The Vogue Factor: The Inside Story of Fashion's Most Illustrious Magazine (21 page)

I’m an outgoing person, and can certainly hold my own at a party, but the
Vogue
dinners were intimidating. Wrongly or not, I always felt somewhat inconsequential among the ranks of the bigger, more powerful
Vogue
s, such as British, French and Italian. And if Carine Roitfeld, the glamorous and surprisingly friendly ex-editor-in-chief of Paris
Vogue
, was in the room wearing current-season Pucci, forget it.

Each season, Naomi and I would stress out at the hotel beforehand, worrying about what to wear, and then console each other with the fact that no one would be looking at us anyway. Jonathan would always do the same speech and refer to us as one big Condé Nast family, but there were undoubtedly more favored children. I took some comfort in noticing that many of the designers often appeared nervous themselves, but it was nothing a couple of shots of vodka and some caviar blinis couldn’t help alleviate.

Despite the killer nerves it was always thrilling to be among the caliber of talent that Condé Nast attracted, even if you weren’t exactly swapping mobile numbers. One hot, sticky afternoon in Milan, all the editors, including Anna Wintour, were invited to Giorgio Armani’s private residence for afternoon tea. This was a highly unusual invitation and I arrived late and flushed, having been stuck in terrible traffic. As I dashed up the stairs and burst in the door, Jonathan Newhouse turned to me and said, “Hello Kirstie, you know Mr. Armani, don’t you?” It just so happened I was well acquainted with Mr. Armani, so after he and I exchanged greetings Jonathan continued. “And you know Anna [Wintour], and of course Roger Federer.” I had to wing it from there.

Despite all the glamorous extracurricular activities, the shows were always our main focus. These could be sometimes dull or ill-judged, but I always found them inspiring. There is so much to take in aside
from the fashion; watching the world’s top models in motion with the addition of music, lighting, hair and makeup is a joy. But many shows do still resonate, such as the Gucci ones when Tom Ford fever was at its peak and all you wanted was a seat with a vantage point where you could actually see the shoes. I will also never forget John Galliano for Dior in 2007 (I had a small tear at the Madame Butterfly couture show for its sheer mastery), Alexander McQueen (especially one evening presentation in the spooky shadows of the Concergerie in Paris accompanied by wolves pacing in their cages), any Chanel show (because it’s Chanel and Chanel is Paris), Louis Vuitton’s fetishistic “Night Porter” – inspired collection, Jil Sander’s purism, Dolce & Gabbana’s Italian sensuality, Dries van Noten’s global mélange of references, Givenchy’s edginess, Marni’s kooky prettiness, Yves Saint Laurent’s perfection and Prada’s intellectualism.

There is also a level of style that surrounds showtime that intrinsically informs your understanding and taste level: the
aperitivo
before the Prada show and the glass it is served in, the amazing buffet lunch at the Tod’s showroom, the canapés at the Roger Vivier boutique, the unbelievable food served at the Armani parties, are all a wondrous part of the fashion week experience. I remember being in the Sergio Rossi showroom on the Via Montenapoleone in Milan, admiring the coming season’s shoes, drinking a blood orange cocktail and snacking on tiny morsels of various perfection, silently thanking the heavens and knowing: “Yes, there are worse jobs.”

People watching was obviously another bonus of the shows, especially coming from a country that is, shall we say, somewhat stylistically challenged.

In the early days I enjoyed seeing what other members of the fashion press were wearing, not to mention all the buyers, socialites, top customers and celebrities. But it was certainly not the circus it
has become today. Photographers were there to shoot the runway fashion and the celebrities, and perhaps some of the select media. But since the emergence of the street-style photographer and blogger, the amount of “poseurs” that exist outside and inside the shows has become a whole new business. The coverage of street fashionistas of indeterminate means is as important as the designer content, and may even be devoted more space. With e-retailer click-through-and-buy options attached to the live streaming of a show, the consumer entered the conversation, one that was only previously afforded to privileged critics. Social media has democratized fashion commentary and created a new order of power players in the industry. Decades of experience at revered mastheads and the ability to articulate intelligently may prove to be of very little value in the near future. There are now show attendees who are sponsored to wear and promote a particular fashion house—a walking product placement. Fashion week had always been the domain of celebrities but with the arrival of new media it has also shifted to civilians.

It’s getting harder to find honest, relevant criticism because the new fashion commentators are relentlessly positive in their reviews. It’s in their interest to be so. They want to go to the shows. I would like to see more of them be truly critical, especially if they are in the fortunate position of not yet having any advertisers who could pull out. I couldn’t manage to get to the coffee being served at the Max Mara show last season because a blogger was blocking the way, taking an Instagram of the croissants. I did wonder then: “At what point do we have saturation of coverage?” I have increasingly thought that there are too many very smart people in the world writing overblown nonsense about fashion.

There was also, of course, Australian Fashion Week (AFW) in Sydney every May, our own antipodean version of the RTW circuit, cleverly designed and strategized in 1995 by Simon Lock, a savvy marketer and entrepreneur.

Simon did a magnificent job of galvanizing a very opinionated and initially naive industry to put on a first-class fashion week. There have been some truly wonderful moments at AFW, including Akira Isogawa debuting his collection in the very first year in a group show—with the models wearing red socks because that was all he could afford. Collette Dinnigan also put on numerous beautiful, high quality presentations and dinners that were generous and polished, while the New Zealanders such as Karen Walker, Kate Sylvester and Zambesi always added a quiet intelligence.

It was interesting to return to Sydney after the RTW shows and plunge into AFW just six weeks afterwards, because you couldn’t help making comparisons to what you had just seen overseas—especially if a local collection was obviously derivative, which was unfortunately quite common. I missed the very first AFW as I was still in Paris, but I was part of Marion Hume’s
Vogue
team for the second and I remember being surprised at the backlash she received when she leveled some blunt advice towards the Australian designers. She had praise for many, and was a big champion of Collette Dinnigan and Akira Isogawa, among others, but it seemed that an informed opinion from a seasoned international journalist was unwelcome. Australian designers are unused to criticism and many of them expect a level of editorial praise that outweighs their talent. I’m of the belief that AFW’s founder Simon Lock deserves a medal and/or the Order of Australia for the egotistical crap he had to endure over the years from certain designers.

In the pre-online era, the rivals to magazines were the newspaper
supplements, so we took them on and produced our own mini supplements to cover Fashion Week. We had to work until late into the night to shoot and turn around a supplement in five days and attach it to the next issue.

For the third year of AFW I was at
Bazaar
and we slaved until the wee hours all week to get the supplement to the printers—this at the end of long, long days seeing shows. Back then we were dealing with film, not digital images, so the editing process was excruciating. It was all hands on deck. After the issue had gone on sale I received a phone call from a leading designer. His show hadn’t been all that great. In fact, it was also a shameless rip-off, and the clothes were badly made. But we had very generously shot an entire head-to-toe look in the main-page fashion “well” (the section of the magazine with no ads), and had run a review and several runway images in the trends pages. He wasn’t an advertiser. For some crazy reason, when I picked up the phone I thought he was going to thank me, but he had called to complain because, in our exhausted haste, it transpired that one of the runway shots had been mistakenly captioned. I decided then and there, that in the future, if a designer’s collection wasn’t up to standard, they weren’t going to get any coverage. There was no good reason for the charade to continue, because the one losing out was the reader.

As AFW continued, the coverage moved away from those grueling nights at the office producing a print product to online reviewing. When News Limited took over the license for Condé Nast, I convinced the then CEO Tony Kendall to appoint journalist Damien Woolnough as the editor of
vogue.com.au
in 2008, and his acerbic coverage increased traffic to the website exponentially. Immediacy had become the new currency. No one was going to wait a month for the magazine’s verdict. Our mandate was an informed viewpoint and
that was clear in our online edit. If a show was good, it got reviewed. Ordinary, and the shots were posted, unreviewed. Bad, and it didn’t appear at all.

In a very short space of time, technology had completely shifted how information was translated from the runway to the consumer, and it continues to evolve. Experiencing a show virtually through your handheld device is one thing. But there’s nothing quite like being front row in Milan chatting with Tim Blanks.

S
hortly after the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the managing director of Giorgio Armani in Australia, Mary Chiew, extended a grand invitation to me. Would I like to travel to New York to attend the gala opening of the Armani retrospective to be held at the Guggenheim? Oh, and by the way, Olympic swimming star Ian Thorpe would be joining us.

I have no interest in sports whatsoever, but even I am not un-Australian enough to ignore swimming. Ian had just won three gold and two silver medals at the Olympics. He was a national hero.

I was beside myself with excitement over the idea of meeting him, and so soon after his incredible achievements. I had arrived in New York and was in my hotel room dressing for dinner when Mary called and said: “Come down to the bar and meet Ian and we’ll go to dinner.” I was flustered the entire way down in the elevator, which is highly unusual for me. He was so sweet and easygoing, and very assured for someone so young.

I began asking him some searingly intelligent questions along the lines of, “Gee, what do you think about when you’re doing all those
laps?” but Ian was patient with his responses. We ordered sushi, which he had never tasted before, so I was a tiny bit thrilled that I was there with the “Thorpedo” when he tried raw fish for the first time.

The following night was the star-studded opening of the spectacular Giorgio Armani retrospective, filled with the likes of Jeremy Irons, Destiny’s Child, Patti Smith and Robert de Niro. During the evening I wandered alone into a room where the famous scene from the film
American Gigolo
was screening, the one where a handsome, shirtless Richard Gere proceeds to lay out his Armani clothes on the bed, choosing a tie for each shirt. At that very moment, a handsome, clothed Richard Gere walked in, saw me watching the younger him on the video, and grinned. I nearly died. His wife, the stunning actress Carey Lowell, made an entrance shortly afterwards, and I was equally thrilled to be in her presence. I adore
Law & Order
. Another
Law & Order
alumni Angie Harmon was there too, one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever seen. They made my night.

The following evening Ian and I attended the VH1 Fashion Awards, a sort of celebration of fashion and music with no earthly purpose, which was also packed wall-to-wall with celebrities from fashion, music and film. I lost Ian on the red carpet because by this stage all the paparazzi knew who he was and were calling out “Thorpedo, Thorpedo!” so I happily made my own way down, trying not to look plain and incongruous. There were reporters stopping all the stars; one crew who kept repeating, “We’re from an internet channel, do you use the internet?” It seems so prehistoric now, but a great deal of the celebrities replied no, they didn’t have time. Supermodel Gisele Bündchen said not really, but she used email.

I was drinking in all the glamour when I was suddenly dazzled from either side. The queue had stalled and I found myself wedged between Beyoncé in front, Jennifer Lopez behind. They have to be two of the
most beautiful women on the planet, with the most perfect bottoms. I’ve met hundreds—no, thousands—of the world’s best looking people, but Beyoncé and J. Lo are beyond words. They literally glow. Now I really did look plain and incongruous.

Once we were inside the auditorium and seated the evening turned hilarious for many reasons—not just because the awards were so random and pointless—but we also discovered that actor Ben Stiller was in the house, filming a scene for his upcoming film
Zoolander
. We were told that it required audience participation: when musician Lenny Kravitz announced that the Male Model of the Year was “Hansel,” Stiller, playing the part of the character Derek Zoolander, was going to rush up on stage to claim the award and we were to pretend to be shocked and embarrassed for him. As it happened I was seated two rows behind Ben Stiller, so in the film I am a blur in the frame when he leaps from his chair.