One could argue that is almost impossible to attempt to understand the complex relationship between fashion bloggers and the fashion industry without an understanding of postmodernism. Frederic Jameson posits commoditization at the base of a postmodern culture, arguing that aesthetic and cultural production has become integrated into commodity production generally. The need for profits drives corporations to bombard the market with new products for eager consumers, yet in order to develop new products, there is a constant need for new ideas that will translate into marketable goods. Thus, Jameson grants “aesthetic innovation” an important structural role in driving the market.

This aesthetic innovation, however, takes on new forms in the late capitalist society. While the complex, amorphous nature of postmodern culture makes it difficult to define, Jameson is able to identify several key (if often contradictory!) characteristics of postmodern aesthetic innovation, including a focus on pastiche, nostalgia, schizophrenia, euphoria, ahistoricism, fragmentation and camp. He also argues that because economic motives drive the creation of culture, as well as that of political, social and commercial discourse, postmodernism witnesses a melding of all of these discourses into one. Thus, while postmodern is on one hand increasingly fragmented and diverse, its complete commoditization closely aligns it with the creation of the social and political sphere.

If we apply Jameson’s theory of cultural creation to the world of fashion, we encounter a society in which fashion arises from a population whose fragmented, yet global world view results in styles that are part kitschy, part retro and influenced by international as well as local trends. Jameson might very well be describing the large varieties of looks that one finds on Face Hunter (a popular Paris-based fashion blog). A furthering of his theory would put forth these looks as a type of highly valued aesthetic innovation, which would then be adopted by the fashion industries in order to produce marketable goods. Jameson’s theory seems to accurately describe the relationship between the trendsetters (Gladwell’s innovators) and the fashion industries, yet leaves the relationship between the fashion industries and the masses unclear. Always and ultimately a Marxist, Jameson grants the masses little control over cultural creation, arguing that they are tools of the capitalist machine. However, in a world where the variety of choices means that the masses can select freely among different fashions, the masses seem to have more agency that the industries, who must invest time and energy in hoping to capture a mass audience. Jameson’s granting of cultural discourse a spot among social and political discourse however appears to hold true with regards to fashion; a tie-dyed shirt and love beads conveys political messages, just as a designer suit and expensive handbag convey social and economic ones.