Power to the People: The Internet Clothing Label Revolution.

This article was recently published on suite101.com

Far from the cold and drizzly environs of the high-street there is a change brewing in the fashion world, and it is accessible from the comfort of your own home. The unabated rise of the Internet has blown the industry wide open, and not just in terms of new and more convenient purchasing methods.

Sites like Myspace have offered people a soapbox to convey whatever they want to the world, be it ideas, music or products. This unprecedented democratisation of the retail industry has led to a boom in the amount of independent clothing labels. Young designers now have a showcase like never before. The Internet has, it would seem, put the power back in the hands of the people.

Owning your own clothing brand, once the preserve of the fashionista elite, is now within the grasp of anyone with an ounce of entrepreneurial spirit and a burgeoning imagination. Labels like Adored and Big Deal found their feet on the Internet and are now usurping the major high-street fashion chains with their low-prices, high-quality and individual styles.

The punk ethos on display is hardly surprising, given that this fashion industry overhaul mirrors that of the music scene several years ago. Underground bands and artists built up a presence on Myspace and other sites, which, in many cases, led to record deals, tours and massive success. In fact Internet clothing labels sprung from that burst of independent creativity.

Underground punk and hardcore bands, impressed with the mouthpiece afforded to them by the Internet, began to set up their own clothing labels using the same sites. Members of bands like Bring Me the Horizon and You Me at Six set up clothing labels that grew so quickly they now stand fully independent of the bands that spawned them.

The Internet is rapidly becoming a one-stop shop for the ‘punk-kids’ on the cutting edge of fashion. Printing sites like Lucky Star Printing are helping to turn myspace into a modern day cottage industry with design, manufacture and distribution all under one virtual roof. There is of course, rampant competition at every level of the production process, which pushes prices way down and allows recession hit customers an opportunity to lay their hands on individual styles by unique designers at wallet friendly prices.

But is this really the future of fashion design and marketing? The decline in popularity suffered by Myspace over the past year has caused many designers to leave the social-network community. Internet traffic monitors, Hitwise have identified a 25% fall in Myspace generated traffic between 2006 and 2009; that is, people who clicked on a music or entertainment site as a result of seeing the link on Myspace. This decline in popularity may have driven the more established online labels to take the plunge and go it alone, but it could dissuade young designers from taking up the challenge at all.

The media that has taken Myspace’s place as the king-pin of social networking are less applicable in the capacity of direct sales, and the sites that are simply do not have the enormous reputation of Myspace in it’s heyday. This is likely to cause the movement to grind to halt.

However, what the independent label boom did show, was the power of the Internet to open doors for those wily enough to exploit them and that in this era of information a spark of creativity can create something amazing.

Just like punk, which burned brightly for a year or two and then was snuffed out, the independent clothing label revolution may prove to be short lived, but there is still time to support independent designers. Get online, grab a bargain and, more importantly, fight the power.