Our favourite features of the year so far

It can be hard to keep on top of your favourite newsletter (in this case, ours) with so many emails vying for your attention every day. We understand. If you’re lucky enough to take a moment’s breath this August, why not use the free time to catch up on what you didn’t get a chance to read. We take our £6 a month seriously and don’t want you to miss a thing.

We opened the year with a curious piece on the Canadian call-centre worker who began meticulously archiving Alexander McQueen’s work on Wikipedia during the pandemic, despite having no prior interest in McQueen or even fashion. When fashion can feel so surface level and flattened by social media and the abundance of sponsored content and brand ambassadors, this anonymous archivist is a welcome reminder that those who have a nerdy passion for the craft and the cerebral side of fashion still walk among us.

Later in the month, we published a long conversation with the first name in indie PR, Lucien Pagès, who gave us his perspective on what it takes to build a brand these days. In a similar vein, we also spoke with the king of the fashion show, Alexandre de Betak. For anyone unfamiliar, de Betak basically pioneered the big budget spectacles we’ve come to expect every season. Then, we asked three fashion students in three different cities to detail every penny they spent in a week, to see what it cost to live in Florence, Copenhagen and Geneva. Surprisingly, only one matcha latte and one packet of cigarettes was purchased.

In February, we spoke with designers such as Heron Preston about the pitfalls of naming your brand after yourself. It’s something we’ve spoken about before, but wanted more credible designers to join our chorus in denouncing the understandable but shortsighted practice. We interviewed designer Shelley Fox about her literally decaying archive of clothing after a recent acquisition of one of her collections by the Met. In the spirit of the moment, we also denounced the trend for calling something “AI-crafted”. To us, this is an oxymoron – AI is the antithesis of craftsmanship.

In March, we put together a list of 57 things you could do with £30,000 instead of putting on a fashion show. Spending £30k minimum on 15 minutes of visibility is a gamble not because the industry might miss it, but because even meaningful attention does not automatically translate into a viable business. Instead, you could invest in… well, read the list. Then, we published a guide on how to build an upcycled brand. The conclusion: Growth doesn’t have to mean abandoning all your ethical practices, but you will need to be strategic. Plus, we chatted with Tony Delcampe, who heads up La Cambre Mode, the fashion school that produced Matthieu Blazy, Anthony Vaccarello, Olivier Theyskens, Nicolas Di Felice, Julien Dosséna and Marine Serre, as part of our Influential Fashion Educators series.

More game in April (what did Jay-Z say, “I’m tryin’ to give you a million dollars worth of game for $9.99”) with a piece on what luxury houses are *actually* looking for in a portfolio. Senior designers at Jil Sander, Balenciaga, Paco Rabanne, Louis Vuitton and Celine share what makes a junior portfolio stand out, and the mistakes that instantly weaken it. Next was an argument for opening a physical store (seriously, hear us out). We also contemplated what good taste means in the age of AI by zooming out and considering what curation, gatekeeping and class have meant over the last few centuries. Taste, understood as the ability to judge aesthetic quality and worth, whether in art, fashion, wine, or literature, is a distinctly 18th century idea, one pondered by Voltaire, Diderot, David Hume, and Edmund Burke.

In May, we spoke with Leyla Neri, who heads up the MA at IFM, about what it takes to study fashion at a school right at the heart of the industry, what kind of students she’s looking for, and whether AI will become part of the school’s curriculum. We published one of our most popular pieces to date, a list of 40 factories that will work with emerging brands, as recommended by manufacturing specialist William Lasry, who also shared his advice on MOQs, sampling, tech packs, and supplier relationships. As well, we visited the studio and archive of backstage photographer Robert Fairer, to talk about his 30-year perspective on fashion week. Spoiler that’s not a spoiler: it was better back then.

In June we interviewed six people, some freelance art directors, others in-house creatives, about the mounting pressures on them to produce good work. Since the pandemic, the fashion industry’s need for video and imagery has grown dramatically. We shared candid extracts from the diary of Barbara de Vries, who worked at Calvin Klein during its imperial phase but was pushed out due to company politics. “It was great until it wasn’t. And the ‘wasn’t’ is in the journal,” she told us.

In July, we spoke to the Editor-in-chief of Dust who, frustrated by diminishing returns on publishing an actually independent magazine, decided to release an issue made entirely of cover images, in order to start a conversation about what fashion is losing to our data-driven new world. We also spent a day at the Dior couture atelier, the day before their most recent show, speaking with the team.

Aaand here we are, August. A brief moratorium for us to take stock. We endeavour to keep being as good value for money and as thought-provoking as possible, and are always open to hearing suggestions on what you’d like to see more of. Comment below!