Moncler's Human Forest (Video)

Of course, the biggest fans of Moncler that evening were the Brant brothers, who have yet to see a Fashion Week event that they couldn't throw their teenaged two cents on.

How long until they come out with their own flash mob, do you think?

Ms. Wolkoff in her Midtown office. (Emily Anne Epstein)

In the 31st-floor offices of SWW Creative, the walls are beige, the carpet is gray and the cabinets are standard-issue wood-grain. There’s no Eames armchair, no runway stills splashed across the walls, not even a lucite coffee table with a copy of Grace Coddington’s memoir. There’s not a flower in sight.

While fashion professionals are known to obsess over the color of their pens, SWW Creative’s offices are about as splashy as an insurance agency’s. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff is not concerned.

Ms. Wolkoff, who orchestrated Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week’s Lincoln Center expansion, isn’t in it for Smythson notebooks or a pair of Céline fur sandals. She is an executor first and a fashionist somewhere further down the line, finding more satisfaction in a spreadsheet than an Avedon. Though she’s a front-row fixture and a special-occasion catwalker, she doesn’t scour the runways for her own closet. Instead, Ms. Wolkoff, who stands a statuesque 6-foot-1, prefers the simplicity of a uniform—Ralph Lauren is her everyday.

“The outside world thinks that Fashion Week is so amazing and so glamorous and so over-the-top,” said Ms. Wolkoff, who has been overseeing the twice-annual event since 2009. “Is it important to have celebrities there? Great. Is it important to have the athletes in the front row? Super. But the truth is, this is a business.”

And yet, by acknowledging as much—and reimagining Fashion Week as populist and business-friendly—she has rankled fashion’s artistes, who feel that recent changes have given the event a noticeable odor of commerce. Under Ms. Wolkoff’s tenure, corporate sponsorships have taken center stage in a lobby concourse that more closely resembles the Javits Center than the heart of couture. Also, for the first time, there are events for the public, in the form of fashion-art collaborations with Lincoln Center’s performance groups. It’s gone from a tent to a circus.

“Lincoln Center is amazing—they have amazing facilities, they have everything you could possibly need,” said Stefan Golangco, the communications director of progressive menswear line Asher Levine. “But our brand is also about being underground and being off-schedule and being a little bit ... maybe less commercial. [Showing at Lincoln Center] doesn’t feel unique to your brand, especially if you’re a small label. You kind of get lost in the shuffle.”

While Fashion Week may be a few days longer now and may feel bigger (the tents certainly are), the number of shows in its main hub hasn’t grown materially since Ms. Wolkoff entered the mix. The total number of designers showing at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week itself has remained pretty much the same—the big explosion has been predominantly offsite. In 2007, when Fashion Week was still at Bryant Park, 90 designers showed at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week while 165 showed offsite. Last year, 91 designers showed at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Lincoln Center and 231 showed offsite, according to data from the Fashion Calendar, a fashion event scheduler, and IMG.

(Emily Anne Epstein)

Many of the designers opting to show offsite are looking for a particular sense of place; a mythology that matches their brand. “I always dreamed about being a part of Bryant Park, and when Fashion Week lost its location, I was really bummed about it. I lived for that moment,” said Nary Manivong, an emerging designer who has chosen to show his work offsite and off-schedule.

Of course, nobody can keep everyone happy, and Ms. Wolkoff is aware of that. She’s not interested in reclaiming defectors. She is interested in making sure the event goes off seamlessly.

“I stay in control of every little thing,” said the maestro of Post-it notes, corkboards and carefully stacked folders. “I want to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. If I could delegate a little better, I would be better off.”

She is well-known for indifference to the theatrics so often associated with fashion, calling herself an industry “Switzerland.” “There’s no drama,” Elle’s creative director, Joe Zee, told The Observer. “Whatever is happening behind the scenes, everything still feels very put together.”

Every detail is per Ms. Wolkoff’s design, said associates, one of whom likened her preparedness to that of a Boy Scout. “I don’t feel it’s appropriate to put my hands up in the air and say, ‘too bad,’ you know, or ‘It’s not my job,’” Ms. Wolkoff said. “There were times when I’d be sweeping the floor before an event if the floor was dirty. I wouldn’t wait for someone to come into the room and do it themselves.”

Ms. Wolkoff is known in the industry as “General Winston”—a name bestowed on her by Anna Wintour, a career-long mentor who tapped her to become Lincoln Center’s director of fashion when Fashion Week was pushed out of Bryant Park by an ice-skating rink. Ms. Wolkoff, who had previously headed the Vogue-hosted Costume Institute Benefit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is credited with helping elevate it from an East Coast event to a star-studded couture pageant.

She is one of the many New York fashion success stories who owe their rise in large part to Ms. Wintour’s mentorship. Ms. Wolkoff was a client services manager at Sotheby’s when Ms. Wintour hired her to do PR for Vogue, despite her lack of fashion experience. Raised amid acres of farmland in the Catskill Mountains, the black-belt preferred working on her jump kick to reading magazines. “Fashion was not something that I knew about,” she said. “It just wasn’t really particularly interesting.”

But what Ms. Wolkoff did have was an intensely disciplined work ethic, which was solidified playing power forward for Fordham University’s Division 1 basketball team. The diligence of waking up for predawn practice drills developed a personal drive that became impossible to turn off. (To this day, she calibrates her schedule to the minute, opting to have a manicurist come in to do her nails at her desk so she doesn’t have to cut into family or work time.)

(Emily Anne Epstein)

And she looks the part. Described by an associate as “the first person you see when you walk into a room,” Ms. Wolkoff came equipped with Vogue-worthy family associations: her stepfather is Bruce Winston, jeweler Harry Winston’s son.

“I didn’t have quite the understanding of the difference between Vogue, Elle, Harper’s and the rest of the world,” Ms. Wolkoff said, recalling her interview at the magazine. She was hired the same day. “I knew Anna Wintour was the editor in chief of Vogue, I just didn’t understand what it meant to wait around to meet with Anna Wintour. I didn’t lie that I read Vogue every day or that I grew up loving fashion, but I did know how to roll up my sleeves and do whatever it took to learn it.”

In the cosa nostra of fashion, Ms. Wintour’s blessing is likened to being “made” by a mafia boss. The wheels are slicked, critics are silenced and success is imminent. Accordingly, Ms. Wolkoff’s ascent at Vogue was rapid; she jumped from PR manager to special events manager to the head of the Costume Institute Benefit.

“The Costume Institute Benefit became my baby. It was something that I lived, breathed, day and night,” she said. “It was all about excellence. It was all about never taking ‘no’ for an answer from anyone in order to achieve the ultimate goal.”

At Lincoln Center, Ms. Wolkoff expanded on the foundations laid by Fern Mallis, the founder of Fashion Week, whose efforts put American designers on the global fashion map.

“We wanted to compete with Paris and Milan and other world capitals. There was very limited international business coming to New York, because we weren’t organized,” Ms. Mallis told The Observer. One of the initiatives she pursued was corporate sponsorships that would help offset the costs of the runway productions.

(Emily Anne Epstein)

Ms. Wolkoff nurtured those relationships, creating events that were open to the public rather than only buyers and editors, prying open the former fashion fortress and transforming it into a sprawling campus. “My goal was to put fashion on par with all the other cultural institutions that were at Lincoln Center,” Ms. Wolkoff said. “I always wanted to somehow democratize Fashion Week in a way that hadn’t been done before. I wanted to create a place where editors, models and designers could rub elbows with the everyday person.”

Some designers have balked at the new venue and the new vision, opting to take their shows elsewhere. Marquee New York brands like Proenza Schouler, Marc Jacobs and Alexander Wang have all decided to sidestep Lincoln Center. “The feedback I’ve gotten is that it’s way more commercial out there. But at the end of the day, that’s what it’s about,” Ms. Mallis said. “I certainly miss Bryant Park.”

Mr. Zee says that Ms. Wolkoff’s innovations have “matured” the biannual event. A self-proclaimed “fashion dinosaur,” he has been to shows at every fashion week, since long before they ever found a home at Bryant Park.

“I kind of love Lincoln Center,” he said. “She’s really made it into a true event. It’s not about going to a fashion show and leaving—she makes it into a true experience. It’s like growing up: Bryant Park was the teenage years, and now you grow up and you migrate uptown. It’s bigger, more glamorous ... it’s more what it is.”

At the end of the day, the models need to walk, the buyers need to shop, the editors need to see the season’s best and the designers need to sell their handiwork. It’s a trade show.

“If you look at who’s involved in fashion, there’s glamour, and smoke and mirrors, but it is a true business,” Vanessa von Bismarck, co-founder of fashion PR firm BPCM, told The Observer. “[Ms. Wolkoff] is someone with a business mind and [she] knows how the business works.”

(Mario Zucca)

In June of last year, Ms. Wolkoff stepped down as Lincoln Center’s director of fashion to take charge of her own company, SWW Creative. She still oversees the event, but now IMG and Lincoln Center are her clients, along with a number of other companies, including the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Penske Media Corporation and Kapture, an iPhone photo-sharing app.

Setting up shop privately enabled Ms. Wolkoff to dictate her own terms, which include being able to pick her three kids up from school and get home for dinner with her husband, real estate developer David Wolkoff. “I didn’t have children not to be with them,” she said. And even though her daughter Alexi has made the occasional runway appearance, she’s not an aspiring Tavi. “My children do not know the difference between Tar-jay and any other designer brand,” Ms. Wolkoff said proudly.

After bedtime, she typically dives back into work. “I go to sleep once I’ve put my third child to sleep, and I will wake up around 1 o’clock in the morning and work for a couple of hours, and then go back to bed,” she said, pointing to the 1,777 emails that had accrued in the past hour.

Once left alone, Ms. Wolkoff settled back into her seat and began riffling through the stacks of paper spread across her desk. She checked her iPhone and called out to her assistant. It was clear: she may be the first person you see when you enter a room, but she’s also the last to leave.

eepstein@observer.com

An exclusive backstage photo from The Observer's Wang-insider/tipster.

American fashion design has seen an exciting new crop of talented youngsters creep onto the scene. Creatives such as Joseph Altuzarra, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler, Alexander Wang, Jason Wu and Prabal Gurung have received a great deal of attention—and rightfully so. The majority of this bunch thrive on fanfare—not always on the design of their clothes, but on their front-rows, frantic check-ins and backstage dramas.

The Proenza Schouler duo, after several seemingly shaky years, have quickly become darlings of the global fashion elite, continually present interesting and attractive collections. Now sitting more comfortably with financial investments from Theory Group’s Andrew Rosen and a glossy new David Adjaye-designed boutique (albeit too damn dark to see any of the merch), its safe to say they are no longer emerging.

Mr. Altuzarra’s nomadic, opulent materials and prints seem to satiate the critics. Since PR Consulting has never invited us to one of his magical shows, we’ll let him be.

Jason Wu’s nearly flawless technique and practical glamour—not to mention being a favorite of first lady Michelle Obama—means he’s fine and dandy.

Same for Thakoon Panichgul.

The Observer will save Prabal Gurung, whose miscellaneous but splendid collection delivered a meager dose of sensationalism, mostly by way of models, for later …

The most interesting “up-and-coming” designer to The Observer is Mr. Wang.

Alexander Wang’s street-friendly sportswear, with its less daunting price tag and edgy wearability, enabled the designer’s swift and massive surge to the top. The party vixen created clothing that catered to his entourage of downtown creatures—models, anorexic rich brats, svelte power gays, artsy drunks—with a cost-effective production (even though a lawsuit claims allegations of sweatshop conditions!). It's no Ralph Lauren or Michael Kors, but the Soho boutique is crawling with new money eager to pounce, and one insider reported that sales are robust.

“He came on the scene just at the right time,” former Barneys bigwig Julie Gilhart was quoted as saying in New York magazine in 2011. Indeed he did.

The Observer is all too guilty of getting wrapped up in the Wang mystique. His shows are electrifying—a circus of outré celebs, aggressive fashion mavens and top-notch models. It’s sensationalism—perhaps even smoke and mirrors, except there is always something to covet. This is followed by the perennial blackout nights of mayhem at his costly, booze-fueled after-parties. But hey! Mr. Wang and his baby empire can afford it.

Look 14: Jordan Dunn. (PMc)

This season, Mr. Wang and his team returned to Pier 94. Tyson Chandler, Karen Elson, Justin Theroux, Sia, ASAP Rocky and Die Antwoord all showed up Saturday, September 8 to witness Mr. Wang's presentation of patch pocket separates, outerwear pieces with cut-outs or “zebra-embroidery,” and weird textured skirts and shorts in onyx, glacier white and desert sand. There were hints of menswear tailoring on shirts, fishline craziness and skeletal knee-high sandals that had people clawing with desire. For luxurious touches, Mr. Wang and co. used stingray detailing and crocodile beading.

It would be nearly impossible to top of the pack of supermodels, led by Gisele Bündchen, who stormed the runway at last year’s conclusion. Nonetheless, a gaggle of top models marched out in all-white looks. The lights dimmed and all their couture turned glow-in-the-dark.

The crowd ate it up like hotcakes, The Observer included. Tacky and stupidly club-kid-esque? Perhaps, but it was fashion entertainment at its American best.

But is this pot of fabulousness and spectacle about to bubble over?

One person, who wasn’t enjoying the fashion feast was New York Times critic Cathy Horyn.

“Mr. Wang ended with his white dresses being lit up like neon glow sticks, but the mood couldn’t be sustained,” Ms. Horyn wrote in the Times on September 9. “But, despite the styling of Karl Templer, who knows how to sharpen a designer’s message, Mr. Wang’s fancifully sliced-up clothes seemed to hit a wall. They had focus in terms of minimalist shape and futuristic textures, but there was no moment of uplift. A glow-stick snap of radiance isn’t enough.”

A bit harsh.

Die Antwoord Spreads the creepiness at Alexander Wang's after-party. (PMc)

The Observer would argue (not that we are deemed fit to challenge the legendary Ms. Horyn) that Mr. Wang’s shticks are exactly aligned with his boisterous lifestyle and extravagantly unfocused glamazon clientele. While we all might have been distracted by the blow-’n’-glow finale, The Observer is already sorting out the finances to scoop up a few of those garments and accessories. The scattered message rang loud and clear: Rave on!

Nina Agdal, Max Azria, Lubov Azria in Hervé Léger, Dania Ramirez and Rico Love are all smiles at The Boom Boom Room.

Rebecca Taylor was not at Lincoln Center. Had we not been slammed with events, emails, editorial projects, tweets and social babysitting of our entourage, we would have easily noted this. Rebecca Taylor was scheduled for 2 p.m. on Saturday at Highline Studios Downtown. Yet we had eagerly arrived at the Mercedes-Benz complex, bewildered and irritated. American Express to the rescue. The Observer made the smart move to get in touch with the skybox mavens for a little good old fashion week S.O.S. And rescued we were!

Within ten minutes, The Observer was ushered to the dark and stylish skybox, Champagne in hand and fruit on our plate. Amen. Keen on a break from the masses, we schmoozed with publicists, AmEx VIPs and other media gurus. Before long, we watched from our elite little post high above, as Mara Hoffman paraded her vibrant, billowy frocks and caftans down the runway.

More than content to combine work and play, we handed off our Hervé Léger seats to a cohort and hunkered down for the show, refreshed and content.

After the show, one of the producers of the lavish hideaway announced that Lubov Azria herself would address the intimate coterie for a brief discussion.

“I am his midlife crisis,” joked Ms. Azria about her fashion mogul husband.

When asked about if she had experienced any drama on the day of the show, she reported that look No. 4, Maria, had a panic attack.

“She couldn’t breathe,” Ms. Azria revealed and went on to explain that the models are teens. “That’s why they have those bodies!”

Model drama aside, Ms. Azria was composed and engaging throughout the chat.

Things got even better, when Max and Lubov Azria invited The Observer to their Fashion Week after-party later that evening, which was presented by star-power media magnets Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter. The Top of the Standard was brimming with beauty—Daisy Fuentes, models Jessica White and Jessica Hart, and Dania Ramirez sightings come to mind—but the best attraction was delivered by DJ Harley Viera-Newton and DJ Kiss who had us sloshing and swaying deep into the night.  Before our exit, we just couldn’t resist one more exchange with Ms. Azria and dove in for a kiss-kiss, which she gracefully welcomed.

The atmosphere of American Express Skybox. (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for American Express)

“We like that you feel a little chaotic and it’s all very well planned,” explained a representative from American Express. “This is an opportunity for us to give back to our premium card members who are passionate and we are giving them a very immersive experience, as you can see, with the models running around.”

Cardmembers are spoiled with backstage tours, coups de Champagne and a gourmet spread worthy of a sultan.

“They get rushed into a show right as it is about to begin and then the best part is that after the show they get to come back into the studio and the designer comes in for a Q&A,” we were informed by one of our hosts.

The Observer threw back a few a glasses in the sun-lit salon that had been tastefully decorated with cozy loungers and a private hair salon replete with stylists, before we were ushered to the front-row of Cushnie et Ochs’s runway presentation last Friday.

The exclusive experience isn’t for your average chum. Wealthy Centurion and Platinum cardholders pony up big bucks for the VIP packages backstage at Milk Studios and in the Skybox at Lincoln Center. For this fourth incarnation of AmEx at MADE at Milk, members from Los Angeles, Dallas and even London jetted into New York for as briefly as one day of fashion shows and boozy, behind-the-scenes action.

The view from the Skybox

These folks avoid the lengthy delays of press check-in, horrendous fashion personalities and truthful banality that fashion week quickly becomes. In fact, the VIP experience utterly fabulous, if not downright obliviously serene. The Observer was more than content to dip our cup deep in the well and indulge.

“It’s pretty smooth sailing,” one well-dressed AmEx staffer confessed.

Indeed it was, perhaps the most relaxed we would be for a very long time, during a very fussy week.

It’s not all about lucrative and getting chumming with top-notch clients. American Express actually makes efforts to do some good. In addition to providing support for emerging designers through its partnership with MADE the company contributed a hefty $250,000 donation to the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, a program of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), we were told.

Thursday, September 13, American Express cardmembers will get to canoodle with celebrity stylist and reality show empress Rachel Zoe and experience a special runway show. “It's going to be an incredibly fun and fashionable evening,” forecasted Ms. Zoe.

We’ll of course be on the scene and fill you in on precisely all that goes down.

Kristen Chenoweth attended the Rebecca Minkoff at The Theatre Lincoln Center on September 7

Broadway star and Tony winner, Kristin Chenoweth was badly injured on the set of popular primetime CBS show The Good Wife in July. The petite star told the LA Times in September that she “had a skull fracture, rib issue and neck issue and a hip issue,” and had to be carried off in a stretcher after a lighting rig fell on her.

But this week, she has back in action for the first time, attending several runway shows in New York.

“This is my big night out after seven weeks,” the giddy and tenacious Ms. Chenoweth told The Observer at the DL 1961 fashion show last week in West Chelsea.

“I feakin' loved it!” She said about DL 1961, “I can actually wear the clothes!”

“Will you be attending any more shows?” The Observer asked

“Two more [Rebecca] Minkoff and Nanette Lepore.”

“What do you like most about fashion week?” we wanted to know.

“The artistry, I’m an artist so I appreciate other artists and design,” she chirped over the loud beats of DJ Mia Morretti.

Before bouncing away with her female entourage, Ms. Chenoweth noted that you won't find her on a banquette at the Top of the Standard or gracing Le Baron’s dance floor.

“I’m going to continue with my physical therapy and try to rest,” she revealed.

Smart move.

KCD's darling, Hallie Chrisman. (Patrick McMullan)

Navigating the realm of fashion publication relations can be a difficult job. For in-house publicists and leading New York PR firms, such as KCD, PR Consulting, Karla Otto, Starworks, Bismarck Phillips and HL Group—fashion week is a marathon: RSVP-management, developing press releases, endless email chains, photography and artistic direction, event and runway production, front-of-house organization, seating charts and VIP affairs!

Scheduling and logistical nightmares are frequent; editor struggles occur; and drama is a guarantee. For international firms, the chaos continues in Milan and Paris. Even more maddening, some publicists have red carpet dressing to deal with for the Grammys and fast-approaching Oscars!

It took some effort, but The Observer hunted the striking Hallie Chrisman, Publicity Director at KCD— to get the scoop on what her life has been like of late…

What does fashion week equate for you?

Since I go to London and Paris it’s actually more like fashion month—to me it equates to training for a marathon, you have to make sure you don’t burn yourself out in the beginning. New York is always the most all-consuming, as we each have our own shows we individually oversee and then are staffed to work the 20-plus shows and events we handle for New York Fashion Week. Once the team goes to Europe we generally focus more on the U.S. press aspect of each client’s show, as well as providing support to any shows our Paris office is handling. So, as I said, it’s a marathon.

KCD is everywhere, with a blue-chip roster of clients! How do you balance it all?

I’m very fortunate to love what I do and where I work, however when it’s not fashion week(s) (or the CFDA Awards, or the Victoria’s Secret show, or another major project) I always make time to see friends and travel to maintain a healthy balance between my work and personal life.

When you need a break, where is your go-to for a drink or good eats during fashion week?

One Lucky Duck Juice Bar—it is located conveniently across the street from the office in Chelsea Market. I love the Strawberry Blonde shake and then I always get a ginger shot to stave off the inevitable fashion week cold.

Take us to a show—where are you? What are you doing? We saw you at Wang!

It depends on the show, at some shows I am running the backstage press and photographers, while at others you will find me inside the venue helping seat guests and greeting the editors, retailers and VIPs.

How many people try to crash shows and after parties? Any good stories?

There are always some crashers but they are pretty easy to spot and we run a pretty tight ship so we don’t get as many as you might think. Some doors—you might not get crashers per se but more fans who will just wait outside to watch and see who is entering and exiting the event. Even though they will never get in, you have to at least give them credit for their dedication.

What celebrities are incredible to work with? Is GPS like fashion week “Big Brother?”

Fashion GPS was initiated when KCD PR approached Fashion GPS President Edwin Mullon to create a cutting edge technology to control inventory management and then events management. It’s so great that most of the industry uses it so we are all on one system to make editors, retailers and our lives easier!

Which editors do you look forward to seeing during fashion week? Who has the best style?

I wouldn’t be a very good publicist if I played favorites now would I? A lot of my close friends are actually fashion editors so it’s always great to see friends and catch up (if only briefly) during fashion week.

Any fun nightlife plans? What will be the best after party?

I try to stay under the radar during New York or else I don’t think I would be able to make it through Europe; however I try and stop by my client’s after parties if I can. Jason Wu and Prabal Gurung both threw great after parties this season and then of course there was the Miu Miu party we handled and the CFDA Impact Exhibit opening party at FIT, which kicked off the year-long celebration of the CFDA ’s 50th anniversary.

Best part of being a fashion publicist?

Getting to do what I love every day and working with some of the most talented, smart and interesting minds in the industry. Plus going to London and Paris twice a year isn’t too bad either!

It’s all over! Where do you flee to rejuvenate?

I try and get away for a weekend once I get back from Paris. This season I am planning on visiting friends in Austin for a long weekend. I also always start making my summer vacation plans during fashion week in February, this summer it will be several trips to Nantucket and is also looking like a week in Turkey.

McMillan at the Richard Chai Love Spring 2012 Fashion Show

Fresh off the runways in Milan and Paris, model-newcomer Miles McMillan (who walked in Dior, Etro, John Varvatos, Costume National and Damir Doma—to name a few) is gearing up for another strong season of shows and parties in New York. The Observer hunted him down to find out what life is like when you’re so in-demand.

How did this all start? Modeling, posing, and such… were you discovered?
I was standing on the street and a girl came up to me who wanted to shoot me for Urban Outfitters. I finally ended up with DNA [Models] last March and then when I graduated last May from NYU, I started doing it full time… and it took off!

You were quite popular at the shows in Europe this past January—tell us about your rise to the top?
It was crazy! Last time I was in Milan I did two shows… this time I did seven!

Impressive! What is your favorite show to walk in?
Dior is always my favorite. It’s a very big production… the music and clothes are the best! I love it!

What are castings like in New York? Is it painful?
Here it’s very organized: you go to a casting, you wait maybe 30 or 40 minutes and then you get pulled in, give them your book; they take a picture and you have to walk. Then sometimes they'll put you in clothes and then you go back for fitting if they like you.

Sounds pretty exhausting… When do you know you’re confirmed?
It’s not really guaranteed until the end… you never really know until you walk that runway.

What have you booked this season for New York so far?
I’m not completely sure… I’ve had fittings for Tommy [Hilfiger], one for Richard Chai, Concept Korea, Nicholas K… we shall see!

What’s your dream show for New York? Any one you’d kill to be cast for?
My dream is always Richard Chai— it’s always really fun and he’s a friend.

We'll be at his show! What are you dreading most about this week?
It’s pretty good because I live here… when I’m not doing castings… four hour call times before shows… hair done, re-done waiting lots of waiting!

You’re always a man about town! Tell us about your party plan…
Tonight I’m going to a Sandro opening… I did their look book… Richard Chai is having a party— everyone is having party!

Typical! But aside from Chai, who throws the best shindig?
I think V magazine always has the really fun parties and Purple [magazine] and Alexander Wang!

The Boy who would be queen. (Fred Harper)

In February 2009, a young-looking man appeared in the audience of the Marc Jacobs Fall-Winter show, one of the most exclusive at New York Fashion Week. He was not a director, like Marc’s friend and frequent guest Sofia Coppola, or a famous singer, like Madonna, or an actor, but his handsome, androgynous face was already familiar to tens of thousands of fans online. And there he was, in the pantheon. Fashion-show invite lists are feudal and loaded with meaning, and that man’s arrival at Marc Jacobs meant: I am now Anna Wintour’s peer.

An unlikely peer he was.

Bryan Grey-Yambao, who is also known as Francis Bryan Yambao, but who is much better known as BryanBoy, has been blogging about fashion since 2004. That’s longer than the Sartorialist (which Scott Schuman started in 2005), longer than Garance Doré (2006), longer than Susie Lau (2006), longer than Rumi Neely (2008) and longer than Tavi Gevinson (2008). He helped establish—or at least propelled into the mainstream—many of the tropes of the fashion-blogging genre, like the blogger’s gushy après-shopping post (“I fell in love with this Alexander Wang leather and canvas backpack the first time I saw it when Rumi and I went to the Opening Ceremony store in LA …”), the endless starring-in-the-editorial-of-my-own-life photographs of the blogger wearing designer outfits, and the blogger’s mainstream media crossover.

He also helped set the standards for designer “gifting” and disclosure of same in the fashion blogosphere, an arena where it is currently considered acceptable for a blogger to take international airfare, accommodation, designer goods and sometimes even celebrity-style appearance fees from the major brands they cover. Bryan’s agent would not comment on his current appearance and speaking fees, but the blogger told New York that he made over $100,000 in 2010. His blog currently bears enormous Coach ads and Women’s Wear Daily reported in November that BryanBoy.com averages 1.4 million page views per month.

Bryan has close relationships with many high-fashion brands; @bryanboy and @stefanogabbana frequently carry on conversations with each other (“hello bryan!!! How r u ? Xxx stefano” “I’m doing good Stefano! It’s 6AM here in Manila and I’m still awake! I miss you!!!!”). Bryan has 223,226 followers on the micro-blogging site to Gabbana’s 212,674.

BryanBoy takes his rightful place in the front row. (Bryan Bedder/Getty Images)

Bryan turned down an interview request, telling The Observer he was obligated not to participate in any profiles pending a “project” with another “media outlet,” which he said he expected would be “developed/released” by this summer. Bryan’s agent at CAA—with whom he signed in May 2011—did not comment on the rumor that the “project” in “development” relates to television. Nor would she comment on his other upcoming projects.

Alex Gilvarry, whose début novel, From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant, centers around a slight, flamboyant Filipino fashion designer known as Boy, said he started reading BryanBoy to learn about fashion, but found himself fascinated. “I think it’s funny that BryanBoy and Manny Pacquiao are like the most famous Filipinos in the world right now,” said Mr. Gilvarry. “And behind them is Imelda Marcos.”

“Bryan often chides me on not having as good a knowledge of fashion as I should,” admitted Isaac Hindin-Miller, a New Zealand-born, New York-based fashion blogger who has been friends with Bryan since 2008. “I took a photograph about three and a half years ago at a Jean Paul Gaultier men’s wear show," and Vogue happened to publish the shot. "I got a credit about five millimeters wide, at the very corner of the page, completely in the middle of the book,” says Mr. Hindin-Miller. "And the day that Vogue came out, Bryan Tweeted at me and said, ‘Congrats on getting a photo credit in Vogue.’

“I emailed him and was like, How on earth did you see that?” recalled Mr. Hindin-Miller. “And he told me, I read every single word of every single magazine. I don’t believe you could find anyone who has a better knowledge of what’s going on in the industry than Bryan."

A Manila-based friend who’s known him since the early 2000s said, “I used to roll my eyes whenever he’d tell me that he wanted to be in Vogue,” but sure enough, he was anointed one of nine bloggers “making a global industry sit up and take notice” by that magazine’s 2010 “Power” issue.

But while Bryan has the rare quality of appearing to offer total, unvarnished honesty, his blog readers—and even many of his friends—are privy to surprisingly little information about him. He rarely mentions his family, and never by name. BryanBoy will tell his readers about discovering he was gay at age 12 when he had feelings for a classmate called Emanuel, but he will not post any pictures of or give even a first name for the boyfriend he has been dating since 2010. (He is a Swedish commercial banker, and he is said by those who have met him to be a nice man who guards his privacy closely.) BryanBoy will scan and post the results of an HIV test (negative) along with a safe-sex message, but he’s never mentioned his parents’ professions. BryanBoy will live-tweet a threesome (in 2010, he took the time to mention that his partners were wearing Lanvin Homme and Damir Doma, respectively), he will even tweet about his bowel movements, but he will not talk about where he grew up.

“He has the most entertaining Twitter account of anybody that I follow,” said Mr. Hindin-Miller. “But no, I don’t know what his parents do.”

“He writes about everything,” said Mr. Gilvarry. “But I really don’t know anything about him.”

So, who is BryanBoy?

As with many mythologies of self, there is an alter ego involved.

In October 2003, an Internet user in the Philippines logged on to the website CreditBoards.com and created an account under the name “bboy777.” Bboy777 described himself as a Filipino national living in Manila who had U.S. assets, and therefore an interest in participating in an online community devoted to the accumulation and cultivation of American consumer credit.

Bboy777 let it be known that his real name was Bryan; sometimes he signed his forum posts “BryanBoy.” He described himself as self-employed, and said that because he worked for many U.S.-based clients, he had opened bank and brokerage accounts in the country. (He described in detail how this was possible, with an IRS-issued Individual Tax Identification number instead of a Social Security number, a Mail Boxes Etc address instead of a street address, and an account statement from the Internet phone service Vonage instead of a utility bill.)

Over the next 18 months, bboy777 would post over 2,400 times to the CreditBoards forums. He provided TransUnion and Equifax screenshots of his credit scores (low-to-mid-700s, or slightly below average) and scanned pictures of over 20 cards he claimed to carry, including a Pentagon Federal Credit Union Visa, a Household Bank MasterCard, a Bloomingdale’s card, a Kinko’s card, and four cards issued by National City, the Ohio-based bank that was acquired by PNC in 2008 and which bboy777 described as “my local bank in IL.” (Bryan has said he has family in the Midwest.) He also scanned a picture of his Louis Vuitton wallet. It had 10 credit-card slots; most held at least two cards. The pictures were hosted by a Photobucket account registered to “bryanboy.”

Bboy777 posted publicly about his weight-loss goals, harrowing diet drug experiences, and loathing for fake designer goods—topics with which any reader of BryanBoy’s blog will be familiar. Bboy777 was also gay; whenever the talk on the discussion boards turned personal and someone brought up marriage he’d joke that he was obligated to remain a bachelor—“unless someone charters a concorde using his amex black and fly me to boston, massachusetts.”

At that time, friends say Bryan was working as a virtual assistant, providing administrative and technical assistance to, and sometimes building websites for, remote clients. Said one person who knew Bryan in the early 2000s, “Whenever we went out, he’d always complain how he had to go home at a certain time of the day because he had deadlines for clients.” (On CreditBoards, bboy777 talked about his “billable hours,” and once mentioned charging $12,000 worth of Stamps.com postage for “order fulfillment.” He had a sideline business in acquiring domain names, to later sell at a profit.)

All told, he amassed a combined business and personal credit limit of nearly $200,000 by late 2005. The history revealed on CreditBoards goes some way to explaining how Francis Bryan Yambao, a high-school educated 20-something still living with his parents in a home friends describe as “pretty modest,” in a country where the per-capita GDP was just $4,100 in 2011, and where 33 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, was able to acquire the Dior handbags and Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses and Karl Lagerfeld furs he photographed himself wearing at exclusive nightclubs and restaurants. “Highest single charge of $4,000 as [sic] Chanel on Biz card,” wrote bboy777. “No call/verification needed.” (BryanBoy did not respond to comment requests by press time.)

All the while, he was blogging about his life and purchases on the BryanBoy blog that would eventually win him fashion fame.

Bryan, who is the eldest of four children, grew up with his parents in the southern suburb of Alabang (in the home where he still lives when he visits Manila today). Though the family was wealthy by Philippines standards—according to friends, Bryan attended the Colegio San Augustin in the neighborhood of Makati, an exclusive, private, coeducational Catholic school where notable alumni include several Filipino senators and the sister of the incumbent president (the school did not respond to requests for comment confirming Bryan’s attendance or graduation)—he was not born into the ranks of Manila’s well-connected establishment. None of the old friends The Observer spoke to recalled his having attended university.

Bryan started blogging as BryanBoy in 2004, at age 22, not 16 or 17 as he has variously claimed in the press. (Seventeen is still the joke age that he gives reporters, some of whom apparently take him at face value. “I’ll see some of the most respected fashion magazines in the world, saying, ‘17-year-old BryanBoy…’ and I’m just like, that is absolutely hilarious,” said Mr. Hindin-Miller. He became pioneer in a now-familiar game—that of the Internet upstart whose blogging paves the way to a position in the old media.

He seems to have entered the public consciousness fully formed, like Athena with a tan Hermès Birkin. “I think I saw him on one of the morning shows once, exhibiting his collection of designer bags,” said a formerly Manila-based editor who has met Bryan. He (briefly) penned a fashion column for the Philippines Star. He guest-judged the Philippines edition of Project Runway. “He wasn’t necessarily known for being fashionable, or a fashion source, or for having the credibility that he has now. Or the cachet,” said the former editor. “He was a big, flamboyant character, at the time.” But mainly in his home country.

But in 2007, things changed for Bryan in Manila. An anonymous gossip blog called Chikatime (“chika” is Tagalog for “small talk”) sprang up. “Chikatime was a huge scandal in Manila. It rocked the entire country,” said the former editor. The blog combined Perez Hilton’s fondness for coke-y MS Paint doodles with TMZ’s gutter ruthlessness with 2005-era Gawker’s weakness for the unverified, and unverifiable, juicy reader tip. The writing style appeared to match Bryan’s, and many of the blog’s subjects were the establishment figures and socialites who had granted him entry into their world. “A lot of the people who control the Philippines media control society,” explained the former editor. “What made that gossip different was that it targeted the people that people wanted to target. Society was just about these people all the time—you pick up a magazine, and it was just these same people, year after year, or the daughters and sons of these people.”

Chikatime published only for a few months, barely into 2008. But it left powerful people rattled and unsure who was watching. “It was like Gossip Girl,” laughs the former editor. Although Bryan’s involvement was never established beyond rumor, his name became indelibly associated with Chikatime. “It was just common knowledge in Manila among those who were in-the-know,” said the former editor. Friends became former friends. Traditional media distanced itself from him. Manila “society” closed ranks.

BryanBoy increasingly turned his attention to the outside world, and fortunately, that world seemed ready to return the regard.

By 2006, the influence of his fashion blog was such that a seasonal ad campaign for Fendi featured a photo of the supermodel Angela Lindvall holding a handbag up like a trophy, her left hand on her hip—a visual nod to a signature BryanBoy pose, and a clear sign that fashion was beginning to pay him notice.

In 2008, Bryan attended his first international fashion weeks as an invited guest—Australia’s and New Zealand’s. (“He might only be 5 foot 8 and 19 years old, but Bryan Boy managed to cause quite a stir …” began Mr. Hindin-Miller’s New Zealand Fashion Week interview with Bryan, published on the former’s blog.) Photos of Bryan sitting front-row made excellent fodder for BryanBoy.com.

New York Fashion Week was next.

It also didn’t hurt that the same year Marc Jacobs saw a fan video Bryan had made about the designer, and a post in which Bryan raved about a green ostrich bag in the designer’s Fall-Winter 2008 collection. Jacobs sent him a personal email pledging to name the bag the “BB” in his honor. The designer later sent Bryan the green bag—in fact, the very runway sample he’d originally heralded. BryanBoy called the gift “the best thing that has ever happened to me.” And when Jacobs sent a picture of himself holding an “I love you, BryanBoy” sign, Bryan wrote that the photo was “possibly the most grandiose thing I’ve ever received from anyone (well that and the gift of life from my mother’s ass but whatevs).” At every Marc Jacobs show since Spring-Summer 2009, Bryan has been seated in the front row.

“After Chikatime shut down, his star kind of shot up,” said the former editor. “It was a really good exit. I actually admire his ambition, and how far he’s gone … All the stuff that happened in the Philippines—no one even cares. He’s an international fashion figure now.”

An old friend from Manila agreed. “I thought he was delusional, but look at the little motherfucker doing his thing today!”

“He’s brilliant,” said Mr. Hindin-Miller. “He’s not the best writer in the world—I will freely say that. He is not the best writer in the world. But he’s brilliant at taking people along for the ride. You genuinely do live vicariously through him.”

What makes Bryan palatable to major brands is partly his tactical inoffensiveness—Bryan’s critical judgments range from the merely excited to the superlatively delighted —but also partly his ability to remind fashion’s most established figures of the sense of soaring wonder great fashion can move certain very young people to feel. Every top designer was a kid poring over the pages of Vogue in a childhood bedroom, once. BryanBoy, who will turn 30 in March, takes them back there.

This week, he will be in town once again, no doubt flush with invitations and resplendent in gifted gear, having made good on his early aspirations to find a place in the style world’s front row.

“The more that you work in fashion, the more that you get to know how everything works, the more jaded you get,” said Mr. Hindin-Miller. “But Bryan never seems to get jaded at all.”

editorial@observer.com

(Fred Harper.)

Earlier this year, microblogging service Tumblr was the toast of Fashion Week. The company’s fashion director, Rich Tong, negotiated access for influential Tumblr users to cover swanky events. Bloggers got access to A-list fashion shows and in return big brands got access to an online community of fashion enthusiasts that were active on one of the edgier platforms to emerge in the social media landscape in the last few years. And the industry took notice. Now fashion luminaries are on the platform, too. Stefano Gabbana has a Tumblr. So does Terry Richardson.

But Tumblr’s courting of the industry played out a little differently this season against the backdrop of the Fall shows. It began with a proposal Mr. Tong circulated to fashion brands and agencies for the Spring 2012 shows. Tumblr made a similar offer to deliver influential bloggers to big brands, but this time, the company wanted to be paid for the service. The proposal asked for $100,000 to have four of Tumblr’s 20 “select bloggers” produce 15 posts for the client brand’s Tumblr during the week, with the “exact nature of the content to be agreed upon prior to the start of the week.” For $150,000, brands could get ad placement on the official NY Fashion week Tumblr. For $350,000 they could get ad placement on the Tumblr tagged “fashion” page. And for $10,000 big fashion brands could spend a little quality time with the bloggers at a private event. Product placement was also offered “at cost”. “This is an opportunity for your brand to put your product in the hands of the right bloggers,” said the proposal.

For many brands, it seemed like an attractive offer. Tumblr is a popular platform with over 28 million blogs. The company, which was founded by 25-year-old David Karp, has 49 employees and a valuation estimated at $800 million. It’s reportedly close to raising a $75 to $100 million round for additional infrastructure, prompting many jokes about bubbles and the valuation-to-revenue gap. Tumblr CEO David Karp has said he is adamantly opposed to putting ads on the site, and the company’s revenue streams–custom themes that cost users a one-time fee of $9 to $49 and a $5 directory–haven’t kept up with the site’s user growth.

The user growth is in many ways a function of the site’s minimalist and intuitive design, which lends itself to easy reading and sharing of content. “I think there’s magic that happens inside the Tumblr dashboard,” said Jared Hecht, who worked in business development at Tumblr before leaving to co-found the startup GroupMe, recently acquired by Microsoft. “People sit there literally all day long, refreshing their dashboard, consuming more content. I think it’s the greatest, most monetizable component of Tumblr. They have a unique opportunity to monetize with features that their userbase actually will like and interact with. I think subtle and simple value-add features in the dashboard will be monetizable, along wth community verticals.”

But if the platform is attractive to users and potentially monetizable, it hasn’t done a very good job of the latter. Reaction to Mr. Tong’s proposal was mixed. “They clearly don’t understand the first thing about ad buying,” said an agency rep with more than a decade in digital sales who received the proposal. “They didn’t explain how these ads would be served or offer us any way to track them, even through a third party. How am I supposed to present that to a client?”

If Tumblr is having trouble parsing how the industry works, it’s not the only company with that problem. Last week, the New York-based ToVieFor, a members-only auction site for women’s luxury goods, closed up shop after about a year of building the business followed by a spring at TechStars, the high-powered incubation program that connects entrepreneurs with mentors and money. The site was shuttered, the company’s Twitter account was down, its Tumblr was quiet, and co-founder Melanie Moore changed her LinkedIn profile to the past tense. “On the surface, we shut down because we ran out of money,” Ms. Moore said. “However, the root cause of this was a flawed business model. We were attempting to compete solely on price in a world where brands not only do not compete on price, they have essentially formed an oligopoly and set prices (vs. take prices). As a result, it was incredibly difficult to convince brands to allow us to change up their pricing structure. And in retail, having those brand partnerships is critical to survival.”

At the beginning, ToVieFor had incredible momentum. The startup won the $75,000 grand prize at NYU’s Stern School business plan competition, debuted at TechCrunch Disrupt and went on to make the cut into the first TechStars NY class that ended April 15. When they applied for TechStars, ToVieFor had revenue, 5,000 users and a four-person team with 15 years of collective industry experience; they were also filling out their board with fashion insiders, including an editor at Gotham magazine and a finance executive with Burberry.com, according to the New York Times, which reported that “the company’s live presentation, said one judge at Stern’s finals this year, Paul Sciabica, executive director of New York Angels, was ‘investment-bank quality.’”

During TechStars, ToVieFor tried to adapt to be more like a typical, full-price retailer. “This satisfied the brands, and we began to establish partnerships with designers in the luxury category,” Ms. Moore wrote in an email. “But as a result of this change, we lost our competitive edge in the marketplace. We were then going head-to-head with retailers like Net-a-Porter and Shopbop, with no real competitive advantage over these businesses.”

And those businesses may be the only ones that are fitting somewhat comfortably into the clunky intersection between tech and fashion. Kevin Ryan’s Gilt Groupe, an Alley-based luxury retail site, has grown from a small members-only shopping site to a retail behemoth that’s hoping for a 2012 IPO. It generated $270 million in revenue in 2009 and claimed to have done over $400 million last year.

But Gilt doesn’t resemble a new model so much as the old one: good old-fashioned direct retail, with not-very-webby things like warehouses and inventory management. Gilt’s challenges are, in many ways, the challenges of their traditional brick-and-mortar counterparts.

The dilemma for Tumblr and companies like ToVieFor is much different. They have to work with the industry in a way that doesn’t compete with it (a la Tumblr) or figure out how to disrupt it (which theoretically would have been an option for ToVieFor). It’s an attractive opportunity that has interested many high profile angel investors and venture capitalists, from Ashton Kutcher (who invested in fashion startup Fashism.com) to traditional firms like General Atlantic, which funded flash-sale site Gilt Groupe.

Prior to becoming Fashion Director at Tumblr, Mr. Tong co-founded two fashion startups, Weardrobe and Index F. He also worked as a front end developer at UNICEF. None of these positions involved client services or ad sales, which he now handles as fashion director at Tumblr.

“It makes total sense,” said one selected blogger who spoke to The Observer by phone. “They need to start earning money, and writing about brands, product placement, that is a good way to do it.” The Observer explained that, according to Mr. Tong’s proposal, the bloggers would be submitting 15 posts per week, not to their own blogs, but to the Tumblrs owned by the brands paying the fees. “Oh, wait really?” the blogger asked. “In that case, I would definitely want to be paid, because I would no longer own the content.”
“[Mr. Tong] is David Karp’s friend and that seems to be his main qualification for this job,” said one designer who wasn’t thrilled with the idea, either. “Now they are trying to have us pay for Tumblr bloggers to come to our shows, which is ridiculous. We would never pay a journalist to come cover us, so why would we pay Tumblr?”

But the question of who should get paid for what and why isn’t the dicey situation the company is facing. It’s also an issue of the company’s overall responsiveness to brands, and to users—and its knowledge of the space in which it’s trying to compete.

Raman Kia, the Head of Digital Marketing at Starworks Group, laid things out in a post titled “Exposed: The Actual Problem With Tumblr.” “My team and I represent 15 of the most prestigious and powerful brands in the fashion space,” wrote Mr. Kia. “I have this year tried on two occasions to work with Tumblr on a professional level. So, I am coming to the table from a position of truth and authority.

“It came as a surprise to my client that the person representing Tumblr at this meeting had no idea who my client was,” he continued. “Let me just put this in perspective: This is one of the biggest retailer of luxury fashion in the world (did I already say that?) —and probably one of the most reputable and prestigious. It’s like saying I am the Director of Automotive but I’ve never heard of BMW or Mercedes!”

Mr. Kia had also tried to work with other technology platforms to brand his clients, a sometimes rocky experience. “Let me be clear our experience with all of these platforms has not always been without its problems. Not all Facebook reps have been fantastic, Twitter support for the longest time was hard to come by, Tristan Walker for a long time was a lone ranger at Foursquare—you get the picture—but I can with my hand on my heart say one thing with full confidence: at a senior level all of these networks and platforms showed us empathy in the face of our concerns.” Mr. Kia added, “PS. This blog was written using Wordpress. I love Tumblr. I have a Tumblr page. It is really fun—but then again so is the Disney store.”
(Tumblr president and resident grown-up John Maloney issued a terse response on his Tumblr: “Gradatim Ferociter” which translates loosely as, “step by step, courageously.”)

And some of the issues are technical. “Like everyone else, I am amazed at their user growth and engagement,” said a veteran New York techie. “I think they are becoming one of the big ten sites on the web. But at the same time, the evolution of the product has been painfully slow, especially from the business side. With their backend squared away, there should be a team of product people banging stuff out, like you see with Foursquare. Instead you get these little, incremental changes.”

Mr. Kia’s wife, Jessica Coghan, who has also tried to work with Tumblr, and reps brands like Ann Taylor and Kate Spade, was also peeved--and naturally, took to her Tumblr to say so:

“So, I am sure you have all heard that Tumblr is sending some bloggers to fashion week again this season,” she wrote. “I have also had the pleasure of seeing their sponsorship proposal being shopped around to brands, which I am not supposed to be talking about. I will say this… someone is completely out of their goddamn mind.”

Ms. Coghan complained that what Tumblr most needed was an analytics dashboard—a complaint echoed by many other partners and potential partners as a primary technical limitation, usually on Tumblr itself. “We are on all here managing blogs with the help of Google Analytics, but there is nothing catering to the Tumblr-only based metrics—reblogs, likes, followers, etc. There is nothing out there to help brands quantify their presence here. What works? What doesn’t? And it’s not about visitors- it’s about engagement.” And engagement is what makes Tumblr’s “magic”, as Mr. Hecht characterized it, happen.

“They could actually make money from this analytics platform,” wrote Ms. Coghan. “I would pay for it for my clients. I would absolutely get behind a cost like that on an evergreen basis, which has to make way more money than this flash in the pan Fashion Week nonsense.”

But so far, the company has been unable or unwilling to deliver on these kind of dashboard features, even when big brands have offered to pay for them. Tumblr says it’s already “generating meaningful revenue.” Mr. Karp likes to joke with his team that Tumblr could be profitable in a day if it put just one ad on the dashboard. On principle, Mr. Karp said he opposed placing ads on a service that gained traction for its pretty, minimalist design.

And he thinks the company does a perfectly job of understanding the needs of its users and clients. “I’m generally really proud of how we communicate as a company,” Mr. Karp told Reuters social media editor Anthony DeRosa, “It’s not particularly easy when there are so many subsets of the community with dramatically different interests and questions.” Mr. DeRosa, an avid Tumblr user who goes by the handle “SoupSoup” on his blog, recently walked away from the platform in frustration after one too many problems with the service.

Mr. DeRosa ends his piece by noting that, “I walked away from my conversation with Karp feeling like they want to operate similar to the way Apple does, protecting their vision for how their product looks and choosing who gets to appear ‘in their store.’ Apple has managed to make that aspect part of what makes their products great; it remains to be seen if this approach will work for Tumblr as well.”

As for Mr. Karp’s comments that he was proud of how they communicated with their partners, Mr. DeRosa got on the record a story The Observer also heard about Mr. Tong, Tumblr’s fashion director, in which he ignored and then insulted AOL’s StyeList blog. While Tumblr had early success partnering with fashion companies, Mr. Tong soured many of those relationships when he arrived by failing to return emails, showing up to meetings unaware of who the client was, snubbing former partners during fashion week and replying to their hurt feelings with, “You can do business the way you see fit, and we’ll do the same.” The Observer reached out to Tumblr, but the company declined to comment.

And perhaps these sort of problems are the traditional ones—after all, the tech industry didn’t invent customer service or client management, or doing either well or badly.

For her part, ToVieFor’s former founder isn’t sure what her next step is yet. She told The Observer in an email that she’s evaluating two opportunities at the moment and plans to speak more publicly about her experience at ToVieFor and her take on the fashion industry in the next couple months; last week she announced a stealth fashion startup called Elizabeth + Clarke.

Ms. Moore recently wrote some of her thoughts on the fashion 2.0 space in a blog post called, “Building a Fashion Company on the Internet? Please Stop. Just Stop. And Read This,” about the tendency of investors and web entrepreneurs to overemphasize “discoverability” when the real business opportunities are closer to the supply chain.

“Fashion 2.0 is really not that much different than Fashion 1.0,” she wrote. “In order to win, one must focus intently on building a better product that solves a real problem—you know, just like every other successful business in the world.”