Yesterday, I found another interesting blog called Style Bites via Fashion Spot -a huge fashion forum. This blogger is a fashion editor/journalist and wardrobe stylist. For those needing the inside track on working with models, photographers, PR people and fashion writers and editors, I’d say it’s a must read. In this entry, she explains one angle of her end of the business:

Unlike you might imagine, styling product is a much more tiring process than styling wardrobe on a fashion shoot. The job is tedious and extremely accurate records must be kept of everything that is photographed. When you’re looking at the contact sheets at the end of the day, you’ve got to be able to tell many simillar looking items apart. I find that each stylist and photographer has his/her own methods for this record keeping. Use whatever is the most logical and least time consuming.

Unlike the mind-numbingly similar blogs of the all-too-common fashion herd that are largely dominated with product shots, the copy accompanying her photos are flavored with a unique twist. From an entry on shoes she writes:

But let’s talk about shoes, borrowing shoes and shoe on a shoot. One of the most stressful parts of pulling clothes (borrowing them from a shop for a photo shoot) is finding the shoes. If you are lucky, you’re working in a major fashion capital and have good working relationships with designer showrooms. In that case you’ve got to check and see if the model you’re using will fit the sample shoes you’re able to secure. A good model shouldn’t fuss about squeezing into a shoe 1-1 1/2 sizes smaller than her normal size. Be careful with boots though, which can be more of a problem if too small. If the shoes are too big for the model, try stuffing the toes with a little bit of tissue paper. The more open the shoe (open toe, strappy, etc.) the harder it will be to hide the fact that they don’t fit the model. You’ve seen this in magazines before. (…and here on the red carpet.)

In Evil shop assistants, she describes the problems she has doing her job with respect to the retail end:

Keeping track of $ merchandise, dry cleaning constantly, returning loaners on time, rendevouing with my editors, it’s enough to drive a girl mad…but on top of all that there’s the bitchy shop assistants. Oooohhh–I love to hate some of you girls. I know that it’s a pain in the ass to stop yapping to your friend/co-worker/lover for 5 minutes to sign my contracts, take my CC number and remove the security tags off the clothes I need but girl’s got a job to do! That job just so happens to be giving your shop free promotion but you don’t care because you’re not the manager. (Execs, take note and train your staff.) Please ladies, give the attitude a rest. If you think my job is so happy-go-lucky and easy the you try it for a day. I’ll fold the jumpers until you get back.

Ever the devil’s advocate, I left a comment suggesting she might want to peruse Retail Sucks for their perspective on things. Seriously, I think you’ll enjoy this blog. This is a great way to learn how to optimize the time and interest of the fashion media. I’ve only had a cursory glance; I’ll be spending more time over there myself.