In Fashion Part 22

Before winning the t.i.tle of beauty editor at Harper's Bazaar, and without even asking if I'd get paid for it, I agreed to write a 2,500-word story for Liz Tilberis on the opening of the minimalist Mecca, the gleaming new Barneys New York store on Madison Avenue. What did that have to do with landing the beauty position? Everything. It was a test. Did I write acceptably well? Could I turn on a dime and produce good text over a weekend? Would the staff accept me? Was I "cool"? To build consensus with her staff and create the illusion that they could weigh in on my hire, Liz pa.s.sed around the draft of my story to key members of her team asking if they thought I "had it." Next, Liz sent me to collaborate with the new fashion stylist, the amazing Elissa Santisi, and the genius Swiss photographer Raymond Meier to come up with an image for the story: a Barneys hanger with an exotic bird on it. Not an idea I ever would have dreamt up in a million years. I learned a monumental lesson here: Don't get in the way of genius, especially if it makes you look even better. Next came collaboration with the art department, formatting the story and writing a headline that looked good with the photograph. Fact checkers and copy editors descended on me to a.s.sure complete accuracy and good sense. Sound intense? It was. But that's how I got my dream job with Liz Tilberis.

Catfight: Meow! Why It's Good to Have an Enemy

This is about a face-off of nearly equal powerhouses. In boxing, it was George Foreman versus Muhammad Ali. In late-night television, it was Jay Leno versus David Letterman. In baseball, the Yankees versus the Red Sox. In art, Pica.s.so versus Matisse, Michelangelo versus da Vinci.

It's the fly buzzing around your head. A rival is someone who shows you how well or how horribly you are doing. The absolute bane of your existence, she always puts you on edge. You can sense her presence in a room long before you see her. Your fur stands on end and your ears c.o.c.k for every encounter.

But this is not all bad. Let's look at the bright side: Without a rival, would you become complacent, plump, unkempt, bored? No matter how much grief she causes you, a rival keeps you on your toes. Alive. Awake. Inspired.

No one is immune from compet.i.tive forces; nor would you wish to be. Creatively American Vogue must admire and envy the young energy and original design of French Vogue. From an advertising or sales perspective, French Vogue is but a shaky scaffolding to American Vogue's gleaming skysc.r.a.per of success.

The Face-off

The much-reported Anna WintourLiz Tilberis rivalry taught me a lot. The compet.i.tion between these two English women (or perceived compet.i.tion) made each of them bigger somehow and more clearly defined. The daughter of a newspaperman, Anna started as the lingerie editor for Harper's & Queen in London; the daughter of an eye surgeon, Liz began as the lingerie editor for British Vogue. Anna is stick thin; by comparison, normal-ish Liz seemed elephantine. To all outward appearances, which is all we're talking about anyhow, Anna was brisk and efficient, translating in the cartoon world of comparison to b.i.t.c.h; Liz publicly acted sweet and kind, which, trust me, was good propaganda.

Who was the first to phone Bazaar after Liz died? Anna Wintour's office. Anna was devoting her editor's letter to Liz and needed some backup information. Was Anna operating on the often-quoted notion "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"? No, I think Anna understood the usefulness of the rivalry, but ultimately she showed amazing humanity and newsroom grit by eulogizing Liz so automatically and graciously.

I conducted my own mini Liz-Anna rivalry, though perhaps only in my own mind. I, the blonde, Midwestern, young, smart, and iconoclastic beauty editor of Harper's Bazaar accepted the job while Shirley Lord, Vogue's long-standing beauty royalty and dirty book writer, was still occupying her throne there. I looked forward to the comparisons. My hands-on, journalistic approach-showing up backstage at every fashion show to interview the hair stylist and makeup artists-made her company-driven coverage, hair-sprayed coifs, and moldy skirt suits seem old-school. After I'd had only a few months on my new beat, Shirley was gracefully retired, and Amy Astley, who'd worked briefly and inauspiciously under Shirley, was shuttled into the role. Instantly, pretty, fresh Amy from Michigan, who'd previously worn a short brownish bob, clunky shoes, and Pilgrim skirts, was transformed. Whambangmakeoverm'am! She showed up blond-blonder than moi-wore s.e.xy Manolo sandals, and the exact same spring navy Gucci double-breasted suit as, you got it, me! Soon, to my horror, Mrs. Evelyn Lauder and a young publicity girl both called me "Amy" at a beauty event. Warming up at the bar at my regular 6 p.m. Lotte Berk cla.s.s, I glanced up to see who was that person performing a marginally deeper grande plie than my own? You got it, Amy Astley. This was beginning to feel personal. Maybe I was being systematically cloned, and soon all beauty editors from all publications would be identical. Voila, the Ultimate New Model Beauty Editor! Looking back, I realize I should have been kind, instead of compet.i.tive, and embraced her. BBBs, we both could have learned from the friendship and had some good laughs in the process. As it was, the very idea of a Vogue clone motivated me to work harder to get more original and exclusive stories.

I'm happy to report that Amy and I eventually buried the lipstick, so to speak. Soon after Amy was named editor in chief of Teen Vogue, again, weirdly following my path to be editor in chief of two other teen magazines, I-recently thrown out on my derriere from a parallel role-phoned to congratulate her. She picked up right off. It was cathartic for me to hear her voice and to clear the air. My sources inform me that Amy is a fun, fair, excellent person and that much of the soi-disant rivalry was something I had invented. Now I cheer on this star at every opportunity, celebrating her every success. After all, Amy is a nice Midwestern girl like me, with a great work ethic and a hot magazine to call her own. Brava!

A Fashion Editor's Orientation

It's a Hypervisual World

What you wear and how you look matters a great deal. It is material for everyone to notice, for sure, comment on if they feel comfortable enough even to your face, and tease you, especially if they love you. You are what you wear. Develop thick skin on this one, baby. Best to stick to a simple uniform. The hallway is the runway and you are on it!!!!

Your Own Inspiration Board

While it is generally a collage of incongruous items that informs others about your taste, an inspiration board should actually inspire you. Fashion designers create inspiration boards each season. The theme might be an old movie, a city, a color, a voyage, a rock star, a punk rock star, Coco Chanel from her Deauville days, Frida Kahlo, Edie Sedgwick, and on and on and on. Somehow an entire collection-ninety runway looks-emerges. Your inspiration board, be it a mini cork bulletin board or a chunk of your cubicle wall, should make you happy. Otherwise, redo it immediately. Or keep it blank. Some obvious starters: A black-and-white photo of Audrey Hepburn A favorite vintage fashion photo from Avedon, such as one from his elephant, circus series, or one of Melvin Sokolsky's plastic bubbles over the Seine A cool invitation A postcard from somewhere unexpected A matchbox that's graphic or cool A handwritten card from someone you admire A bit of ribbon from Lanvin or Hermes Photographs and ill.u.s.trations of all your favorite current season and cla.s.sic shoes Or bring alive: A favorite author, like Virginia Woolf, or a director, like Sofia Coppola One must-have thing like spring coats, perfume bottles, or the ballet One amazing color, such as fuchsia, robin's egg blue, that energizes you Whatever you do, don't make your board home economics or Martha Stewart cute. That means no perfect fabric background or ribbons stretching diagonally across to create perfect diamond shapes. This board should be a work in progress. Artist messy and real.

Why Fashionistas Wear Black

There are loads of fashionistas who wear color. Mix things up. Even throw in a print now and then. Spectator shoes. A strong red lip. Or a crisp red suit. They don't wear head to toe of one designer. Watching a top-level fashionista play with her own look every day is an education all in itself. Besides being a total pleasure. Here, I'm thinking in particular of my friend Elissa Santisi, who on a molecular level understands the essence of American style. She plays with its elements, mixing things up in a modern, original way. But despite her presence and a few others in her orbit, there remains an overriding shroud of black.

In the midst of a deeply black minimal phase when the entire fashion world turned out en noir, we at Bazaar heard from good sources at Vogue that Anna had issued orders for her staff to stop wearing black. That seemed to me at the time unreasonable, dictatorial, and harsh. It was, in fact, prescient. Anna knew that black would run its course as do all good fashion trends. Of course she was right. Before long, even the darkest of designers, like Helmut Lang, Jil Sander, and Tom Ford, were showing fuchsia, chalky Delft blue, and daffodil. Head-to-toe black was officially out.

Yet many, many top arbiters of style stick with black. Why? It removes them from the day-to-day conflict of what is the right thing to wear. Like a judge's black robes visually separating him or her from a courtroom of messy lay folk, a fashionista's black look sets her above the fray. Black clothes aren't as likely to scream out what label is sewn in the back or which collection or season they came from. Fashionistas who practically live on the set of a photo shoot and travel all over the world to make pictures choose black out of practicality, in part. It's also understandable for those surrounded all day long by racks of garments and closets of accessories to choose to remain personally neutral. Those who've lived through the j.a.panese fashion revolution of the late 1970s and early 1980s seem especially reluctant to leave their noncolor. Blackists might argue that by eliminating all color, they are free to explore the nuances of shape, texture, layering, fabrications, and other such sublimely subtle details on a more granular level. Whatever. Too much black is depressing. I prefer the girl, like Elissa, who inspires everyone with her look.

Vocabulary

Every place of work has its own language, both technical and colloquial. At some magazines where I worked, for example, the type after the headline was called a blurb, while at others, it was called the deck or the sell, while at still others, it was generically referred to as display type. At Seventeen, you were a dork for doing something stupid. At Bazaar, you were a cow. You need to listen and adapt to the local dialect quickly.

What's being judged every time you open your mouth? Everything. Your intelligence, your ability to do the job, your experience. There are some general rules that apply to all situations. It's always better to say nothing than to be a know-it-all. The best advice: Be terrifically smart or just be quiet.

FASHION FEVER.

Fashion fever is triggered by the realization that you can actually exist one season ahead of everyone else. You can wear and carry samples of clothes and bags that won't be produced for another several months. You can be ahead of the pack. A fashion leader. No one can buy or possess what you have.

The euphoria that results from this exalted status clouds judgment. The girl who would never dream of shoplifting a bag at Bergdorf Goodman (why would she when she need only pull out her dad's black Amex?) covets a tiny gold, quilted Chanel bag that, she naively reasons, no one would ever miss from the overflowing closet. She is so deluded in her thinking that she actually wears the bag to work the next day.

Further complicating the usual black and white of right and wrong is the common practice among lots of senior editors of taking stuff they fancy. They, due to years laboring in the business and earning major credits (which translate into bigger sales) for all major fashion houses, have earned the right to "borrow" with impunity. Junior editors might feel bitter over this sense of ent.i.tlement, especially when senior editors make sometimes as much as ten times more money than starving a.s.sistants.

You say to yourself: How could anyone be so stupid? First of all, where would you ever wear something you'd stolen from the closet? They must have wanted to be caught.

It comes down to losing one's head. Getting caught up in the fashion fever. Caring too much about the stuff. Wise to the debilitating effects of fashion fever, editors are wary of hiring people whose love of the materialistic might surpa.s.s their true love of fashion.

Fashionista Lexicon

Heaven: An adjective to describe nice clothes, pictures, locations, events Sick: An adjective to describe good, and somehow edgy, clothes, pictures, locations, events Fab: Fabulous Genius: Common overstatement; rarely used for true genius Cool: A person, concept, place, or thing that is accepted, "in"

Not cool: Opposite of above Senior: A serious effort worthy of attention Junior: Not up to standards Other good words: new, derivative, modern, brilliant, original, honest, complete, sensual, concise, muse, inspiration, faddish, old, and edgy.

Nonfashionista Words

Neat, gee, gee whiz, rock'n, different, copy, knock-off, chill'n, stupid, dude, and ugly You get the idea.

Be Literate

How did my love of William Wordsworth pop up at Harper's Bazaar circa 1998? Drawing from Wordsworth's words, I was able to help elevate a story on summer female Olympians, shot beautifully by Wayne Maser, to a higher level. Reading great works-those of Shakespeare, Faulkner, Blake, Yeats-at some point in your life can only help you bring more to your own creativity.

If you are a stylist, being literate means knowing the proper names for a coat: Is it a reefer, a trench, a wrap, a bomber, or military? For sleeves (raglan, inset), collars, pants options (Capri, gaucho, short), and on. A stylist should know all relevant brand names past and present.

If you are a designer in the art department, literacy superficially means experience with the right software. On a deeper level, it refers to photographic and design references past and present, and these will ultimately matter more profoundly than anything else.

Be a Better Wordsmith (Even If You Are Not a Writer)

How you dress communicates your style. How you speak and write tells others about your brain. Even if you are the a.s.sistant to the footwear editor, you will be presenting ideas and speaking in meetings as well as writing and answering e-mails. The manner in which you communicate matters: Do you express yourself in a stiff, corporate way? Are you too casual, slangy, and friendly? Follow a few of the rules below, and I promise more people will listen to you and be receptive to what you are saying.

1. Always be alliterative. Repeated initial consonant letters make things more memorable and look better on the screen or on paper. Sometimes alliterated headlines or words can seem daft, like "Better Body." Usually, though, they help make the message memorable. Once you start thinking this way, noticing how headlines or t.i.tles are crafted, the film or music references that they play off, you'll be one step closer to communicating in the creative "code." Headlines sometimes enter my brain while I'm trying to sleep, when I first wake up, or while I'm in the shower. I know when it's good. Some of my favorites include: "Makeup for Mortals," "Beauty b.i.t.c.h," and "Give Me Glam." Writing and brainstorming headlines or cover lines in a group is one of my all-time favorite ways to spend time.

I loved how Sally Koslow, a senior editor of Woman's Day who helped hire me there, and later editor in chief of McCall's and Lifetime magazines and now a successful novelist, could speak in rapid-fire headlines. Whenever anyone had a vague concept for a story, she'd reverbalize it as a dazzling cover or headline. She inspired me. Scared me. I wanted to be that fast and verbal. Even if you are making pictures, you need to sell your concepts-that is, you need to find novel, exciting ways to describe your vision.

2. Get-it-right grammar. Don't get me started on my grammar pet peeves. I'll just cover a few of the biggest offenders. No matter WHO you are or WHAT your job, you are hereby FORBIDDEN from making these mistakes. Sorry, bubs, but this is the hard, cold truth: There is a great grammar conspiracy. Even though you THINK this stuff doesn't matter, the managing cla.s.ses will, consciously or not, judge you negatively if you don't speak or write decently: Quick trick: See an apostrophe? That means TWO WORDS have been combined!!!

Its / It's Its = possessive = The coat is fuchsia: Its color is cool.

It's = contraction of two words (IT IS!!!) = It is a fuchsia-colored coat.

Your / You're Your = possessive = Your cat has leopard spots.

You're = contraction of two words (YOU ARE!!!!) = You are so lucky to have a leopard-spotted cat.

Their / They're Their = possessive = Their mom gets a discount at Gucci.

They're = contraction of two words (THEY ARE!!!) = They are so lucky that their mom gets a discount at Gucci.

NEVER SAY "between you and I"

ALWAYS SAY "between you and me"

The best short read on this subject? The cla.s.sic and charming Elements of Style by Strunk and White (1918). Afraid of looking like a grammar nerd? While your friends are listening to their favorite rap mixes, you can soak up the latest Grammar Girl's "Quick and Dirty Tips" podcasts.

3. Spelling matters. One fashion HR executive told me that if a candidate misspells the name of a top brand he or she supposedly wants to work for, that he or she will not be given access to jobs inside that brand. The following are actual spelling mistakes made by college-level fashion students looking to intern at the following "dream" brands: "Perada" for Prada "Cenneth Cole" for Kenneth Cole "Donna Carin" for Donna Karan Similarly, Marc Jacobs is not "Mark"; Karl Lagerfeld is not "Carl." When in doubt, Google the company name. This isn't the place to make a stupid mistake.

WHAT IS IT: Retail (working for stores, buying from showrooms, selling to real people), wholesale (working for the brand selling to stores), ad sales, public relations.

DEGREE: None necessary. Useful, however, might be studies in psychology, business, economics (undergraduate), an MBA (for higher-level corporate marketing, finance, acquisitions posts). After your first job, probably no one will ever ask again.

TRAITS: High energy, enthusiasm, focus, thick skin, results oriented.

ESSENTIAL ABILITIES: Fearlessness; finding motivation in the word no.

ROLE: To be the Vision of what you're selling: great posture, sleek, well groomed, fit, fashionable.