Swedish changing rooms equipped with cameras for fashion bloggers

Blogging about fashion has become so popular in Sweden that a Stockholm department store has announced plans to open up dressing rooms especially designed for web-savvy fashionistas.

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Advertising company Ruth and department store Kfem in the Stockholm suburb of Vällingby have together developed the idea of digital dressing rooms where shoppers will be able to have their pictures taken and available to be posted online straight away.

By the end of September, fifteen departments in Kfem should have the new changing rooms installed.

"Our aim is to catch up on different trends. The bloggers have a huge impact in Sweden these days, so it was an obvious thing to push through," Andreas Petterson, Kfem's marketing manager, told The Local.

Fashion blogger Michaela Forni of Stureplan.se thinks installing dressing room webcams is a great idea.

"It's fantastic. I had some friends who went to the launch of it and they really liked it. Hopefully this will spread to stores all across Sweden," she said.

Each week the store intends hosting an 'Outfit of the week' campaign, where bloggers can agree to have their pictures used to advertise the clothes in Swedish newspapers.

The models will not get paid for the adverts, but Petterson stressed that cheap advertising is not the reason for installing the new web-ready dressing rooms.

"Certainly it's very cheap for us, but we are doing this for the fashion bloggers, who probably will get excited to see themselves in the papers," he said.

Forni said she would not mind having her images used for advertising purposes.

"If they asked me I would probably say yes, if the picture was good," she said.

Will this mean longer dressing room queues for people who don't blog?

"No," said Petterson.

"There will just be one special dressing room in each department, and each store will make sure it won't affect anyone else."