What are your thoughts about the significance of this season given so many major designer debuts?
It feels like an opportunity for a reboot. I don't just mean that in terms of designers pushing forward a new look, or new looks--though that is certainly welcome. My hope is that they, and the people in the C-suite who hired them, will seize this moment to rethink some of the ways the fashion industry has been operating, because if the structures and incentives don't change, the designers--no matter how brilliant--will wind up driving these brands down the same creative cul-de-sac the industry is currently trying to steer itself out of.
What are the main elements that make your work unique?
I have a sneaking suspicion that this question is not meant for writers/critics, per se, but I'm going to answer it. Over the past few years, a ton of people have asked me: Where's your Substack? Why aren't you writing a newsletter? Etc. I guess I could. I'm grateful that people like my writing, and the fact that I write about fashion in an unconventional way. I truly believe, however, that my writing's uniqueness would be diminished if it were just another opinion spat out by the take-manufacturing machine that is contemporary digital media. What makes the unconventionality of my writing meaningful is its context, which is Vogue. Institutions matter. My editors/colleagues push me to do my best work — and curb some of my worst, most self-indulgent writerly impulses. I'm willing to bet that when 95% of the Substacks and so on have melted away, Vogue will remain. Alongside all the new designers, we now have a new leader at the magazine, Chloe Malle, who I've loved working with over the years, and who I'm looking forward to working with more in the future — and seeing where she takes this fashion institution that means so much to all of us.
What do you enjoy most about PFW?
Back when I used to cover the shows — like, hardcore cover them — by the time PFW rolled around, I was exhausted. I mean, everyone was exhausted. Also, we were all sick of each other; I feel like the only thing anyone could find to talk about was the comparative quality of breakfasts at various hotels in the 1er. But! There would be that one show, and it was like we'd all been reborn, in love with fashion again. That's my favourite thing about Paris: the inevitability of that one moment, at that one show, where all the dead-eyed, tired, over-it people catch their breath and come to life. And then the rest of the week, the wind is at everyone's back, the whole scene is re-energized.
Do trends still matter?
Yes. Row-style Quiet Luxury; the Alaia Mary Jane and all it has spawned; Miu Miu-ness in general. But there's no one overarching look/trend anymore, and maybe as a result, what's on the runway doesn't filter down to the mainstream in any coherent way. But you can still perceive shifts over time.
What is your favorite way/word to compliment someone's style?
They look like themselves.
Tell us something surprising about how you got to where you are today
I started my journalism career writing about music, in London, right after college. Basically because I wanted to go to concerts for free. And meet Damon Albarn. Later, back in NY, after having met Damon Albarn, I wound up writing for NYLON; an editor there, Nancy McDonnell, went on to work at Style.com, and I guess I owe my whole fashion career to her, really, because she asked me if I'd be up to cover a few shows/parties at New York Fashion Week. Anyway, everyone should buy/read her book Empresses of Seventh Avenue. It's great! Plus, it's good to know about fashion history.
Can you share a mantra that speaks to this moment in time?
What fresh hell is this? - Dorothy Parker
