Fashion 2.0 Awards Honor Social Media Stars of the Industry

The most sartorially extravagant social media event of the year — the Fashion 2.0 Awards — took place at the SVA Theatre in New York last night, organized by Style Coalition, a fashion influencer marketing platform.

Categories for the four-year-old event included Best Twitter, Best Facebook, Best Pinterest, Best Blog by a Fashion Brand, Best Website, Best Mobile App, Best Online Video, Best Fashion Startup (a new category this year), and Top Innovator. Voting was open to the public on the Fashion 2.0 site.

The tech industry is sometimes criticized for the lack of women in entrepreneurial and leadership roles, but the ladies cleaned up at this event. Most of the nominees in all categories — including three of the five Best Fashion Startups — were founded or co-founded by women. "DVF [through Glass]," starring designer Diane von Furstenberg and Google Glass and featuring a cameo appearance by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, won Best Online Video. Style Coalition itself was founded by a woman, Yuli Ziv, who developed interactive online strategies at ad agencies before starting her own business blending fashion and technology.

"It always amazes me how this online fashion community is so tight," Ziv said in her opening remarks.

The evening was hosted for the second year in a row by stylist, interior decorator, and TV personality Robert Verdi, who offered free startup ideas for the audience: RentTheLouboutin.com (no doubt inspired by his earlier frantic search of the lobby for a lost spike from his $2,000 Louboutin loafers), Assbook ("How come nobody's done Assbook? Like you could tell people where you're sitting."), I'mWearingThisToYourFuneral.com, and FatOrPregnant.com.

Sporting a blue-spangled Burberry trench, Barneys Creative Ambassador-at-Large Simon Doonan delivered a gleefully wicked keynote on the "social media miracle." He praised social media for increasing pedestrian distraction and, thus, the stepping in of dog poo, resulting in his own amusement and an uptick in shoe sales at Barneys. ("Hashtag retailgratitude.") He spoke of the benefits of giving trolls or, as he refers to them, "Satan's disciples," a platform that makes them happy. "When Satan's disciples are happy, they're more likely to stay at home and less inclined to come knocking on my door asking to use the bathroom and insisting that I prepare them a tuna melt."