As we’ve previously mentioned, The Times’ lead fashion critic Cathy
Horyn is in San Francisco for the Academy of Art’s B.F.A. show, which
kicks off tonight. Yesterday, the University honored the much-beloved
(and perhaps much feared) critic at a luncheon, where we caught up
with her for a little one-on-one.
So, your Times colleague, Guy Trebay, recently called San Francisco
“the land that style forgot.” After hanging out here for a little bit,
do you have an opinion on that?
“Well, I don’t know, but I would say that must be wrong. Guy does come
out here fairly often. I don’t want to challenge his opinion of it,
because it’s his opinion. But the world is so different now, and
everybody has some kind of style. It feels like a stereotype of San
Francisco.”
You’ve been talking to some of the Academy’s fashion journalism
students while you’ve been here. How do you feel fashion journalism
has changed over time and with blogging?
“It’s a lack of original content. Sooner or later, it’s like anything, people change, people
look at that and say ‘This is boring.’ And some young journalist will
come along and distinguish themselves with original reporting. And
they will hopefully be fluent in French and very good at reporting
what’s going on at the luxury goods companies and the big brands in
Europe, because there’s a complete need for that kind of reporting.
You can be tough and feisty and a little bit of a guerrilla reporter,
for want of a better word, and I think there’s a need for that. I
don’t think a lot of the blogs are distinguishing themselves by
linking and just being snarky or being opinionated. Do some
reporting.”
Has anything in journalism interested you of late?
“I’ve been turned on through Twitter to the blog Brain Pickings. She’s
really interesting, and it’s a really diverse blog. I think she’s doing
some original reporting and some evaluating of what’s out there and
being very selective. I will not use the word curated. She’s just good
at what she does. She’s curious and I think that’s what’s valuable.
Everybody’s stepping on each other in the fashion world and just
repeating each other and they’re not really bringing, for the most
part, fresh content. And they can if they want to.”
“We get WWD at home, and I think they have improved a bit in the past
six months, and I’m not sure why. They’ve just gotten sharper about
some things. I read the Wall Street Journal. On the weekends I look at
the Financial Times. I really like their weekend coverage about
fashion. Then I kind of go through a mixture of blogs through Twitter.
So, if there are things on Twitter through Refinery29, Stylite, the Cut
blog, Hilary Alexander, Hintmag, British Vogue, or French Vogue, I’ll
read them.
Overall, what’s your advice to an aspiring journalist?
“Be original and start your own blog and do real reporting and learn
French. Be a reporter. Don’t be a re-blogger.”
