Editorializing the editors

Celebrities may help sell magazines, models may remain paragons of physical perfection and bloggers are, well, the new black. But when it comes to style inspiration with a little more authority, those in the know seek a more elusive type of muse: the fashion editor. 

“These are the guys responsible for the enticing images we are bombarded with in advertising campaigns and magazine fashion shoots, and who also dress up the celebrities whose pictures populate the newspapers and blogs,” Jeremy Langmead, Esquire UK fashion editor, wrote in The Guardian. “To see what they themselves wear — especially when huddled among their peer groups on either side of a catwalk — can be quite an eye opener.”

To get deeper into the heart of this sartorial scrutiny, I turned to the book Fashion People: “Editors of glossies must absolutely dress the part because for about an hour before every collection, they are inspected and criticized. What they wear, who they wear, how they sit, how they laugh, who they talk to, are scrutinized and picked over,” says legendary British Vogue illustrator Gladys Perint Palmer.   

Faces With Follower Counts

Thanks to the Internet, names that were once privy to industry insiders have become faces with their respective follower counts. Making magic as well as money, Nicola Formichetti is one such example. Born in Japan in 1977 to an Italian father and a Japanese mother, Formichetti currently wears a lot of hats: fashion director of Vogue Hommes Japan, creative director of Dazed & Confused and contributing fashion editor of V, V Man, Another and Another Man.

Twenty years ago, it would have been rather unthinkable for a behind-the-scenes person — Anna Piaggi and André Leon Talley notwithstanding — to breach the borders of a glossy’s staff box and become the scene; now, however, in the age of the meta, lines have more or less flattened and editors have become the editorialized. A routine Google session will most likely yield a bumper crop of sites and forum threads dedicated to Nicola Formichetti, his work and yes, his dress sense.

‘Sexy Stick Of A Girl’

While youngish fashion figures from the publishing world are few and far between — I can only name Arena Homme Plus consultant fashion director Olivier Rizzo, Vogue Hommes Paris assistant editor Francesco Cominelli and model-turned-photographer Bill Gentle as would-be idols — their female counterparts are myriad.

Topping the list is French Vogue’s Carine Roitfeld. “The model-turned-magazine-muse has forged a formidable reputation as the editor of Vogue Paris, cementing its status — and hers — as an icon of style,” raved British GQ in its September 2009 issue. Younger than her American counterpart Anna Wintour, her approach to both her job and clothes is apparently edgier, with a “combination of Gallic grace and smouldering sensuality,” continued GQ. Online gossip hounds have been playing up the rivalry angle, even pitting their daughters — Julia Restoin and Bee Schaeffer — against each other.

The “sexy stick of a girl” tag extends to other members of her editorial team: fashion director Emmanuelle Alt and assistant Melanie Huynh. Tuned in effortlessly to fashion’s most florid flights of fancy, the two are regularly style- and face-hunted everywhere they go.

Near-Cult Status

Street-style blogs — notably Facehunter, The Sartorialist and Jak & Jil — are likewise to blame for turning Elle US style director Kate Lanphear, Vogue Nippon fashion editor at-large Anna Dello Russo and L’Uomo Vogue fashion editor Giovanna Battaglia into fashion weeks unto themselves. Of Lanphear, a cross between Swedish pop star Robyn and Scottish actress Tilda Swinton, Jak & Jil’s Adrian Corsin states: “She’s attained near-cult status in Japan, spawned a few Parisian copyKates, and is currently revamping US Elle alongside Joe Zee in New York. It’s fair to say she’s hot in the cities.”

So remarkable are their blips on the radar that Preview, a magazine I was once a part of and in which I proudly cut my teeth on, dedicated a four-page feature to these professional style soldiers in the January-February issue. “Never without an occasion, these editors have mastered the art of singularity — putting their own unique spin to an outfit that could be lying in your closet,” articulates editor-in-chief Pauline Juan.

The Preview folks would know, of course, as they are some of the most stylish, intelligent and hardworking “clackers” I‘ve had the pleasure to call my friends and co-workers. As their connoisseurship of fashion evolves, so does their influence on the public.

In fact, when fashion editor Liz Uy tweeted that Preview needed interns, tons replied via Twitter and “10 almost instantly showed up at the Summit office,” shares Daryl Chang, associate fashion editor and a contributor to this section. More than it being a job “a million girls would kill for,” if The Devil Wears Prada is to be believed, it could be proof that we, too, have an emerging style icon in our midst.

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“Did somebody eat an onion bagel?” Follow me: ginobambino.tumblr.com.