A couple of weeks ago we were invited along to celebrate the launch of the bag designed  by fashion blogger Emily Johnston of Fashion Fois Gras, in collaboration with leading American luxury brand Coach.

It’s interesting to see such a huge shift in the industry with brands increasingly not just keeping an eye on bloggers but collaborating with them.

With Bip Ling becoming the new face of Forever 21 and Susie Bubble working on the Topshop ‘Edited Project’, it was only a matter of time before luxury brands came on board too.

The bag has been designed to meet the needs of a busy blogger. The oversized tote has different compartments for a large SLR camera, a spare pair of flat shoes, an IPad and a phone - it’s a bloggers dream bag!

The event was a huge success with a great turn out (more than 100 people) and it was good to see so many familiar faces and fellow bloggers come to support Emily including Disney Roller Girl, Mademoiselle Robot, and Freak Deluxe . It was also great to meet new bloggers Boy meets fashion, Delightful finds and me and Normality and me (who kindly mentioned meeting us in a post on her blog). Everyone seemed very excited to be there.

Going to events and meeting bloggers is what we love to do.  It's all very well sending out press releases and bcc'ing 100 contacts in one hit - based on our experience this approach seldom works with bloggers.

As blogs are much more personal, bloggers write in a subjective manner and operate quite differently to journalists. One of the reasons they are seen as authentic influencers is because they blog about what they love and what interests them.  They influence their readers because they represent everyday people with real budgets, lifestyles and body shapes.

Getting out and about to regularly meet bloggers means we get to know them properly. The more we talk to them and get to know them,  the more  we find out what they're like, what interests them, what brands they love, what brands they hate and most importantly, how they like and don't like to work.

The way we like to work with bloggers is to collaborate with them by contributing to create great unique content for their blogs. Meeting them face-to-face is great because you can pitch ideas, talk about projects and find out what makes them tick rather than expecting them just to write about a new product or cover an event.

After working  on various different projects with  Emily (Fashion Fois Gras), Navaz (Disney Roller Girl), Laetitia (Mademoiselle Robot), Kristin ( Clothes Whisperer) and Marian (Marian Kihogo) we've also learned that every fashion blogger is different -  they have different styles, ways of reporting, favoured brands  and personalities. And it's important to keep this in mind too when thinking about how best to work with them.

To say that bloggers are reshaping the fashion industry is an understatement.

Two years ago brands were struggling to understand why they needed the likes of Style Bubble and Liberty London girl on the front row at their shows. Now bloggers are not only working closely with them but influencing them and designing for them.

The Fashion Foie Gras/Coach collaboration is just the beginning of what is to come as the fashion world finally understands how powerful and relevant the blog sphere is.