Dualité

With the announcement of the first African-American President last night, Barack Obama, as a minority, I feel a great sense of pride. It also ignited in me to blog about some of the most influential, critically-acclaimed fashion journalists today who happen to be African-American.

I found this site that features two prominent fashion journalists, one who changed my life with her eye-opening book, The End of Fashion, the other – writing a riveting article for Harper’s Bazaar called “Everyone is a fashion critic“.

These journalists are of course Teri Agins from The Wall Street Journal, and Pulitzer Prize winner Robin Givhan from The Washington Post.

Fashion Roundtable: An Interview with Three Leading Black Fashion Journalists

Lookonline.com posted an interview with these two admirable women along with Constance White, of whom I am not familiar with, who has previously written for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune. Frankly, this is a goldmine interview of these women who had to struggle through the newspaper and magazine industry. They talk of their experiences at Vogue and Elle, as well as tips in writing compelling news articles- articles with heart, articles with an impact. This is a rare article indeed that looks into the careers of these successful fashion journalists, and I can only feel inspired to follow in their footsteps one day.

Ok, it’s old, posted about 6 years ago in 2002, but this is a timeless piece. These journalists are still active today, still reporting on fashion with the eye of a reporter.

Image credit: lookonline.com

With an economic downturn for Americans, I wanted to get some perspective on what buyers were looking for this season. Many American buyers were refraining themselves from buying any European brands because of the weak dollar. London suffered the loss of Saks Fifth and Neiman Marcus’ buyers due to its strong British pound this year.

The two American buyers I’ve met while waiting in line for a show opened up to me about their situation. They’ve also nixed the European brands this season, except for one German label in which they keep good relations with, and wondered how the French designers were going to fare at the showroom since the euro is so high. Hence they’ve made a business trip to our home turf to look for some unique pieces for their older target market from 30-65, the baby boomer bracket. I asked what trends they were looking for and they squarely replied that trends weren’t what they were looking for. The baby boomer generation are over trends, they’re looking for practical clothing that’s both unique and durable. Interesting.

What was their opinion of the state of the fashion industry?

According to them, it’s downgraded quite a lot, especially for Americans. They’ve both been to numerous tradeshows across the country, of which New York was said to be pretty chaotic. “Everyone is trying to sell you something and it’s lost itself to business,” they said. Exactly the kind of scenario Teri Agins (author of “The End of Fashion”) had described a decade earlier and it looks like things haven’t changed. Tradeshows have become popular hotspots to host, “these locations are milking designers for their money” they said. There are so many tradeshows now that buyers keep seeing the same collections over and over.

Addressing fast fashion, what with the bombardment of new designs every month, fashion is spiraling out of control, what’s going to happen? “Well everyone would be running naked if it suddenly stopped!” they joked. But in all seriousness, they believed the industry will realize how ridiculous the pace its going and will rectify itself eventually. At least, that’s our hope. I’m thinking back on just how wacky the 80s were with their zany art deco and over-the-top accessories and styles. The early 90s answer to that was minimalism, I’m starting to think that the following decade in the year 2010, we’ll start seeing perhaps a hopeful return to quality goods, what with even Chinese manufacturing becoming more sophisticated than ever.

It’s hard to say what is true fashion these days, we always refer back to the masters of modern couture, but those were different economic situations, different mentalities, and different business models. Back then, a couturier was considered a type of merchant slash artist in its medium, not to make money but to make clothes. Now it’s a totally different ball game where the reputation of a company not only lies in its quality but its business (and marketing) model. In the end, it really comes down to a matter of choice of whether or not you choose to pay for higher or cheaper quality and your sense of style. After all, fashion is subjective with the times.

This book should be a lesson to everyone. In fact, I think it should be mandatory for anyone with a serious interest in fashion to read this amazing book that I gobbled up in a mere 3 days.

“The End of Fashion,” written by veteran Wall Street Journal reporter Teri Agins, feels like the equivalent of 100 NY Times or Wall Street Journal articles. Journeying through several examples of popular fashion designers, she shows an evolution in the business of fashion up until the very end of the 1990s. From the flamboyant Isaac Mizrahi to the brutally honest persona of Zoran, she details in great lengths of the struggles of fashion businesses throughout the last 20 years.

Establishing a fashion brand is more than crafting designs. In today’s standards, you have to be as much as a savvy salesman with great marketing skills in order to break even in the industry. Fashion magazines will rarely give you a look of the other side of the moon. Should you wish to further expand your knowledge on fashion, pay attention to the business section of your newspaper, you might find some interesting tidbits.

What I loved about this book are some of the spectacular failures and shortcomings of powerhouses who thought they would be unstoppable.

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