COVERING FASHION IS NOT A FINE ART
Sourish Bhattacharyya and Asmita Aggarwal (HT City)

Our fash frat revels in trashing journos. They keep on telling us – that is whenever one of us doesn’t oblige them with an ego massage – that we must learn how to cover fashion from our peers in the West. So, we decided to educate ourselves, and Eric Wilson, who’s here on behalf of America’s leading fashion monthly, W magazine (circulation 6,00,000), turned out to be a very good teacher. And (surprise! surprise) we discovered the way we work is hardly any different from how the American media covers fashion.

Egos are fragile on both ends of the world, but fashion designers there are more professional, may be because they are corporatised (Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger are corporations; Donna Karan is now a part of the LVMH behemoth; only Calvin Klein is holding out on his own). Like fashion, fashion journalism too is a global phenomenon. The rules are the same everywhere; what’s not universal, though is the obsession with the West.

As Eric remembers: “While in college, I was working at the Giorgio Armani store and one day the W magazine editor happened to visit the store. He asked me a few questions about the sales. That was it. I applied for a job later and got in.” That at least settles all this talk that only NIFT graduates have the moral right to write about fashion.

Eric, who has covered fashion shows not only in New York but also Hong Kong, says, “In India I can’t critically review the shows because I don’t know what was there in the past. So, I’m only looking for trends.”

However, working for W (a part of Women’s Wear Daily, an influential fashion publication in the US), for the last five years, Eric believes the main problem with the Indian fashion industry today is that it hasn’t got the amount of exposure it deserves. “But this is the right time to strike because all over the West people are looking for an unusual look. That’s the reason why clothing companies like Tuleh are getting business. Also, why Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton have a very distinct glamorous look about them and the US buyers want to flaunt a change in the way they dress.” Interestingly, he still remembers a JJ Valaya show held in NY four years ago and likes the way Anand Jon styles his clothes.

However, this graduate from New York University, does believe that covering fashion is not frivolous and flaky: “You should cover fashion with the same seriousness as you would international affairs. Anyway good things are easy to write and don’t require much thought. The catch is in being tough but fair and to be able to discover trends from the runway.”

Talking about the NY fashion week, he informs that it dates back to the ’50s. “Almost 100 designers participate and there are shows every hour from 9 a.m. to 9 p. m. New York designers are a wild but creative lot who know their business. And NY is a good place for budding talent because it draws a battery of press. Even W has a team of four including two fashion editors covering the event, as the social side of reporting about fashion is equally important.” Eric finds upcoming designers Marc Jacobs, Rick Owens and Miguel Adrover are among the promising faces of tomorrow.

About LIFW he says, “I thought I’ll only see a lot of traditional stuff storming the ramp but I was mistaken. I particularly like the Geisha collection and designer Raghavendra Rathore.”

His parting shot is equally interesting: “What is wrong with the fashion industry is the inability to work with a theme, so it is difficult to contemplate what the designer is trying to say. That is something they have to work towards.”