ABSTRACT
The good news is that there have never been so many ways to be a fashion journalist. It has become what Daily Telegraph fashion editor Lisa Armstrong describes as a ‘mass sport’ (2009). There are the glossy monthlies that everyone associates with fashion – Vogue
or Elle – as well as the relative newcomers in the weekly market such as Grazia and Look. There are the national newspapers, where the likes of Lisa Armstrong write
news, features and reviews. But with the expansion of platforms for journalism, and the huge appetite
for fashion as a subject, there are now many new ways for a fashion journalist to ply their trade. A national newspaper doesn’t just need writers for its print edition. Luke
Leitch, deputy fashion editor at the Daily Telegraph, explains: ‘We’ve got a fair amount of fashion pages to fill, but we’ve also got a brilliant online operation and several different magazines’ (2013c). Writers will generally work across all platforms, but new posts have opened up for online editors, while burgeoning newspaper supplements require freelance contributions. Then there are big stand-alone websites like Never Underdressed (now closed),
set up by the publishers of free magazines Shortlist and Stylist. Other fashion websites like Style Bubble (www.stylebubble.co.uk) or Lib-
ertyLondonGirl (www.libertylondongirl.com) are one-woman brands, set up by bloggers who have developed enough of a following and a strong enough appeal to advertisers, partners or sponsors to be able to earn a living off the back of their writing, photographs or videos. Retailers have latched onto the Internet to become fashion publishers in
their own right. Where Net-a-Porter led, with its blend of e-commerce and magazine content, many others have followed, providing a host of new opportunities for both established and aspiring fashion journalists. This has crossed over into print, too. It’s hard to believe customer maga-
zines were once seen as naff, now that John Lewis Edition and Asos magazine are two of the three biggest-circulating fashion magazines in the UK.
