Vanessa Friedman Plans To Put Her Own Stamp At The New York Times

Since news broke of Vanessa Friedman’s departure from the Financial Times to join the New York Times as its new fashion director and chief fashion critic, everyone’s attention has been fixed on what the section will be like under directorship. It’s one of the most important titles for fashion commentary so it’s not hard to understand why. It’s all things she touches on in her first post-announcement interview with Style.com.

First things first, she doesn’t have any plans to follow Cathy Horyn and Suzy Menkes. Instead, she plans on putting her own stamp on things. “I aim to be me. I would never aim to be the same as Cathy,” she said. “She was terrific, and I have enormous respect for her and read everything she wrote. I loved sitting next to her at shows, I loved talking to her about lots of things—fashion and beyond. But we’re different people and we’re different writers. What I do will be different.”

What the feel will be like when she arrives, though, is still too early to say, she says. “I’m really excited to get to the newspaper—which isn’t going to happen for a couple of weeks—and meet everyone. Clearly, I’m a different person, a different writer than Cathy or Suzy or anyone else, so whatever I bring to the table is a specific point of view. But I think I’ll see when I get there.”

What we do know is that Friedman will continue Horyn and Menkes’ unwavering approach to remaining impartial and analytical. It’s something she’s always done. All you need to do is read the sharp commentary she made about Jeremy Scott’s debut collection at Moschino. Advertising pressures has never affected the way she reports.

“I’ve never, ever had an issue with this. It’s never crossed my mind and it’s never been something that’s been brought up to me,” she says. “My feeling is that if you are a critic, what’s important is to be fair, and people respect that. They may not like it, but they are fine with it. And if you’re not willing to say when something is bad or a mistake, then when you say it’s good it means nothing.”

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