Copenhagen Fashion Week

So, the first exciting thing of 2010 happening to LLG...I'm off to Copenhagen Fashion Week, as a guest of Danish silver house Georg Jensen.

As this is a press trip, this seems as good a moment as any to set out my ethics stall again. One of the joys of blogging, after years working as an editor, is that the decision about where I go and what I write about is completely in my gift.

Magazines have a duty to their readers to attend external events, launches, trips, to learn and then inform about the hot and the novel stuff out there. Blogging is different: to co-opt Sarah Churchwell's brilliant phrase, the blogger is always the protagonist in the narrative, which takes away the imperative to chase the next big thing. It also helps that there are no advertisers to placate and that there is no sense of being obliged to accept invitations. Instead I can decline at will. Specifically MY will.

And, of course, given the global nature of on-line, the joys of wi-fi and being head of a department of me, I can travel at the drop of a hat, and still work wherever I go. (When I was on a magazine, press trips were a major commitment: they meant valuable time out of the office, and a disproportionate amount of attention lavished on a single brand, when I had hundreds with which to engage.)

So: it's simple. I turn down more opportunities than I accept, & only go on press trips now if I personally like and admire the brand or label doing the asking. I'm certainly not going to take hospitality from companies that aren't right for LLG and then pull the wool over my readers' eyes by writing gush-y copy afterwards about something in which I do not believe, just for the sake of a free trip.

So, it's off to Denmark I go next week. and I'm thrilled that it's under the aegis of a brand of which I thoroughly approve. One of my passionate interests as an editor is jewellery from the 20th century, so the opportunity to both rummage through the Georg Jensen archives and see shows from labels including By Malene Birger and Noir was far too tempting to turn down.

(The conversation at lunch today with the CEO of Georg Jensen went something like this:
"LLG: are you coming to Copenhagen Fashion Week next week? No? Would you like to? Great. We'll arrange everything.")

That was remarkably straightforward.