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By - Annalyn Censky
U.S. consumers spend over $20 billion every year on footwear alone. Sure, the average American probably isn’t dropping $600 on Jimmy Choos heels like the characters in Sex in the City, but shopping sprees undoubtedly fuel the multi-billion dollar apparel industry.
It’s big business that trickles down from the big trends, big name fashion designers and big department stores.
And that’s why The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times see fit to devote entire bureaus and blogs to fashion coverage.
“As a reporter, you can come at fashion from two perspectives. From the business angle of the companies that produce and create fashion, or you can also cover the products as a consumer good like the fashion magazines do,” said Trip Gabriel, style editor for The New York Times. “We have always done both.”
Now the country’s largest business publication, the Journal is attempting to follow suit with its fashion coverage.
The Journal launched a fashion bureau in September 2006, bringing five beat reporters under the leadership of Fashion Editor Lisa Bannon. The bureau has expanded since then to include six reporters in the U.S. as well as two reporters based in Paris.
And in February, the Journal launched the blog, Heard on the Runway, which offers continuous coverage of the New York, Milan and Paris fashion weeks. The Journal will revive the blog in September, providing news, images and analysis of the runways showing the spring 2008 collections.
In comparison, The New York Times Fashion Critic Cathy Horyn blogs year-round on trends, and Booth Moore, fashion critic for The Los Angeles Times, writes “ The World is My Runway” – a blog covering the runway shows in New York, Paris, Milan and L.A.
“One of the interesting things about fashion is it’s now being produced in lots of cities. It’s not just in New York,” Gabriel said. “There are a lot of regional fashion businesses that are overlooked by the major news organizations.”
While about 17,000 people in the U.S. are fashion designers, the industry employs more than 4.6 million people, more than three-quarters of whom work in retail sales. That means the design a model wears on the runway can affect local consumers, retailers and workers.
Swimwear styles are an example of a regional fashion trend that may lead to a business story, Gabriel said, because bathing suit fashions often stem from the southeast U.S. or Hawaii, not New York.
The Wall Street Journal has had a handful of reporters assigned to the so-called “retail and luxury goods” beat since the 1980s. Senior Special Writer Teri Agins has covered fashion for the paper since 1989, and she approaches her stories through the “prism of business.”
“When people started dressing casually in the early 1990s, who stood to lose the most?” Agins said. “The tie-and-suit companies. Companies like Levi Strauss had the most to gain. If you stop and think about it, every fashion story is a business story because money is involved.”
Many of her articles have stemmed from investigating such trends, and how they affect companies’ bottom lines.
Take for example when miniskirts made a comeback in the 1980s. Actresses in daytime soap operas like Dynasty wore the shorter skirts, and fashion magazines promoted the trend, Agins said. At first, manufacturers were worried because they already had warehouses full of longer knee-high skirts. Some companies decided to just chop inches of fabric off the bottoms.
“That made for good story-telling,” Agins said.
Important fashion stories, like many business stories, also require following public companies. Take for example a story the Journal ran in 1989, Agins said.
At the time, public company Liz Claiborne Inc. was the largest supplier of women’s career apparel in department stores. When the late founder, Liz Claiborne, announced her retirement, the company’s stock dropped that day and made for a Page One business fashion story, Agins said.
Stories like that can come simply from watching the stock markets. Following private labels, on the other hand, can bring about a few challenges unique to the industry.
“Many of major companies aren’t public, and there are a lot of smaller players,” Gabriel said. “Often brand names are divisions of big companies that don’t always break out their sales by category or brand, so figuring whose up, which’s down can sometimes be tricky.”
And getting interviews with the likes of Isaac Mizrahi, Calvin Klein, or Ralph Lauren can be difficult for the metro newspaper reporter in say, anywhere but New York, Paris or Milan.
But those challenges don’t mean business reporters should neglect the entire fashion industry, both Gabriel and Agins said.
Fashion magazines like Vogue and Women’s Wear Daily can keep business reporters in any city up-to-date on what experts say the trends are. Meanwhile, market research firm NPD is great for monitoring what consumers are buying, Gabriel said, and sources closer to home, Agins said, can provide on-the-ground leads to stories that may eventually become national in scope.
“Talk to salespeople at stores to see what’s selling,” Agins said. “That will give you a lot of ideas. Once armed with this information, when you go back to the big companies for comment, and they’ll be more inclined to talk to you.”
Product launches offer yet another business angle to the fashion beat, if reporters take the time to delve into some background information.
When Forbes magazine profiled Coach’s new higher-priced line of purses and apparel, called Legacy, in January, the article discussed the trends in the industry, as well as the company’s increase in revenue, income and stock prices. All those factors may have played into the company’s decision to roll out luxury bags competing with Louis Vuitton and Prada.
In the end, writing a fashion industry story comes down to the same foundation of all business reporting, according to Agins.“Just remember… everything people do is motivated by money.”
It’s big business that trickles down from the big trends, big name fashion designers and big department stores.
And that’s why The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times see fit to devote entire bureaus and blogs to fashion coverage.
“As a reporter, you can come at fashion from two perspectives. From the business angle of the companies that produce and create fashion, or you can also cover the products as a consumer good like the fashion magazines do,” said Trip Gabriel, style editor for The New York Times. “We have always done both.”
Now the country’s largest business publication, the Journal is attempting to follow suit with its fashion coverage.
The Journal launched a fashion bureau in September 2006, bringing five beat reporters under the leadership of Fashion Editor Lisa Bannon. The bureau has expanded since then to include six reporters in the U.S. as well as two reporters based in Paris.
And in February, the Journal launched the blog, Heard on the Runway, which offers continuous coverage of the New York, Milan and Paris fashion weeks. The Journal will revive the blog in September, providing news, images and analysis of the runways showing the spring 2008 collections.
In comparison, The New York Times Fashion Critic Cathy Horyn blogs year-round on trends, and Booth Moore, fashion critic for The Los Angeles Times, writes “ The World is My Runway” – a blog covering the runway shows in New York, Paris, Milan and L.A.
“One of the interesting things about fashion is it’s now being produced in lots of cities. It’s not just in New York,” Gabriel said. “There are a lot of regional fashion businesses that are overlooked by the major news organizations.”
While about 17,000 people in the U.S. are fashion designers, the industry employs more than 4.6 million people, more than three-quarters of whom work in retail sales. That means the design a model wears on the runway can affect local consumers, retailers and workers.
Swimwear styles are an example of a regional fashion trend that may lead to a business story, Gabriel said, because bathing suit fashions often stem from the southeast U.S. or Hawaii, not New York.
The Wall Street Journal has had a handful of reporters assigned to the so-called “retail and luxury goods” beat since the 1980s. Senior Special Writer Teri Agins has covered fashion for the paper since 1989, and she approaches her stories through the “prism of business.”
“When people started dressing casually in the early 1990s, who stood to lose the most?” Agins said. “The tie-and-suit companies. Companies like Levi Strauss had the most to gain. If you stop and think about it, every fashion story is a business story because money is involved.”
Many of her articles have stemmed from investigating such trends, and how they affect companies’ bottom lines.
Take for example when miniskirts made a comeback in the 1980s. Actresses in daytime soap operas like Dynasty wore the shorter skirts, and fashion magazines promoted the trend, Agins said. At first, manufacturers were worried because they already had warehouses full of longer knee-high skirts. Some companies decided to just chop inches of fabric off the bottoms.
“That made for good story-telling,” Agins said.
Important fashion stories, like many business stories, also require following public companies. Take for example a story the Journal ran in 1989, Agins said.
At the time, public company Liz Claiborne Inc. was the largest supplier of women’s career apparel in department stores. When the late founder, Liz Claiborne, announced her retirement, the company’s stock dropped that day and made for a Page One business fashion story, Agins said.
Stories like that can come simply from watching the stock markets. Following private labels, on the other hand, can bring about a few challenges unique to the industry.
“Many of major companies aren’t public, and there are a lot of smaller players,” Gabriel said. “Often brand names are divisions of big companies that don’t always break out their sales by category or brand, so figuring whose up, which’s down can sometimes be tricky.”
And getting interviews with the likes of Isaac Mizrahi, Calvin Klein, or Ralph Lauren can be difficult for the metro newspaper reporter in say, anywhere but New York, Paris or Milan.
But those challenges don’t mean business reporters should neglect the entire fashion industry, both Gabriel and Agins said.
Fashion magazines like Vogue and Women’s Wear Daily can keep business reporters in any city up-to-date on what experts say the trends are. Meanwhile, market research firm NPD is great for monitoring what consumers are buying, Gabriel said, and sources closer to home, Agins said, can provide on-the-ground leads to stories that may eventually become national in scope.
“Talk to salespeople at stores to see what’s selling,” Agins said. “That will give you a lot of ideas. Once armed with this information, when you go back to the big companies for comment, and they’ll be more inclined to talk to you.”
Product launches offer yet another business angle to the fashion beat, if reporters take the time to delve into some background information.
When Forbes magazine profiled Coach’s new higher-priced line of purses and apparel, called Legacy, in January, the article discussed the trends in the industry, as well as the company’s increase in revenue, income and stock prices. All those factors may have played into the company’s decision to roll out luxury bags competing with Louis Vuitton and Prada.
In the end, writing a fashion industry story comes down to the same foundation of all business reporting, according to Agins.“Just remember… everything people do is motivated by money.”
