Fashion Beat: 1

Fashion may be glamorous. Writing about it rarely is.

I sold my first fashion story in 1979. I sold my last in 2015. I never wanted to write another fashion story again. Ever! Period! I was ready to lounge around devouring delicious novels while wearing embarrassingly unstylish sweats.

For a while I did just that. I wrote fiction and personal essays and had several published in literary journals. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published my first picture book in 2021. To make sure I got out of my head to occasionally interact with the real world, I also volunteered at the Public Radio station (I had the chance to produce a few episodes of a popular talk show), volunteered with a non-profit film company (I wrote stories about the film makers for local media), and read twice a week to children in a school program (children's minds are magical.) It was all very fulfilling.

Then Covid hit.

At first, I kept telling myself that my life wasn't so different because I hadn't been in a newsroom for years. But then sitting around in sweats everyday wallowing in my fantasies without the balance of real world interactions got to me.

I had my fingers on the keyboard itching to write something based in real life when fashion called like a Siren. I decided I wouldn't write about fashion, I’d write about writing about fashion.

As a beat reporter for daily newspaper, I wrote thousands of articles. I tracked trends. I hired models and styled shoots. I covered the local fashion beat and interviewed some big international names. I attended fashion week in New York twice a year for more years than I care to recall.

I enjoyed the people I talked with on the beat, the local shop owners, buyers, designers, model agents, etc. were, on the whole, a fun, bright and creative bunch. Owning a beat felt good. But in the newsroom, the fashion beat was seen as kind of silly compared to covering crime or investigating political scandal. A few times, I tried to get off the beat but was told I should continue to cover my beat and add other non-fashion stories to the mix as I wished. This was easier said than done. For several years, I worked four days a week, met two deadlines a week, and typically produced, for lack of a better word, one photo shoot a week that involved coordinating clothes, shoes, accessories, models, etc. and parenting two young daughters. Adding to the load was tricky. Sometimes, I succeeded. But one way or another, I always returned to fashion. For better and for worse, fashion my livelihood and my life.

Gradually, I came to appreciate how a specific trend can perfectly encapsulate an era. I came to recognize that the way we choose to adorn ourselves reflects not only the individual but also the collective culture. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but a pair of red stilettos is always something more.

I wrote articles that were picked up by "the wire" back in those pre-internet days and reprinted in newspapers nationwide. A clipping services used to mail reporters my articles that had appeared in other publications across the country, literally snipped out hard copies of their work that had run in other states. I had clips from California to New York and many places in between. It was exciting, the equivalent of discovering your work had gone viral.

I did what most regional reporters did. I covered the local fashion beat. I tracked national trends. I wrote about street fashion. I also organized shoots, scouted locations, gathered clothes and props, hired models, styled the photos and worked closely with news staff photographers and sometimes hired outside photographers and hair/makeup stylists.

At New York Fashion Week, I had the chance to quote truly famous people sitting front row at runway shows including Sarah Jessica Parker, Debra Harry, Steve Tyler, and Beyonce. I also enjoyed intimate interviews with some of the biggest names in the business including Michael Kors, Diane Von Furstenberg, and Oscar de la Renta.

Fashion was, for better and for worse, my livelihood and my life.

To be clear, as a writer for a regional newspaper, I was an insignificant speck on the map of the world of fashion. But I have stories to tell, some funny, some poignant. Probably a lot that are pretty silly.

I hope to find readers interested in such stories.