If you gloss over fashion blogs, you know Shiny Media and its bevvy of bloggettes  - Shoewawa, The Bag Lady,  Catwalk Queen, Trashionista, Kiss and Makeup - are like the Oprah of beauty/fashion blogging: more than dictating ice cool vogue, they’re girlfriends who want to dish with you.

So I had to dish with Gemma Cartwright - shopcast here - “fashion editor for Shiny Media, Europe’s leading new media publishers.” Gemma Cartwright “joined Shiny in 2004 to launch Shoewawa.com and now look after and write for most of our women’s titles. I also help present Shiny TV and the One Minute Reviews, and spend lots of time surfing the web for new ideas, new writers and interesting stuff!” 

: When did girl meet blog?

Gemma: I’ve been blogging and editing websites since I was about 16, and I’m 23 now. I studied fashion journalism at university and was always interested in the web and new media, so on graduating I pursued that instead of fighting for the few jobs going on magazines / newspapers. New media suits me. I like the speed at which you can get something online, and I love being involved in something so new and different. Fashion blogging is so much more current. and you can take more risks in what you say as you’re not feeding into the hands of advertisers all the time. I also love the interaction with readers, you just don’t get that if you write for print.

: Why do you and Shiny Media wake up in the morning?

Gemma: World blog domination!! No, for me it’s all about the readers, and about giving people something they want to read. Of course Shiny Media is a business, but I’m not too involved in the money side of things so I just ensure the editorial is up to scratch and let other people worry about the boring stuff! I think there’s a common misconception that we’re paid to write about specific products, which is not true. Advertising is obviously labelled as such, the rest is just stuff we love (or hate)!

: ThisNext loves you, and you love ThisNext because…

Gemma: Obviously it’s important to stay on the ball when it comes to new online ideas and to be involved in all aspects of web 2.0. We have MySpace pages, YouTube accounts, del.icio.us bookmark pages, Vox blogs, Livejournal communities… And we’re even beginning to use iTunes for our videocasts. Anything that helps us increase our online presence and discover an even wider audience is great. On the other side of things, ThisNext is also a great way to find people - potential new bloggers, interesting designers, cool products and shops we might have missed!

: Ooh la love, tell me more.

Gemma: There’s nobody telling these people what to add to their lists, they’re doing it purely because they want to. I think that’s really interesting, and seeing products that have been picked out by lots of people can be a really good indication of new underground trends.

: I think that sort of style democracy is part of the success of Shiny Media’s fashion blogs - they’re very much like your girlfriend chatting with you, versus Anna Wintour’s ice cool vogue.

Gemma: It’s lovely to hear that, because it’s exactly what I’m going for. One friend described CatwalkQueen.tv as being like your big sister giving shopping tips, which I took as the biggest compliment! I think people visit fashion blogs because they’re fed up of the preachy, bullying tone of many magazines, so I try to make the blogs the antithesis of that. There’s no snobbery, we feature everything from Marc Jacobs to Walmart. I’m also very careful that our bloggers don’t tell people what to think, they just advise, discuss their thoughts and encourage debate rather than giving out lists of rules.