Browsing the Web this morning, I discovered that theory — the minimalist fashion label of which I'm a big fan — has a company blog. Admittedly, it's a very fluffy, mostly useless blog, but a blog nonetheless. It has the conventional reverse chronological display of posts and communicates goings-on at the company with the world. The theory blog does, however, have one notable quirk: there's no way to subscribe to the blog via RSS, Atom or any other syndication system. It's so un-blog-like I might go so far as to say any "blog" without a feed shouldn't be considered a blog at all.

Pondering this for a few minutes, it occurred to me that, for the most part, high-end fashion labels have really awful websites. Awful in the sense that they're usually herky-jerky Flash-based sites that are impossible to navigate, and try to convey a sense of luxury and sensuality through an endless stream of flashy, molasses-slow effects.

I can certainly see what the companies are trying to achieve, but they needn't sacrifice baseline usability features to create beautiful, "high-end" websites. Just compare the websites of Paul Smith and Prada, two top-end fashion labels. Both websites do a good job of conveying their respective messages. But that's where the similarities end. The Paul Smith website loads quickly, complies with web standards and does not require a virtual compass to navigate. The Prada website on the other hand, takes an eternity to load and jerks users from place to place using weird transitions. Not to mention that it's next to impossible to browse their collection of photos from fashion shows without screaming at the computer at least once because the interface is so awful.

I know there are web developers in Italy. These companies need to hire them. Using HTML, CSS and JavaScript like the rest of the world will not dilute brands: it will make websites easier to use. That means more eyeballs will spend more time fixating on expensive socks. So please, garment industry, be better Web citizens.