Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.
The past month has been a whirlwind for luxury brands, models and fashion fans as designers have promoted their visions at Fashion Weeks in New York, London, Milan and now Paris. The hundreds of shows have been no less of a marathon for Vanessa Friedman, the chief fashion critic for The New York Times. (She says chocolate, comfortable shoes and her colleagues on The New York Times’s Styles desk help.)
It’s a marathon, sure, but a whole lot of fun too. “Going to a lot of fashion shows is like going to a lot of art galleries,” Ms. Friedman told Times Insider. “Much of what you see is dull, or derivative, or silly, but then you see one show that makes you think about identity in a whole new way, and it sends your thoughts skittering off in exciting directions and wipes everything else away.”
Ms. Friedman, who has covered fashion for The Times since 2014, especially as it intersects with politics and societal and cultural identity, will attend shows in Paris until Tuesday, when events come to a close. In addition to reviewing runway shows, she writes about how public figures use their images as a form of communication, and answers readers’ questions in her weekly Open Thread column for Styles.
In an interview from Paris, Ms. Friedman discussed what an average day on the Fashion Week circuit looks like, how she thinks about designer clothing for consumers and how social media levels the fashion playing field. This interview has been edited and condensed.
What is a typical day like in Paris during Fashion Week?
I’m slightly atypical because I’ve got shows and then I’ve got to write reviews. So, like my fellow critics, my work doesn’t end when the shows end — it almost starts when the shows end. It’s 8:30 p.m. now, I’ve just got home, I’m going to eat dinner, and then I’ll write my review.
I can go to between four and 10 shows a day, plus presentations and meetings. There are screaming crowds of fans outside almost every show now because of the growth in celebrity brand ambassadors, especially K-pop stars, who have truly incredible, obsessive fans. They line up for hours outside the shows. The whole thing is very chaotic — and a bit like a school reunion, because you see a lot of the same people every season, from many different countries. And then you sit and wait, and the show is maybe 10 or 15 minutes.
Paris is preparing for the Summer Olympics and is also currently experiencing a lot of social unrest, which adds to the chaos. There are often strikes or protests that shut down streets, plus streets that have been already shut down because the city is getting ready for July.
Are you thinking about the trends you write about in terms of the moment, what’s happening in the world right now, or are you looking at a brand historically?
Generally when I’m looking at a show, I’m asking myself, what’s the designer trying to say? I’m thinking about customers’ lives, the state of women, the people the designer is speaking to. Whether he or she thinks they want to be armored or comforted or safe or glamorous or naked — there are all of these aesthetic decisions that designers make about the state of the consumer and what they’ll need six months from now. That’s influenced by social, cultural and political factors.
I’m thinking: What are you trying to say about that? Does it make sense? Can I understand who that customer is? Does it make sense in the context of this brand or that designer, what they’ve done before, the history of the fashion house. If it checks those boxes, even if I might not be able to imagine wearing it, I can see that there’s a place for it.
Very few people might wear clothes off the runway, but they are imbued with a message and the artistry that is showcased.
Social media has transformed everyone’s relationship to fashion because these events used to be completely closed. They were for press, buyers, retailers and magazines. Editors would see the shows and decide what they thought would be the trend, and two months later that information would appear in a magazine. That’s how consumers would understand fashion.
Now, everything is online immediately, so everyone gets to participate in this. Whether or not you can buy the clothes, you get to see them and judge them. It becomes this kind of visual mosaic that everyone has access to. That, whether people are conscious of it or not, shapes how they think about what they should be wearing.
It seems there are similarities in the concepts some designers present on the runway, like the idea of bareness or celebrating daily life. Are those messages ever discussed between designers, or is it more a reflection of the milieu they’re in and the state of the world?
All of these aesthetic decisions are shaped by the forces that exist around fashion: what’s going on politically and culturally, in music, streaming, influencers, TikTok, what’s happening with the economy. What are people afraid of? What are they excited about? What kind of social movements are going on? Those are shared experiences, so it makes sense that we would see commonalities. Designers are living in this world, and they’re picking up on these phenomena.
