Fashion Online

Many of these fashion blogs also serve as a free source of advertisement to both designers and fashion retail stores. These free advertisements have had a heavy influence on fashion designers of various standings, helping to give a name to small up-and-coming designers as well as bringing high-end designers back to life. While the majority of the independent bloggers do not get paid to mention or critique designers' products, many of the top fashion bloggers are said to have received free samples of the designer pieces that they have mentioned in their blogs.

In a study conducted through the Biz360 Community, it was found that over 53% of the New York City Fashion Week converge had come from online articles and fashion blogs. While a vast portion of what was written in these blogs came from various mainstream fashion resource magazine and newspaper articles, such as Coutorture and New York Magazine, these fashion blogs provided a larger viewing and reading audience for the fashion week.

In the past years, American Express has become increasingly involved in New York City Fashion Week, and in 2010 American Express sponsored Evolving Influence, the first international bloggers conference in New York City. During the conference, many surveys and studies took place about the usefulness and tactics used in fashion blogs. During the study it was found that bloggers are more comfortable reporting in real-time and incorporating social tools in their opinions of runway trends and designers. After Fashion Week, it was found that 6.37% of all articles written about or related to Fashion Week had mentioned the Evolving Influence main sponsor, American Express. These blogs were not directly paid to mention American Express, so they served as a free source of advertisement for American Express