As I sit and contemplate my picks for New York and London Fashion weeks that have just passed, I started to wonder what was the point of reviewing them. Before the digital revolution, reviews were left to fashion editors and journalists to dictate what the next trends would be and bank on the hopes that consumers would heed to their suggestions. There was nothing else to bridge consumers to fashion except by glossies and advertisement, so it was natural to follow the wise words of fashion editors.

No longer.

Today, everyone has access to the collections literally on the spot or the day after at the latest. They can browse thousands of online stores, and use the likes of Polyvore, blogs, eBay, Etsy and websites, they can edit their own picks for trends, ideas and themes. Robin Givhan commented once that everyone is a fashion critic, my reply to her would be: what are they really criticizing? Certainly glossies these days don’t really devote much space to criticism save for the occasional professional who offers some original insight on the industry. But ultimately, the consumers have the power to choose to buy or not to buy, and with the internet, they’re relying less on fashion editors’ opinions and more on look books and product placement. Is it any wonder that fashion editors have little opinion to say these days?

Perhaps I’m understanding the word “review” in a different context. A review can mean many things, but my assumption in the context of fashion would be to actually create judgement based on observations made on a particular subject. Like a movie review, or an album review. But in the fashion context, it seems to be more on the lines of a “recap”. No person does a better recap than Ms. Hilary Alexander of The Telegraph UK. Her words are like straight out of a romance novel, rich, colorful and wildly imaginative. Now there’s a person whom I wouldn’t mind reading her “reviews”. But if you want something with more insight to the collections (not based on press kits alone), then you need someone who has their bodies knee deep in the arts and culture of the world. Of course, even the experts have their own opinions and sometimes give biased reviews on their favorite designers. But that beckons the question: what exactly are they looking for in a collection? What makes them go “Wow!”? Is it the overall feel of the collection? The theme? The fabrics? The patterns? The silhouettes? The history of the brand? Or a combination of all?

Cathy Horyn recently blogged how she praised the Fendi collection because it “hovered above the fray,” yet I couldn’t particularly see anything of interest save fore a few nice dresses. And Helene, of The Luxe Chronicles, once asked me “Is the world running out of pretty dresses?” Do we really need another collection of pretty dresses? Perhaps the Fendi collection appealed to an older generation. Yet I’m nearing my 30s, I’ll soon be among the demographic of those who can supposedly fit into these looks. Perhaps I’m simply not a Fendi woman. It’s difficult to find useful information in the text descriptions of the outfits – despite the images of the show being posted right next to the text (or on Style.com). In the era of Twitter, it is only during the live shows are text descriptions useful, even then they are of value only to the minute.

Trends can emerge, but do we really want to fall into trends when everyone is trying to style themselves away from trends? There seems to be an unwritten rule that if it’s the trend, then you better stay away from it.

My thoughts in reviewing a show are more along the lines of:

“Are these going to sell?”
“What kind of woman was this collection aimed for?”
“Is it aesthetically interesting or are the cuts interesting?”
“Is there a concept to the presentation of the show? the format?”

So my suggestion to you, fellow readers, you want a recap? Go to Ms. Alexander. You want a look book? Go back to your glossies. You want a review? Go to Ms. Horyn or Ms. Menkes (or me, on the certain occasion). Everything else can be filtered as fluff.

Her reason? Writing for a magazine had too much pressure to be positive ALL the time. If a brand’s collection is perceived as bad for the season, they simply don’t write about it at all. Instead they would focus on the brands they deemed good. Being bred from a newsroom where there needs to be a heart to the story which includes fact checking, interviews, and unraveling the truth (whether good or bad) – there wasn’t any of that at Vogue.

You may find the occasional insightful article, the most notable I’ve read recently in Harper’s Bazaar’s September 2007 issue, “Everyone’s a fashion critic” by Pulitzer Prize acclaimed writer Robin Ghivan (The Washington Post‘s fashion editor). But as a whole, it’s hard to be negative in a magazine, I can vouch that as a writer for Gloss. It’s not that there’s anything to hide really, I enjoy doing interviews and all of them so far have been humble and super nice people. But after a while, it gets redundant. Newspapers have an edge that will allow you to express your opinions if given you can back up your statements.

Being a fashion editor at a newspapers does have its drawbacks. Opinions dished in newspapers can hurt brands, resulting in bans from certain fashion shows. Nobody has been spared, even the almighty Wall Street Journal, The NY Times, The International Herald Tribune, and Newsweek writers have been banned from attending shows, from Louis Vuitton to Armani, for their comments. Frankly though, kudos to these women who have the experience and most importantly – who have their eyes wide open. These women are not easily swayed by the glamour and lavish parties. Oh sure, they’ll attend the parties, but by no means would it bribe them in counting a collection as fabulous if it doesn’t live up to certain standards or capability. What makes them so qualified in critiquing you ask? Perhaps it’s because they don’t blindly follow the herd, that they don’t just gobble up what every designer has to offer. Not only that, they have experience under their belt and they haven’t abandoned their investigative journalistic skills.

Hilary Alexander, for The Daily Telegraph UK, is perhaps the exception to the investigative journalistic style for a newspaper. Although Hilary would rarely express her opinion on collections, she certainly makes up for it by concisely writing show reviews with the pen of a novelist. Her choice of words build and create fantastical atmosphere that one can only dream of how beautiful these runway shows are in real life. She’s incredibly talented on this end, and so I forgive her for lacking an opinion.

With my experience in fashion magazine writing, I feel that here you would have to stretch your creative writing skills by indulging the reader into the fantasy that fashion is portraying. That, in some respect, requires quite a good deal of skills in order to achieve this mystical world for the reader. How do you convince your readers that the latest designer you’re presenting is hot stuff and why? What makes them special? I’ve been struggling with this since I’ve started, but learned a great deal along the way. I do believe at the end of the day that my heart belongs in having an opinion on fashion and digging deeper to unravel the truth and mystery behind the fashion facade.

Image credit: Patrick McMullan for Harper’s Bazaar

Sadly, Montreal’s fashion industry seems to be stuck in a digital rut, where blogs are practically unheard of if you look across the leading Montreal news outlets. Even less pertaining to fashion. Most of the magazines and newspapers are owned by the same company, thus all websites are grouped under one roof. This can only mean that if the company cannot acknowledge updating themselves technology wise, all publications suffer the same fate.

Thus I bring you to the starting journey of a Montreal fashion blog winding itself up on the web and making use of the blog technologies.

I’ve put some some RSS feeds of some of the fashion blogs that I like to read on a regular basis, so far only one pertains to Montreal (and it’s not even about fashion!) since it’s the only one in English.

Créativité Montreal is a weekly online magazine on the latest design projects happening around the Montreal area. It touches base on architectural, interior and 3D object design. The articles are written by design enthusiast Sylvie Berkowicz, who hosted the now defunct design tv show “.d” on MusiMax.

The Business of Fashion is maintained by Imran Amed, part of the 360Fashion network. He offers his opinion of another side of the fashion industry we don’t hear often which is, of course, business. He posts regularly on the latest business ventures some companies take, from The Gap to Azzedine Alaïa, as well as my favorite topic of “Fashion 2.0″, the merging of technology and fashion.

Hilary Alexander of the The Daily Telegraph was someone whom Sylvie Berkowicz interviewed often for her show “.d” after fashion shows. Hilary has an incredible flair for the written word in describing a show. She’s absolutely my favorite fashion critic, though perhaps she’s not the most controversial. You can also see video reporting of the latest fashion show.

The Sartorialist is a photo fashion blog created by Scott Schuman. He rose to fame over the last year for having a keen eye for fashionable individuals on the streets of New York city. His simplistic photography skills have led him to contributing to Vogue, Style.com, GQ, and traveling abroad to the fashion capitals of Milan, Paris, London, Stockholm and recently Beijing. Once you start reading his blog, it’s hard to stop.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading what Dualité will bring to the Montreal, and hope the future will be bright for our fair Canadian city!