The New York Times: The New York Times publishes accurate and in-depth fashion and style journalism that many people trust more than any other publication. With headlines like “More Women Than Ever Are Running For President. Do Designers Care?” fashion events, trends and the activity of figures in the fashion industry are reported in the context of what’s happening in politics and society.

Vanessa Friedman, one of the New York Times’ style reporters, wrote the story mentioned above. In the story, she mentions designers and brands who produce power clothing for women and what women need from their clothes in the modern era.

Another interesting facet of Friedman’s story is how she begins it: an overview of how the “House of Cards” costume designer outfitted Robin Wright for the latest and final season of the show. As a woman portraying the first female president of the United States, the clothes Wright wore needed to convey power and authority to the other characters and the audience, and from there, Friedman explores power dressing for women in life. It’s discussions like these that make fashion not a trivial facet of some women’s lives, but ties in power, politics and art with fashion.

Women’s Wear Daily: Although there are plenty of stories and galleries that show images of beautiful designer clothes, shoes and accessories, there is a lot of top-notch reporting on the fashion industry. These kinds of stories include environmentally-friendly initiatives launched by designers and fashion industry leaders’ involvement in politics. WWD doesn’t just present the pretty, glamorous parties and clothes inherent in the fashion industry. They present fashion in ways that reflects activity and attitudes in the world outside of fashion, which is what many look for in fashion reporting.

Women’s Wear Daily reports the activities of many fashion designers and brands much like other publications, but lately pointed out which designers are launching green campaigns and detail which designers are taking leadership positions in sustainability efforts in the industry. Stories like these are what make fashion relevant today, and WWD consistently publishes stories that tie fashion in with greater social or political discussions.

PARIS — Karl Lagerfeld, 85, died in Paris Tuesday after what Harper’s Bazaar described as “a short illness.”

The iconic and prolific head designer of Chanel and Fendi led what seemed from the outside as an immensely glamorous life made possible by an inordinate amount of hard work. Lagerfeld once said that there was no secret to life — “The only secret is work,” as he is quoted as saying in a Feb. 19 Business of Fashion story.

Lagerfeld, a native German, started young in the fashion industry as a designer for Balmain at age 17 before moving on to design for other fashion houses. He later went to work for Chanel, taking over as creative director for the famed brand in 1983.

He quickly turned Chanel from a brand “only Parisian doctors’ wives…still wore,” to an enormously popular entity that saw $9.6 billion in sales as of 2018, according to Business of Fashion.

“Fashion is about today,” Lagerfeld once said about his work. “You can take an idea from the past, but if you do it the way it was, no one wants it.”

While the designer will have a private funeral, as he requested at the end of his life, Chanel is planning a farewell ceremony open to the public. As of Sunday morning, a date for the farewell ceremony was not made available.

Bibliography

1. De Klerk, Amy. “Chanel is Planning a Farewell Ceremony for Karl Lagerfeld.” Harper’s Bazaar. Feb. 22, 2019. https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/fashion/fashion-news/a26463081/chanel-farewell-ceremony-karl-lagerfeld/. Accessed Feb. 24, 2019.
2. Wilson, Eric. “Karl Lagerfeld Dies in Paris.” Business of Fashion. Feb. 19. 2019. https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/karl-lagerfeld-dies-in-paris-at-85.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Lauren Sherman of Business of Fashion analyzes Eckhaus Latta’s Fall 2019 collection with an eye for the history that informs Latta’s designs. With gray trousers and ensembles that slightly resemble camouflage print, Latta uses traditional sportswear garments in the collection, which Sherman highlights by pointing to the history of American sportswear’s place in the fashion industry.

“Sportswear is a loaded concept,” Sherman writes in her February 9th story. “It may be America’s greatest contribution to the fashion canon, but the casualization of culture beyond the US means that it no longer belongs to us.”

She adds, “And yet, the American experience remains singular and ripe for exploration through fashion.”

While Sherman turns a historical eye to Latta’s collection, Suzy Menkes reflects on Maison Margiela’s latest designs, where she draws attention to the use of androgynous models in the runway show — hardly a new concept, as using androgynous looks on fashion models has been used by several designers in the past — but the way Margiela uses the ambiguous gender of the models doesn’t escape Menkes’s notice.

“I worked out that the simpler the clothes (relatively speaking) the more likely the model was to be male,” Menkes wrote in her January 2019 story for Vogue. “Or perhaps not. Yet hasn’t fashion been through moments of gender fluidity before?”

Menkes’ notice of Margiela’s collection encompassing a message of inclusivity is mirrored by her review of Valentino’s inclusion of black models more so than white models in his latest runway show.

“Is there any greater wonder than an haute couture show in the heart of Paris, in a grand and gilded mansion, where — at last — the overwhelming majority of models were black?” Menkes wrote. “Pierpaolo…had reimagined the iconic Cecil Beaton image of a group of elegant women, and transferred it to elegant women of color.”

Both Sherman and Menkes use history, the culture and the social politics of the present moment to review the latest collections of many designers, and draw the reader’s attention to the context of what the designers present. The message certain designers communicate in their runway shows and in the clothes themselves can reflect current attitudes and values, which are made evident in both critics’ pieces.

Bibliography

1. Sherman, Laura. “Eckhaus Latta’s Growth Spurt.” Business of Fashion. February 9th, 2019. https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/fashion-show-review/eckhaus-lattas-growth-spurt. Accessed February 9th, 2019.
2. Menkes, Suzy. “#SuzyCouture: Maison Margiela Artisanal — From Street Art to Gender Play.” Vogue. January 23rd, 2019. https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/suzycouture-maison-margiela-artisanal-from-street-art-to-gender-play. Accessed February 9th, 2019.
3. Menkes, Suzy. “#SuzyCouture: Valentino — Beyond Great Beauty, A Message of Inclusivity.” Vogue. January 24th, 2019. https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/suzycouture-valentino-beyond-great-beauty-a-message-of-inclusivity. Accessed February 9th, 2019.

Dallas-based fashion blogger Jane Aldridge of “Sea of Shoes” fame rose to prominence in 2007 when she started her now-prolific blog she describes as “a photo diary of her impeccably styled looks based on her love of vintage clothes and extreme shoes.”

The blog was one of the first high-profile fashion blogs and brought Aldridge to the attention of the likes of Anna Wintour, Kanye West and Karl Lagerfeld, even earning her a spot at the prestigious Crillon Ball in Paris in 2009. In 2012, Jason Sheeler of Texas Monthly wrote of Aldridge, “Jane ranks in the upper echelons of a new breed in the world of high fashion: the outsider armed with an internet connection, a digital camera and discriminating taste.” In the era of bloggers taking over breaking fashion information and communicating fashion content to the masses, Aldridge got her foot in the door early and soon created a career out of a blog that started out as just an after-school project documenting shoes with her mom.

One of Aldridge’s biggest contributions to fashion blogging was the concept of documenting fashion and the happenings of the fashion industry from afar. A native of Dallas, the fashion blogging mainstay decided to remain in Texas instead of moving to a more high-profile fashion destination, like New York City, Paris or London.

“I really love it here,”she told Fashionista’s Tyler McCall in 2017. “As much as I love fashion, I’m not the fashion girl. I’m not someone who even really wants to go the runway shows.”

Aldridge added, “I appreciate it from afar.”

As part of Sea of Shoes’ presence online, Aldridge inevitably expanded the blog to be on social media, and over the course of the last several years garnered more than 200,000 followers on Instagram, 30,000 on Facebook and almost 100,000 on Twitter. The Texas native uses her social media presence to not just produce content about fashion, but also to draw attention to several issues important to her, not least of which is awareness of endometriosis.

“I have the tremendous privilege of being self-employed and I could work around my flare-ups,” she wrote in a November 2018 blog post. “There are so many women struggling to make it to work…this is why endometriosis is a social issue, it is a feminist issue, and it is high time we begin to treat endometriosis as such.”

While Aldridge continues to operate her blog and accompanying social media accounts, she also expanded the blog to include an online store linking to other shopping platforms where readers can buy items like sneakers, athletic jackets, tie neck silk blouses and mixed-blend coats. She often promotes the shop portion of her blog on Facebook.

“Out with some old, in with some new,” she said in a January 2019 Facebook post. “Click on the items to shop the looks!”