Have you noticed any shifts since the beginning of your career in what you want to write about and what people want to read about?
I guess putting fashion through a wider cultural lens. When events happen like the Met Gala, that doesn’t really interest me all that much personally – what celebrities wear to events – but that is something readers always like to see and know about. I just try and think, why would you come to i-D specifically for that story? I think that’s also what’s happened with the digital explosion: publications have lost their tone of voice and their perspective a little bit because everyone is covering very similar topics and talents. And it filters down to print as well – who magazines have on their covers, how things are angled, the language used in headlines – everyone looks at what everyone else is doing. That’s the biggest shift I’ve seen, but I hope that’s going to change. Especially now publications like Vogue are considering paywalls. They will no doubt need to hone in on who their reader is and what they want or it won’t work.
What, in your view, is the i-D tone of voice? What is the filter that you put on a story to make it i-D?
I guess it’s that fans not critics mantra. Informed informality. We’ve always joked it’s like the slightly older sibling, maybe, who is either encouraging their younger sibling into a new scene – you might like this, you might like that – and giving them the encouragement and platform-sharing to feel like they can be a part of it too. i-D shouldn’t be exclusionary, it should be celebratory.
You mentioned putting fashion through a wider cultural lens – I think that’s something i-D do really well. It’s never been shy about discussing gender, sexuality, race, politics…
One thing that does annoy me actually is how fashion journalism in the wider sphere isn’t seen as real journalism. Someone said that fashion journalism is closer to fashion than it is to journalism, and I think that’s true, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t evolve and become something more than that. We’re seeing the likes of Vanessa Friedman at the New York Times and Matthew Schneier at New York Magazine who are doing some really interesting pieces and exposés. I don’t think i-D will necessarily do that, but we can push for positive change.
Yeah, I think what i-D does well is intellectual fashion coverage without intellectualising it.
Exactly. Whether designers are being political in their work intentionally or not, there is always an element of that, because we can’t separate ourselves from our environment. It goes back to what i-D is, it’s about identity.
I think the biggest thing I’ve had to navigate is being a writer and dealing with any kind of depressive or anxious episodes. Fashion isn’t really an industry that’s great for it, because things can happen at any time and it demands a lot.
How do you integrate politics in a meaningful way without losing engagement or alienating people who don’t want fashion to be overtly political, and also without it coming across as tokenistic? Especially with digital pieces, where the headline has to be so succinct and the piece itself is more snappy.
It can never feel forced. It’s really difficult because, with social media, someone might come to an online piece with no prior understanding of what i-D is and they might have never read another article on there. I think that’s the difficulty of commissioning out opinion pieces too, because it’s obviously the opinion of the writer, but it’s also the opinion of the publication. It’s a balancing act. Within the piece, you have to make sure you’re linking to a number of other pieces that are part of that wider argument. It doesn’t all have to agree, but it needs to give a wider perspective of the issue.
You must spend the majority of your time thinking, talking or writing about fashion. What do you think are the most pressing conversations to have in fashion right now?
Sustainability. We have to make fashion a cleaner industry. So many designers are beginning to think about it now and fashion is getting better at responding to criticisms, like Extinction Rebellion’s, but there’s so much work that needs to be done. It’s a wider conversation that the industry needs to have in terms of the post-production too and how we cover stuff. We send people all over the world to see the shows, to cover launches, to profile talent. Is it all necessary?
Yeah. We often talk about fashion’s impact on the environment, but one thing that gets glossed over is the fact that journalists and models fly a lot.
Exactly. I hope the industry realises that and changes accordingly, especially since far-flung destinations – like Marrakech for the Dior cruise show and Prada showing men’s in Shanghai – seem to be becoming the norm. People who don’t really get fashion always ask me, ‘so how long is the show?’ or ‘what are you actually doing there?’ You know, I was in Marrakech for two or three days, but the show itself was about 20 minutes long. Of course, it’s a wider experience that builds the narrative but it’s such an expense of resources and there are many ways to tell stories.
My advice to any young journalist is just to really think about what you’re posting and why you’re posting. I’ve always seen social media as an extension of what you’re writing and how you’re presenting yourself to the world but just do what’s right for you.
I guess the other side of keeping fashion clean is, how do you maintain journalistic integrity when you’re being given so much free stuff by brands? And maybe that feeds into the ‘fan not a critic’ thing as well – a sort of criticism by exclusion?
It’s really tricky. My point of view is that it’s okay to go on the press trips if it’s transparent. The gifts thing is a whole other thing. I often get emails asking for my shoe size or something and it’s like, what are you sending me? It feels weird. I’ve got a very particular style and, this sounds ungrateful, but I don’t want random things sent to me and I’ve been sent some really weird things.
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve been sent?
Just really colourful things and crazy hype hybrids of things that just aren’t me. I end up giving them to people in the office who can appreciate them.
It all feeds into the discussion about sustainability and how much unnecessary stuff we produce and consume. It’s not just the press and influencers being sent gifts, it’s the acceleration of the fashion calendar and the high turnover of designers too. If we’re talking about sustainability more broadly or holistically, how do you think we can make fashion more emotionally sustainable for the people within it?
It’s difficult, because so many designers in recent seasons have pushed back on the sheer volume of fashion. That’s probably one of the biggest changes I’ve experienced in the industry – it’s gone from two seasons to four seasons to everything else in between, collaborations and stuff. I look at people like Virgil [Abloh], Kim [Jones] to an extent as well, and I think, how are you doing it? Obviously they’re part of a bigger team, but they do so much. Some people seem to thrive on it, but it doesn’t seem sustainable to me and an increasing number of designers are finding a way forward that works for them. I don’t personally thrive on the relentless pace. I need time to breathe and comprehend a little bit. Hopefully there’ll be a slight pushback on that, I think there has to be.
Yeah, especially when mental health has become such a big topic within fashion, and you’ve obviously had your own struggles with that.
Yeah, completely. I think the biggest thing I’ve had to navigate is being a writer and dealing with any kind of depressive or anxious episodes. Fashion isn’t really an industry that’s great for it, because things can happen at any time and it demands a lot. I always liken mental health to the weather really, and I’m aware of certain triggers and things now, but it could happen whenever. I’ve missed deadlines because of mental health struggles, but it’s something that i-D has been great at understanding and I think the wider industry is waking up to it now too. The more we talk about these issues, the better it is.
Social media and mental health seem to be closely linked. Especially this idea that, as a writer, you have to have an online persona – a ‘personal brand’ if we’re being that synthetic about it. How would you advise young journalists dealing with that?
I used to be a lot more active across social media during my blogging days but I’ve moved away from the infinite scroll because it can easily become too much. My advice to any young journalist is just to really think about what you’re posting and why you’re posting. I’ve always seen social media as an extension of what you’re writing and how you’re presenting yourself to the world but just do what’s right for you.
One final thing. I found an old copy of i-D where you said that your advice to your 16-year-old self would be: don’t do what you think you should do, do what you want to do. Would you stand by that advice now?
Totally. That goes back to the fact that I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was 16 – or 18 or 21 for that matter – and I might still not know exactly now. It’s always transient, it’s always changing. It sounds really cliche, but do what you want to do, not what your parents want you to do or what other people expect of you. It’s your life. I’m realising as I get older that we put so much focus on what our first feature in print is going to be or something, but it doesn’t matter. Things are forgotten pretty quickly.