The Fashion Editor Uncovered

THE FASHION EDITOR

UNCOVERED

by Molly Apple

Glossy fashion magazines sit actively juxtaposing idle newspapers at the newsstand, waiting for the next fashionista to flip through its carefully curated pages and appreciate the images for their tangibility.

Print is certainly not dead, and Djurdja Bartlett’s book Fashion Media: Past and Present, edited

by Agnes Rocamora enlightens the reader to the deeper interworking of these shiny publications. Divided into three sections; Magazines – Painting - Photography, Film, and New Media, B ar tlett discusses writings from a variety of authors addressing the fashion magazine through the context of social and technological change in our postmodern society. Bartlett looks at these sources through complex frames of gender, ethnicity, design, taste and authorship.

She uses multidisciplinary frameworks of anthropology, art history and psychology to assess past case studies and

how they inform Fashion media today. Upon examination of Alice Beard’s chapter “Fun with Pins and Rope: How Caroline Baker Styled the Seventies” I became intrigued by the particular role of the fashion editor in the specific process of staging and capturing an image for a magazine. The site of a fashion shoot is an involved space between professional players who all have different mindsets and past experience and aesthetics but must collectively convey a single story through several images if it’s a spread, or one image for a cover.

I will first explore the hierarchy of these photo from imdb roles in the past and highlight specific editors who’s legacy carries into the construction of contemporary editorials. I will do so by examining the 2012 HBO documentary In Vogue: The Editor’s Eye. Then I will touch on the changing digital editorial landscape of through new platforms of Snapchat and YouTube and argue that these new forms

of communication bridge the gap between the editor and their viewer.

Through these cases I aim to highlight the complicated process including hierarchal relationships that exist behind the scenes of a fashion magazine’s shiny exterior.

Historically, Vogue creator Condé Nast is known for creating the profession of the fashion photographer and solidifying the hierarchy of roles within magazine production. As the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Nast corresponded with his editors and conveyed praise or concerns about the success or failure of specific shoots in response to public and commercial reactions. He was a very meticulous and controlling leader, which often disrupted the dynamics of the hierarchy and balance between editorial autonomy.

In a primary source correspondence between Mr. Nast and his then fashion editor-in-chief, Miss Jessica Daves, dated April 14, 1942, she responds to his concerns of an unsatisfactory shoot through the reasoning that there was a clear disconnect between the photographer and the editor’s visions.

She concludes the memo with

her own definition of a successful partnership between these two roles as “I feel it is the function of the editor to know what effect she means to get and to present her idea to the photographer so that he cannot mistake her meaning.

Then, having got the idea, it is the photographer’s business to put the idea into the photographic print. And I do not believe that this can be accomplished unless the editor remains through the sitting to answer questioning that may come up with the photographer, or to correct any misunderstanding which may arise as the sitting progresses.”

By clearly laying out the rules surrounding this practice, the success of each player within the context of the shoot is more probable. These types of correspondences are rare but expose the behind the scenes dichotomy between magazine players that is helpful to secure a clear hierarchy. Jessica Daves thrived in her role as fashion editor because she was a clear communicator in this way. Many other standout Vogue fashion editors accomplished this feat with precision poise as well, all defining

photo of Condé Nast

their ambiguous title within the heirarchy differently.

Rebecca Arnold highlights two editors and their legacy of magazine aesthetics and culture in her essay titled “Behind the Scenes with Louis Dahl-Wolfe and Toni Frissell: Alternative Views of Fashion Photography in Mid-Century America.” Arnold describes the magazine creation process as a collective imagination that rquire those working on a shoot to produce imagery that expresses their own creative ideas, in line with their given brief.

She reveals fashion at work, establishing the process as one constantly in flux – a complicated dynamic that balances the “individual versus the system dichotomy” in a “rhythmic variation.”

Many fashion “insiders” such as stylists, journalists, or designers can’t even define the role or methods of a fashion editor because their job seems to involve an aura of magic – that an image materializes naturally from their brain and comes together perfectly on the page.

Beard uses the analogy that the fashion editor, in this case Caroline Baker, physically pulls together the visual mate-

rials needed to create a visually stimulating look to define the fashion editor. Using tactile terms such as pins and rope gives the image-viewer the visual of Baker on set with puppeteer strings – gently pulling on and directing each element into its rightful place for a success show.

Baker is credited as the original stylist, using the people and resources she had to steer a look into its best form.

She found inspiration from the street before it became the normal place to draw from. Today, there are millions of stylists who use method of “pings and rope” to achieve an aesthetic story in their styling.

Another figure that stands out in the field of actors who produced notable fashion imagery is Grace Coddington. In “In Vogue: the Editors Eye” she is shown orchestrating a photoshoot utilizing every element of her forest surroundings to create the perfect shot.

The film reveals it’s not all about perfect planning and staging though - a particularly special image is often created by accident. This attitude was represented by the grunge style of the 1990s, when there was a shift from a highly constructed

“There is often a dangerous undercurrent to what she does.”

- Anna Wintour

and meticulously orchestrated image that Caroline Baker made prominent, to an anti-pretty anti-perfection. This kind of raw and unexpected image often appears when reality is captured on happenstance.

This calls into question whether the fashion editor is “all-powerful” as the one pulling the pins and rope. Certain elements are out of the editor’s control. It’s difficult to give up one’s sense of power, especially for stable successful magazines such as Vogue, but gave new life to their editorials through the risk-taking artistic leadership of Camilla Nickerson in 1992. She tapped into the changing cultural landscape by capturing that perfect vogue girl when she was unaware and vulnerable.

Anna Wintour notes further in the documentary, “There is often a dangerous undercurrent to what she does.”

The famously meticulous and put together editor-in-chief of Vogue, Anna Wintour is quoted further in the film, “the mishaps that make it fun and bring you the surprise.” Though she has the final say of what is printed, she gives her fashion editors autonomy to experiment with unpredictability to get that special

quality of image that’s often unplanned.

Some of the most stimulating fashion images I’ve encountered incorporate an element of danger – these include vogue shoots with snakes, bees, and fearless models willing to do anything for the perfect shot.

These crazy encounters are displayed on the highly popular show “America’s Next Top Model” in which model Tyra Banks pushes her contestants to their limits by placing them in uncomfortable circumstances to see if they can successfully do their job as a model in supporting the editor of their vision.

“In Vogue: The Editor’s Eye” quotes Phyllis Posnick, who joined Vogue in 1987, saying “casting is very important in these pictures, because you have to have somebody who is willing to sacrifice themselves for that picture.” Posnick explains the importance of the editor having strong relationships with their models and photographers in order to be successful in creating a quality image.

She worked especially well with Irving Penn, whom she coaxed amazingly special images he might not normally take of celebrities out of. Maintaining

these special relationships are another key element to a fashion editor’s job.

Though there are these concrete elements to the fashion editor’s job description, there is indeed still a trace of magic that lurks within their creative mind.

Fashion editor Tonne Goodman, who joined Vogue in 2000 says, “to be able to freeze a moment, whether it is conjured or whether it is spontaneous, is a kind of a gift.” Goodman edited Vogue into the turn of the Century, taking American fashion imagery back to its simple and powerful roots.

The profession of an editor, it’s not a job, it’s who they are. Talent is hard work, but an inherent creative sensibility, and consuming life-force passion for fashion is needed for one who’s going to dedicate their career to fashion editing. Polly Mellen, who began fashion editing at Vogue in 1966, before the fashion editor’s role was publicized and their influence became transparent to the public, said “there’s a certain loneliness to be a fashion editor.

The most important thing being to bring back the pictures that will make the difference.” She went to her boss,

Diana Vreeland, who gave her the advice, “Who needs friends, get on with it.”

It is this sharp wit and work ethic that has made Vreeland an icon of the fashion editorial world. Mellen explains in the documentary that Vreeland was “all about vibes and images, and people would often come out of meetings asking, ‘what did she say?’”

Her clear sense of self holds as an example for future fashion editors who need this harsh determination and fearlessness to be successful in an image-focused industry. Further in Bartlett’s book, she addresses magazines and the role of the fashion editor in our technology-driven society.

The screen of secrecy between the viewer and the image-maker has dissolved within the realm of online content.

Vogue’s Youtube channel has more than four million subscribers, and more than 900 million total views on their videos.

These moving images make their viewer feel a part of the creation of the magazine – as if they’re looking through the eyes of the fashion editor as they work their magic pins and ropes. Behind the scenes images become just

“to be able to freeze a moment is a kind of a gift.”

- Tonne Goodman

solidified by Condé Nast has dissolved by self-taught and self-directed individual. In an interview with founder of Magazine, a French biannual magazine about magazines themselves, Angelo Crimele explains how he used this contemporary model of self-branding in the first 10 years of Magazine’s publications by employing a different artistic director for each issue.

In addition to shifting structure of the art director profession, contemporary fashion photographers have moved beBehind the scenes Vogue Youtube content

as important as the finished ones because they reflect authenticity and transparency to “outsiders” of the industry.

One can slip between the hidden moments of fashion work into a screen filled with live, uncut footage, making the fashion product accessible to the public. Many fashion reporting companies bridge the gap between them and their viewers by personalizing their content and posting a single reporter’s journey whether it’s attending a fashion show, involvement in a shoot, or orchestrating a launch.

The viewer is more interested in intimacy with actors be-

hind the scenes as the narrative, which gives these players the celebrity status of their model or designer subjects. This has led to a shift in hierarchical structures between magazine players as well.

Selby Drummond, a longtime American Vogue editor will be the new head of Shapchat’s fashion and beauty partnerships in a newly created role. This role is mirrored by Eva Chen and Derek Blasberg of Instagram and demonstrates how these these growing platforms need overarching roles to manage content. The original concept of contracts and loyalty

Angelo Cirimele posing with Magazine at Cafe Beaubourge

yond old gender stereotypes.

Historically, fashion photographers were typically men while their artistic directors were women – Harper Bazaar’s Diana Vreeland and David Bailey for example.

In the make of the #Metoo movement, many fashion photographer’s bad behavior has merged from the shadows giving space in editorials who refuse to hire them to feature less well-known female photographers. This too has shifted the hierarchical structure of figures behind the scenes of a fashion shoot, where abuse of power must be re-examined and addressed head on.

Where styling was once seen as “women’s work” and photography’s a “man’s job,” now there is no rules defining the role of gender and a magazine.

This interior dynamic extends to readership as well- broadening the typified digestor of a magazine beyond women in a waiting room to all gender-identifying fashion insiders and outsiders who seek out niche publications that align with their lifestyle and aesthetic.