Blog Reviews by Bloggeries

Fashion is all the rave these days in the blogosphere what with New York Fashion Week just passing, and London Fashion Week right on its heels. If you are looking for some good fashion advice from the blogging experts, then you may want to check out The Style Watch Blog.  The Style Watch blog is a fashion blog that strives to be a collaboration of all the fashion news that one can find on the web.   The blog is run by three ‘authors’ or bloggers, and works to provide you with everything you need to know about fashion. Though there is very little original content on the site, the blog does cover quite a range of topics which you can see in any of their most recent bloggerie: NY fashion: politics, celebs, and unsexy clothes; Chanel Mobile Art the Video; Why London is still a fashion capital; New NY fashions appeal to stay-at-home traveler; Fashion Week Fallout: Are Tough Times Ahead?; and “Sex and the City” fans can shop Carrie’s closet! 

The blog contains very little meat, thus making it a clean template and somewhat easy to navigate.  Bloggeries are left marginalized and appear in black text on white background with links highlighted in blue.  The blog offers a right sided navigation system as well where you will find a tag cloud, Pull Down Categories Menu, Authors Menu, a WordPress widget, and a video widget.  The Categories Menu is a little odd for a fashion blog and seems to contain labels for odds and ends such as TV, areas of the globe, and a few pertinent fashion related topics.  The content also is a little bit strange as mentioned, this blog seems to be more a parlayer of news feeds rather than a provision of original content. Bloggers are not writing content per se themselves, but retrieving content from other websites and posting it.  Mind you, they are not claiming originality, however when reviewing blogs the amount of original content on a blog is a factor in the overall review.

Overall this blog gets a 2/5 at the time of review, and this is primarily based on the lack of meat this blog needs. Primarily the blog is lacking in original content, and there is little if any to speak of on the blog. News sources can be reached by other means, so if the bloggers are wishing to retain readers, providing links to news stories is simply not enough. From a navigation perspective, the blog needs more blog essentials for the readers to use such as a Recent Posts Menu and possibly a comments menu. Though, considering the lack of originality here, I would guess few if any comments would be coming in.  Further, the appearance of the blog is somewhat bland for a fashion blog, as fashion readers like to see all of the pretty things they like the most, and while this blog offers the bare bones for graphics, I doubt it would be enough to sustain a healthy readership. Bottom line, my suggestion would be for this blog to start again, implement some blog meat and some original content at the very least in order to see any success at all.

- Chrissie

If you are addicted to hunting for the perfect pair of jeans, this is the site for you. Denimology, the science behind finding the perfect pair of jeans is found on its own domain in the UK and is dedicated to just that. Denimology is where you will get access to all of the up to date news and reviews of the best premium and vintage denim available online and on the high street. Denimology also caters to the celebrity conscious crowd, so if you are wondering what jeans your favorite celebs are wearing, you can find that out here. Check out Denimology’s latest bloggeries to see more: Carmen Electra in J. Brand Jeans, Privacy Wear – Clothing with a Conscience, Win a Pair of Terrance Sullivan Jeans, Heidi Klum in Miss Sixty Jeans, ShopBop Denim Guide – Getaway Looks, Mischa Barton in 18th Amendment Jeans, Selma Blair in Siwy Denim, Giselle Bundchen in Superfine Jeans, and YMI 2008 Ad Campaign.

The blog is well organized and this makes it somewhat easy to navigate. I will say that there is quite a bit more advertising on this blog than there seems to be of ‘blog meat’ and this makes the navigation a little distracting. The blog however contains 4 navigation systems – one left navigation bar, 2 right navigation bars, and a top navigation bar. In the top navigation bar you will find links to Home, Women’s Denim, Men’s Denim, Denim Sale, Rate My Denim, Newsletter, and Contact. The left navigation bar is left strictly to advertising, and the first right navigation bar contains more ads, Featured Sites, Categories Menu, Top Sellers, and links to all of your favorite denim brands. In the far right navigation bar there is again, more advertising, Supporters menu, and a very healthy looking blog roll.

I will give this blog a 3.7 for now, as the advertising is a little excessive and this affects both navigation and appearance marks. It’s not a big deal but it’s nice to have some sort of navigation in the first fold sidebars. I think they’d do just as well putting a smaller or even a link adsenes block in the top left with any type of navigation.  The content is well done, and is very active so the blogger scores well for that. I also like the marketing points where each headline is containing good usage of keywords for the hungry search engines. Navigation is overall not too bad, but the blogger could make more use of her many navigation bars by adding more blog meat such as Recent Posts Menu, Recent Comments Menu, or even a Fave Brand of the Week menu or something. I love the concept of the blog and its definitely one the readership will enjoy, as well as the search engines, however, the blogger is too focused on monetization and this could be affecting what might be a healthy readership. Finally I searched too long for the search bar. If you want people to get familiar with your content you must make searching for older bloggeries an easy task.

-Chrissie

Want to learn more or just network with other bloggers? Visit the Bloggeries Forum.

Fashion bloggers across the globe are doing everything they can during Fashion Week to make sure every last nitty gritty fabric details is noted, which celebs were spotted where, and of course, who they were wearing when they were spotted. Style It is not exception. Style It is where the fashion nerd meets the pop culture obsessed. Style It defines fashion nerd as the girl who knows who designed what and when it was worn. Style It also offers a wide range of celebrity coverage, and this is the pop culture component of the blog. The blogger of Style It is a 20 something girl with Southern Roots that is taking a break from higher education to pursue her dreams. She is obsessed with fashion and the people that make it tick. You can see for yourself exactly what Style It wants you to know about the collision of pop culture and fashion in her latest bloggeries: Fashion Week: Day Four from the Tents, Fashion Week: Day Two Live from the Tents, Fashion Week: Day One Live from the Tents, New York Fashion Week: Monopoly on Mania, Publicist Interview: Dina of Michael Rogers PR, Ask Style IT: Mexican Must Have, Obsessed: Conair Facial Sauna System, Define your Line with Borghese, and Hayden Panettiere in Lucky Magazine.

The blog is neatly laid out in a clean template which makes it very easy to navigate. Bloggeries are left marginalized and are in black text on a white background and links are in black. In the right navigation bar you will find advertising; subscription information; Links to add Style It to your facebook, Twitter, or MySpace; What’s Hot menu; and an extensive Categories Menu. The Categories Menu is divided into several main categories – fashion, beauty, celebrities, and entertainment, and these categories are further subdivided into more distinct categories. I did like this feature on the blog and found it very useful from a navigational standpoint. Each bloggery is accompanied by relevant pictures, which, for a fashion blog, truly adds meaning to the posts.

This blog gets a 4/5 from me. This is an excellent blog for fashion, beauty, or anything celebrity and it covers all niches very well. The blog scores well from a navigational standpoint as well as for appearance with its clean design and well-organized template. The blog is unique enough in that it offers its readers what they want in a very readable way. I enjoyed the style of the content as well as it wasn’t too technical, which some fashion blogs can be, and it read in a very personal almost tongue in cheek voice which gave the blog some flavor. The only thing the blog is really lacking is consistency in activity. Posts are coming in every other day to a week and some in between which may disappoint its readers. Overall however, this blog delivers to either the fashionista or the fashion nerd in every other way that it needs to.

-Chrissie