Dualité

After waiting 2 yrs and some odd months for Clear Magazine‘s website to reconstruct, it’s finally back up. Originally, the magazine’s website was made entirely of Flash with flippable pages (way before Adobe CS3 came to town with their built-in flash flip pager program) and a somewhat arty layout. Now their new site is much more user-friendly with amazing photographs and preview pages of the current issue.

Perhaps the most eye-catching part of their site is their blog. Although it’s not quite elaborate on words, the pictures they post are quite simply flabbergastingly beautiful. Although it’s quite difficult to find a good source of the latest designers without the site being convoluted, Clear’s posts for underground (yet amazingly talented) fashion designers pull me in for a double take. The magazine does fixate upon luxury brands thus would only be fitting they’d pick the cream of the crop of unknowns.

Take for example Kisa, a Russian-brand with its eyes set to be the next Gucci, according to the International Herald Tribune. I don’t particularly care if they want to be the next Gucci, what I do care is if any online store carries (or will carry) their line. I love the subtlety of their details and the styles are certainly very wearable. The Russians are indeed coming.

The crux of the content can, of course, only be found in the print version, which I once again highly recommend in getting. A glimpse of their well thought out layouts are posted on the site’s front page and really, who doesn’t want to read about mechanical structures when you have an intriguing image like this:

Image credits: Catwalk.com, Clearmag.com

Now here’s a channel that I really love watching and am glad that they’re not entirely superficial on the subject of fashion. Fashion Television made a report on Fashion Journalism and asked chief editors and real fashion journalists of their opinion on journalism within their industry.

It’s a fantastic clip and I’m glad that Jeanne Becker took on this bit and interviewed several people in the industry. Among fashion journalists we should look up to is Cathy Horyn from The New York Times, Suzy Menkes from the International Herald Tribune, and Michael Gross who currently writes for several publications. I just thought I would share this with everyone, it may be an old clip, but it’s still very much relevant today.

My trip to DC included some great insight from a relative who writes for one of the big newspapers in DC and gave me some useful advice. She told me that the senior fashion editor of the newspaper had quit the paper a few years back in favor to work for the so-called Carrie Bradshaw’s “Mecca” of all magazines – Vogue. She lasted 6 months and quit.

Her reason? Writing for a magazine had too much pressure to be positive ALL the time. If a brand’s collection is perceived as bad for the season, they simply don’t write about it at all. Instead they would focus on the brands they deemed good. Being bred from a newsroom where there needs to be a heart to the story which includes fact checking, interviews, and unraveling the truth (whether good or bad) – there wasn’t any of that at Vogue.

You may find the occasional insightful article, the most notable I’ve read recently in Harper’s Bazaar’s September 2007 issue, “Everyone’s a fashion critic” by Pulitzer Prize acclaimed writer Robin Ghivan (The Washington Post‘s fashion editor). But as a whole, it’s hard to be negative in a magazine, I can vouch that as a writer for Gloss. It’s not that there’s anything to hide really, I enjoy doing interviews and all of them so far have been humble and super nice people. But after a while, it gets redundant. Newspapers have an edge that will allow you to express your opinions if given you can back up your statements.

Being a fashion editor at a newspapers does have its drawbacks. Opinions dished in newspapers can hurt brands, resulting in bans from certain fashion shows. Nobody has been spared, even the almighty Wall Street Journal, The NY Times, The International Herald Tribune, and Newsweek writers have been banned from attending shows, from Louis Vuitton to Armani, for their comments. Frankly though, kudos to these women who have the experience and most importantly – who have their eyes wide open. These women are not easily swayed by the glamour and lavish parties. Oh sure, they’ll attend the parties, but by no means would it bribe them in counting a collection as fabulous if it doesn’t live up to certain standards or capability. What makes them so qualified in critiquing you ask? Perhaps it’s because they don’t blindly follow the herd, that they don’t just gobble up what every designer has to offer. Not only that, they have experience under their belt and they haven’t abandoned their investigative journalistic skills.

Hilary Alexander, for The Daily Telegraph UK, is perhaps the exception to the investigative journalistic style for a newspaper. Although Hilary would rarely express her opinion on collections, she certainly makes up for it by concisely writing show reviews with the pen of a novelist. Her choice of words build and create fantastical atmosphere that one can only dream of how beautiful these runway shows are in real life. She’s incredibly talented on this end, and so I forgive her for lacking an opinion.

With my experience in fashion magazine writing, I feel that here you would have to stretch your creative writing skills by indulging the reader into the fantasy that fashion is portraying. That, in some respect, requires quite a good deal of skills in order to achieve this mystical world for the reader. How do you convince your readers that the latest designer you’re presenting is hot stuff and why? What makes them special? I’ve been struggling with this since I’ve started, but learned a great deal along the way. I do believe at the end of the day that my heart belongs in having an opinion on fashion and digging deeper to unravel the truth and mystery behind the fashion facade.

Image credit: Patrick McMullan for Harper’s Bazaar

Here’s an interview I found of Nicolas Ghesquiere, head designer for Balenciaga, being interviewed by the famed Suzy Menkes for the International Herald Tribune.

One thing I have to say about Suzy. God knows she’s a brilliant writer and she may as well be queen of the fashion editorials, but jesus…it is SO painful to watch her talk on video. She’s so stiff in asking people questions, is it to hide something she does when she talks? I imagine Ms. Menkes gets nervous in front of the camera, but still…I cringe when I watch her. I guess not everyone is cut out to be a television/video personality no matter how brilliant their writing may be.

Back to Balenciaga, I liked the part where we’re shown a constructed piece of his Fall collection, and Nicolas seems like a pretty pleasant chap to talk to. I personally would love to see how this man works on constructing his designs, how does he create those shapes? What does he use? How does he come up with them? I personally love his crazy sense of shoe design and wonder what his thought process is in creating these shoes.

This is one thing I really wish we’d get a glimpse of, seeing designers at work doing what they do best. How does one prepare a collection for the world to see at one of the most coveted fashion weeks twice a year? How long does it take to make the patterns, getting the fabrics, the embroidery, the jewelry, the shoes, and the accessories? Which companies do they employ and why are those companies chosen? These are some of the things we don’t get to see or know about unless you’re square middle into the industry. I know designers don’t want to give their secrets away obviously for counterfeiting reasons, but I’d love to see a sort of “How It’s Made” type of show behind the fashion scene. Cause I’m curious like that.