Robin Givhan: There’s No Such Thing as ‘Fashion Journalism’

The Washington Post senior critic-at-large Robin Givhan’s stellar career includes stints at the San Francisco Chronicle and Vogue magazine, and she’s the author of the highly-praised book The Battle of Versailles, about the historic fashion show held on Nov. 28, 1973, in the Palace of Versailles to raise money for its restoration.

Yet Givhan rebuffs the label of “fashion journalist.” There’s no such thing, she said.

“I think there are journalists who cover fashion in the same way that there are journalists who cover politics and who cover religion and who cover the environment. I’m not sure what fashion journalism is because there’s no separate way to cover fashion that is distinct from the way that you would cover anything else. The same rigor should apply.”

In fact, many of her most high-profile opinion pieces have delved into the political realm, thanks to tips from her newsroom colleagues. Her critique of then Vice President Dick Cheney’s rustic, outdoorsy attire at the 60^th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz is one of the most memorable. One of the journalists traveling with Cheney sent Robin the image of him wearing an olive drab parka with a fur-trimmed hood, surrounded by heads of state in somber formal attire.

“With Cheney, that particular column, it was about what he was wearing, certainly, but it was also about the fact that the event that he was attending was a wholly symbolic event from the sound of the train horns to the lights, every element of that event was symbolic and was meant to tell a story about respect and grief and a kind of salvation. And so I think it was completely fair to talk about what he had chosen to wear in that moment.”

Givhan, the award-winning journalist and author whose career began at her hometown Detroit Free Press newspaper, spoke with 2024 NPF Widening the Pipeline journalists on December 11 during the final program of their year-long training and mentoring fellowship. Throughout her conversation, Givhan helped the 20 early-career journalists of color focus on a central theme: communicating with audiences requires authentic connection.

“When I started covering fashion, I had not studied fashion. So I didn’t necessarily know the exact technical name for a particular kind of embroidery or a particular shape of a sleeve. And so I would just describe the embroidery or I would describe the shape of the sleeve.” As her expertise grew, Givhan learned the technical terms, but realized that readers didn’t necessarily need to know them.  “It doesn’t really add to their appreciation for the subject. But if you just describe it, then I think it just engages more people.”

Givhan’s insights about the power of observation resonated with Widening fellows.

“One of the things that I have learned from covering fashion is the power of observation, is the power in an image and the things that we try to communicate through our appearance, through the choices that we make a better appearance. Even people who vehemently say that they are detached from fashion, that very vocal acknowledgement that they’re detached from fashion to me, says something about the way that they think about appearance.”

Ultimately, Givhan stressed not only optimism, but the quest for creativity in reporting on all aspects of American culture.

“What I hope is that the cultural criticism will be so good and so compelling that it can’t be ignored. That it will be so interesting and have so much value to readers that they will clamor to find it, and that will fuel media companies to continue to support it.  I hope that the connections will become so interesting between all the different parts of the culture, whether it’s visual arts and economics or politics and music, that it’ll be essential reading.”

She said her recent interview with New Jersey Senator Cory Booker yielded the perfect epiphany after the turbulent 2024 election season.

“When I asked him about these unprecedented times and he kept saying, ‘everything is precedented.’ And we’ve gotten through it. And I am sure that over time there were other moments when we thought, ‘oh, what will become of journalism?’ And somehow it evolved and it continued because as a society, we still need information.”

Access the full transcript here. 

The Widening the Pipeline Fellowship is sponsored by the Evelyn Y. Davis Foundation and Lenovo. NPF is solely responsible for the content.