Requiem for fashion criticism during these ‘Fabulous!’ times
There was a time when fashion designers feared the critics who populated the front rows of their shows.
A bad review could mean a collection was ignored by the fashion magazines. And stores might turn elsewhere for next season’s clothes.
The fashion scribes were deployed around the world to critique the readyto-wear collections for discerning readers. These journalists were more than arbiters of style. They were tough critics, bulldozing their way through an effete world of air kisses and crinolines.
They gushed when it was deserved. They were harsh when all was not right.
That world barely exists today, says Robin Givhan, special correspondent for style and culture for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, who recently dared to ask: “Is Chanel Designer Karl Lagerfeld Spread Too Thin?”
It’s a fair question: The 79-yearold designer is creative director of Chanel in Paris, Fendi in Milan and of his own eponymous collections. He’s a photographer and book publisher. He has also created miniature collections for fast-fashion chain H&M as well as Macy’s.
Givhan knew she was poking a sacred cow: “Such a statement rings like heresy within a fashion universe where the highly acclaimed designer struts upon his lofty stage as creative director of Chanel — but it’s true,” she wrote.
But Lagerfeld was not amused, saying dismissively that he’d never heard of her, which is strange, given that she had been on the fashion scene for years with the Detroit Free Press and more recently won a Pulitzer Prize for her work as a fashion critic at the Washington Post.
Yet it’s not surprising Lagerfeld reacted as he did. Designers have become accustomed to fawning coverage from the fashion press, rarely subjected to the scrutiny applied in Givhan’s article.
There are several forces at work here.
Design houses that receive unflattering reviews can be vindictive, banning the offending journalist from their shows. This is serious. Unlike movie and theatre critics, who can pay for a ticket on opening night, a fashion critic has only one chance to see a collection live. Even restaurant critics can wear a disguise and dine unnoticed.
Givhan says watching a fashion show, even on a live video stream, dilutes the experience. “Fashion critics need the co-operation of the design houses,” she says.
Thus, some fashion commentators find it prudent to curry favour, soften their criticism and continue to receive their invitations.
A second issue is that reduced print-media budgets have resulted in fewer fashion critics in the bleachers at fashion shows and more bloggers taking their places. And general interest magazines and newspapers — the very ones now contracting their coverage — as Givhan observes, have always been “the best place for a critical conversation about the fashion industry.”
Moreover, the ranks of fashionshow critics who will write honestly and damn the consequences is thinning. Amy Spindler, fashion critic for The New York Times died in 2004 at age 40. She is still considered one of the best.and rumours abound that, approaching 70, Suzy Menkes, the fashion critic for the International Herald Tribune, may be contemplating retirement.
For the most part, regional newspapers have withdrawn from the conversation. Some of the smartest critics have fallen away simply because their publications regard fashion criticism, particularly international fashion, as expendable.
The Los Angeles Times, most likely for financial reasons, no longer sends its critic, Booth Moore, to the European collections, even though its Hollywood constituency has an appetite for high fashion.
The brave independent voices remaining include Virginie Mozart at Le Figaro, Vanessa Friedman at the Financial Times, Colin Mcdowell at the Sunday Times, Bridgette Foley at Women’s Wear Daily, Cathy Horyn at the Times. And of course Givhan herself.
“I started in Detroit as a kid. The Detroit paper sent a fashion writer to Europe because they wanted someone to see the collections through the eyes of their readers.” There was an understanding that Detroit was different than Dallas — and Washington was different than New York. Fashion magazines, for their part, have always been in passive collusion with the fashion industry. They are notoriously submissive — unwilling to criticize because they are wed inextricably to advertising dollars. Knock a Marc Jacobs collection and the fragrance ads are summarily pulled. And when fashion magazines take an honest look at their own industry — on subjects of racial diversity on the runways or eating disorders, for example — it is understood that they will do this infrequently and then get back to the business of cheerleading. “The rule-of-thumb at magazines is that if they don’t like something it will be omitted,” says Givhan. “So it’s up to the savvy reader to see what’s missing. Who didn’t get on the cover?”
BLOGGERS ARE THE NEW critics. Often dazzled by celebrity culture, at best they offer snappy, if uninformed, commentary. Mostly it comes down to stating the obvious — short hemlines, bright prints etc. And as social media insinuates itself into the front row, considered opinion goes out the window. “It’s got to be more than just ‘I loved it or I hated it,’ ” says Givhan. “You’ve got to explain your thinking . . . Criticism is not personal opinion. At its best it’s opinion based on a set of facts that are set in context. I’ve seen shows that I’ve loved but I knew that critically they were not great. And vice versa.” Givhan says she doesn’t follow bloggers and it irks her that so many don’t blog under their own name. It’s hard to trust anonymous opinions. But her biggest rap is that they are too cozy with the designers on whom they report. “I like to think that journalists understand the importance of keeping an arm’s length between critics and designers,” she says. Givhan has read blog posts that wax enthusiastic about an item the blogger has received as a gift from the design house (bloggers are compelled by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to disclose gifts). So it annoys her even further that a platform for fashion conversation bypasses both criticism and opinion and goes straight to advertising. Givhan has seen them at the shows, flown in by the designer and dressed by the designer on the understanding that the payback will be cheery, enthusiastic coverage. “The bloggers are doing very well,” she says. At the sacrifice of seasoned opinion. But smart designers know that thoughtful criticism can help them. No one’s interests are served — not the designer, reader or consumer — when the fashion press sings out in unison, “Fabulous!” But an important question lingers. Is Givhan concerned that her Newsweek article — it was the cover story in the international edition — has sabotaged her relationship with the powerful Lagerfeld.
She seemed unconcerned when she talked to the Star a week before the shows began: “I’ll wait till I get to Paris and see if a dead fish arrives at my hotel instead of an invitation to the Chanel show.”
Contacted yesterday, she said that she had been invited. There was no dead fish, she wrote, though “a pair of binoculars might have helped.”
Lagerfeld, it seems, invited her but meted out a punishment nonetheless. She had been banished from the front row.