Fashion Industry Network Website

On June 21, 2024, the Fashion Industry Network announced its closure. The announcement told members that the website would be closing in the near future: the decision had not been made lightly, but the expenses associated with maintaining the site could no longer be managed. For years the network had provided a free service with the goal of supporting and connecting members of the fashion industry, and the announcement thanked members for participation and contributions that had been invaluable.

As the network transitioned, members were invited to join a new Fashion Industry Network group on Facebook, to continue as a platform for networking, sharing insights and supporting one another within the industry. This page keeps the record of what the network was: the social network the Apparel Search Company launched in July 2007, described below as it stood in its working years.

A Social Network for the Fashion Industry

The Apparel Search Company launched the Fashion Industry Network as a social network for members of the fashion industry to meet other members of the fashion industry. The network was intended to be a business network: in addition to allowing members from the apparel industry, consumers of fashion were allowed to contribute, so that shoppers' input would round out the discussion boards.

Having both garment industry professionals and clothing consumers in one network allowed for a nice balance of ideas - the people who make and sell fashion hearing directly from the people who wear it. The network launched in July 2007, and a May 12, 2008 article in this guide's news archive recorded it becoming an essential tool for the fashion industry; both news items are linked below.

Groups, Badges, Contests and More

The network's life happened in its features. Its groups gathered members around subjects - types of groups included the fashion contests group, New York and California fashion groups, and groups for marketing and sales, fashion design, fashion week, fashion students, stylists, bloggers and public relations. Members with their own fashion websites could add a network badge to their sites; the badges page in this section records that program and its discontinuation.

The contests run through the network are recorded in this section as well: the October 2010 essay contest for a fashion public relations book, and the Fashion Trend Forecast 2011 essay contest, whose official entries - forecast essays by members, judged with first and second place winners - have their own pages in the contests folder. The network also had its lighter merchandise side, with Fashion Industry Network mouse pads among the guide's shopping pages.

The Record Kept Here

The announcement of June 21, 2024 closed the service, but the guide that launched it keeps its description, its news coverage and its contest records. The network's own pages in this section - the badges page, the rules and groups pages, the Facebook page and the contest pages linked above and below - together form the archive of how the fashion industry's own social network worked.

Readers who knew the network will find its shape familiar here. Readers who did not can still learn from it: for seventeen years it was the place where this guide's directory met the industry's conversation, and its history is part of the history of how the fashion trade organized itself online.

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