Example of the Fashion Industry Network Groups

This page is the example of the Fashion Industry Network groups - the illustration page that showed what a group in the network looked like and how the community's groups were organized. The network has closed (its closure was announced June 21, 2024); the example stands as the visual record of the system it demonstrated.

The explanation it carries is short. The fashion world has several online communities, one of which was the Fashion Industry Network. Within the network there were many sub-categories divided into groups, and those groups allowed like-minded people to hold discussions based on particular segments of the fashion business.

Groups by Segment of the Business

The idea the example demonstrates is segmentation: instead of one general discussion area for the whole fashion industry, the network split its conversation by topic and trade, so a member interested in one segment could talk with others working in the same segment. Discussions in the fashion groups section were based on various fashion industry issues, concerns, tips and events.

The full groups page, linked at the top of this page, lists the standing groups - design, students, New York fashion, jewelry design, stylists, marketing, fashion week, bloggers, public relations, California fashion among them - and explains how a member could ask for a new group to be added, with a name, a description, an icon image and relevant links.

Why an Example Page Existed

An example page is a teaching device: before joining or requesting a group, a member could see the structure - a defined topic, a defined membership, a defined discussion. For a community that prized quality over quantity and removed members who did not participate, showing the shape of a group up front filtered for members who intended to use it as intended.

The photograph on the page - carried in the Photos section below by reference, at its existing path - showed the groups interface as members saw it, and remains the period illustration of the network's group system.

An example also reassured new members about scale: a group was a room, not the whole building. Members joined the network once, then chose their rooms by segment, and could follow several groups without any of them flooding the others - design talk stayed with designers, student questions with students, and event discussion with the members attending the event.

Photos