By Amanda Thomas
Reporter

Setting a trend can be hard to do when what’s “in” is hard to find out.

Today, however, everyone with Internet access can read fashion blogs, follow designers on Twitter and watch fashion shows, making them just as savvy as Vogue Editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.

“This is great for the fashion industry,” Garland junior Lauren Spann, apparel merchandising major and fashion blogger, said. “It makes fashion accessible to the masses.”

The accessibility of New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, which began Feb. 9 and ends today, has also increased in recent years.

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week is a semiannual fashion event that allows designers the chance to showcase their latest collections to buyers, fashion editors and writers, photographers and the media. It allows fashion followers to know what’s “in” and what’s “out” for the upcoming season.

Maybelline New York, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week and YouTube have partnered for a second year to bring “Live from the Runway” to computers. During Fashion Week, YouTube streamed live fashion straight from the catwalk in New York.

Designers presented at Fashion Week included BCBG Max Azria, Diana von Furstenberg, Betsey Johnson and Michael Kors, among others.

“Streaming of the fashion shows makes you more fashion conscious,” Katy sophomore Odera Anyasinti said. “You get to see the designs straight off the runway, which enables you to decide if you want to rock that item in your everyday life.”

This year’s Fashion Week showcased designs from the fall 2012 collections.

“The best part of fashion week being online is that it is live, so people know exactly what is happening, right when it happens,” Spann said.

While YouTube is streaming the fashion shows live, other websites are following suit and streaming New York Fashion Week footage as well.

First Comes Fashion is a website that was created in 2010 that broadcasts Fashion Week collections with designer commentary. The website also allows readers to create their own schedule according to how they want to watch the fashion shows.

First Comes Fashion is looking to provide more designer runway video than any other online outlet.

The site creators believe dynamic fashion experience can be bolstered by real-time commentary from the fashion industries’ celebrities, according to firstcomefashion.com.

Along with watching live footage on YouTube or First Come Fashion, people can also follow Fashion Week with social media sites.

Sites such as style.com provide photos of clothes from the runway and commentary from other viewers.

Beauty and fashion editors post what they see, from their favorite dress to who they’re sitting next to on the front row, sometimes including backstage pictures on Instagram.

Blogging has become another platform for expressing views about Fashion Week.

“I definitely think that fashion bloggers have changed fashion for the better,” Anyasinti said. “They make fashion accessible to the everyday person who does not have time to read 10 different magazines a week to figure out what the latest trends are.

It’s easy to go back to a blog and get inspiration.”

Some blogs include the Wall Street Journal’s “Heard on the Runway;” the New York Times’ “On the Runway;” and Teen Vogue Beauty Director Eva Chen’s evachen212.

Spann, who runs a fashion blog called epicuriouslyliving, said bloggers play an important role in the changing fashion industry.

“Bloggers help the industry by introducing fashion to people who wouldn’t normally seek it out,” Spann said. “Someone can run across their page and be introduced to a new brand which increases customer base and revenue.”