheryl's eye lashes and Pixie's hair (hell I was desperate for Kylie's blck hat with the hole in the middle) but can a fashion conscious twelve year old really believe that her self worth is inflated by donning a designer brand? Is that really how it works?
I know this is a tired ol' debate that has been broached by those both more liberal and conservative than I but every time I see a young girl with a labelled bag and designer pumps, I often wonder: is she is wearing the clothes or the clothes are wearing her. Perhaps I am not providing these fashion aware youngsters with enough credit (and I am absolutely not painting all young teens with the same brush). Perhaps their clothes do make them feel all warm on the inside. Perhaps they dress for themselves and not for others? Perhaps, perhaps. All I can be sure of is that I breathe a sigh of relief that I am not a young teenager in 2010, for fashions' sake at least.
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