Five weeks of a grueling schedule that fashion journalists go through every six months, plus the three weeks for the menswear and haute couture seasons that also happens twice a year.

Why do we do it? How do we survive it?

The why is easy – it’s our jobs! We might not be trying to find the cure for AIDS or trying to bring the news from the war front, or even follow a hurricane without thinking of our personal safeties. Still, we are dedicated journalists who try to give the best possible reporting for our beat.

Okay… so why are you writing this here? I don’t want to know all your hardships. Sounds like you’re whining. Do you want some cheese with that whine?

No, Virginia, I’m not whining. It’s more like sharing. This is a blog after all, short for weblog, an online diary. Hence it’s more personal, and can be written on a first person point of view.

Of course, since its inception, blogs have become more than an online diary. It has become a forum for editorials and news, including of course, being an online diary.

Here at FashionWindows, our blogs had undergone those permutations too, and quite frankly, had become a very big part of our coverage that during the New York season, we actually had TWO guest journalists, Paris fashion veterans Jean Paul Cauvin and Julien Fournié (who also happens to be a couturier) so that the blogs will be more than an online diary, but a serious journalistic effort including original illustrations done right during the shows.

And, it is not only FashionWindows that take blogs seriously. According to a report by Market Watch (http://www.marketwatch.com), “Technology is making it easier to ignore mainstream media advertising. Instead, consumers are using Web logs, mobile messaging, comparison shopping Web sites, and word-of-mouth to make buying decisions.”

Market Watch made that report from a survey released last Sep 27, 2005 by Forrester Research.

According to the survey, 10% of consumers read blogs at least once a week, compared with 5% a year ago. Really Simple Syndication feeds (RSS) are used by 6%, compared to 2% in 2004.

In a separate report dated Aug 11, 2005, Market Watch also said that “50 million U.S. Internet users visited blog sites.”

“Of the 400 biggest blogs, blogs focused on news and politics were most popular; followed by "hipster" and lifestyle blogs, tech blogs, and blogs authored by women. Compared to the average Internet user, blog readers are significantly more likely to live in wealthier households, be younger and access the Web via high-speed connection. Blog readers visit nearly twice as many Web pages as the average Internet user and they are much more likely to shop online.”

Alright, so, are you saying you’re blogging because it’s the cool thing to do, and that you’re just following the trend?

No, Virginia. We do not blog at FashionWindows because it is the cool thing to do or because it is a trend.

We had been blogging since March 2003, long before blogs became popular or part of the mainstream. Of course, during that time, blogging was not a big part of our coverage, and we only write blogs if we thought there was something we needed to say from a personal point of view, and cannot be written as part of our formal coverage.

Of course, things had changed since then, the same way blogs in general had changed since it was invented.

To put your mind at ease, and to be adamant that we are not just following a trend due to the popularity of the blog, we only write blogs during the fashion season, that is, when we are covering the catwalk shows.

Okay, I understand now. So, what can I expect from the FashionWindows blog for Paris?

Expect the unexpected. Blogs are ‘not planned’ editorial writing. It’s free flowing and our journalists are told that when they write a blog, it has to be about something that caught their eyes during the shows.

It can be anything as silly as who are the celebrities sitting at the front row and what they said, to a more serious fashion endeavor, like a trend that we cannot wait for the formal trend report after the season and needed to be reported immediately.

It might not be about fashion per se, but something that happened that will or can affect fashion or the city we are in.

Hey… you got me at hello! I always read the blogs here. I was just trying to get into your mind! Keep on blogging and I’ll keep on reading!