Taking a page from the likes of paper-doll avatar site Stardoll, H&M stepping into TheSims 2, and fashion designers in Second Life and other virtual worlds, PR firm Ketchum's new unit Fashion Interactive 2.0 will focus on helping established design brands reach the current generation's crop of fashionistas, reports ClickZ.

Ketchum's previously served less glamorous companies like FedEx and Kodak. With fashion's rapid rise in the virtual worlds space -- virtual clothing outposts as popular hotspots for making avatars look hip -- it's a good call for Ketchum to anticipate that fashion brands will need the resources of a tech-savvy PR agency. Manish Chandra, the CEO of the Kaboodle social shopping site, recently told ClickZ that the fashion category "is now the growth leader on e-commerce and comparison shopping sites."

The press release explicitly mentions social networking sites alongside "online relationships" and "experiential marketing." From the release:

[Roy] Edmondson, Senior Vice President, Global Brand Marketing Practice, and [Jeff] Danzer, who joins Ketchum to launch this offering as Vice President and Group Manager, Apparel, will direct communications campaigns designed to reach and engage today’s digital consumers. Using Ketchum’s newly developed proprietary program that proactively harnesses the power of social networks, such as MySpace and Facebook, the group will provide a completely measurable communications platform that encourages consumers to become brand evangelists as never before.

[Via ClickZ]