Fashion Projects – Fashion Criticism Panel featuring Robin Givhan, Guy Trebay and Stefano Tonchi

Suzy Menkes went ranting like it was 2009 about fashion bloggers this February and the topic is everywhere again. The discussion is happening again, it’s like waves. I believe there is room for everyone. To me mainstream media and blogging are complimentary not antagonistic. There have been many rebuttals to Suzy Menkes by many bloggers all over the world. I’ve read very few of them. I wanted to share this fashion criticism panel that features Robin Givhan, Guy Trebay and Stefano Tonchi put on by the folks at Fashion Projects.

In celebration of the fourth issue of Fashion Projects, a panel discussing the current state of fashion criticism was held on March 12, 2013 at The New School. The panel, moderated by Francesca Granata, Assistant Professor of Fashion Studies at Parsons the New School for Design and editor of Fashion Projects featured three distinguished fashion critics, Robin Givhan (the first fashion critic to receive a Pulitzer Prize), Guy Trebay (culture and style reporter for the New York Times), and Stefano Tonchi (the editor-in-chief of W magazine), all of whom were also interviewed for the concurrent issue of Fashion Projects.

The frank conversation took many directions by addressing a number of otherwise avoided topics within the fashion press, from the struggle for fashion writing to be considered a legitimate topic of discussion within established periodicals due to its prescribed association to the feminine realm, to the cultural valence of aesthetics in America versus Europe and how this difference manifests itself in each culture’s appreciation or understanding of fashion.(source)

Fashion Projects hosted the panel and are hosting the audio file on their site. The panel is 1hr 24 mins long and can be found at the page Fashion Criticism Panel: A Report and Recording of the Event.

images: fashionprojects.org