Fashion Journalism: Skills Requirements and Career Opportunities

Shubham Anil Jain
Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited
Bangalore, India
Email: [email protected]

1. Introduction
After looking the craze of the fashion industry today, it is not wrong to say that it is a billion-dollar industry. Going through every aspect from models to designers to photographers, it generates thousands of jobs and opportunities every year. At the heart of this fascinating industry lies in the Fashion Journalism, it is basically an artistic form of presenting news reports focused generally on fashion shows, news, trends, and designers. Fashion Journalism is considered as a powerful tool today, which has millions of active audiences. Someone who is passionate about writing and fashion then this field is very perfect for them. Fashion Journalism is simply a process which includes research, story-telling, and creating content around enhancing influences, trends and designs, new faces, and sharing ideas and thoughts to the public.

2. Fashion Industry and Fashion Media
The chance of the fashion industry and the fashion press has imperishable link since the late eighteenth century. The emergence of the specialist fashion media in West Europe was bind for the enhancement of the modern fashion industry. In both cases, the main center for women’s fashion was Paris, and fashion journalism was spread and promotes what was fashionable in the French capital. France and its empire had assumed fashion leadership among the European nobility in the late seventeenth century. It is found that the mythical status of Paris in the nineteenth century as the elevation of fashionable culture created a pan-European desire for Parisian fashion actual clothing, patterns, and trends.

There was an active promotion of the industry at the Great Exhibitions in Paris and due to the importance of the industry to the French economy by 1860; France was Europe’s foremost industrial power. By the middle of the century, Germany, had fashion magazines for example, The Ladies Magazine and Journal des Luxus under Moden, the format and content of all European fashion magazines were largely inspired from the innovative French model. As per the French journals are concerned, were the most influential and international; by 1869. The supremacy of the French media continued, when U.S. publishers started to make inroads into Europe. Many other fashion capitals developed after World War II, particularly in Italy and Britain, where new fashion journals come out to promote and support their indigenous industries. Berlin as a center for fashion culture has led the start of magazines such as 032c.

3. Skills Requirements to become a Fashion Journalist

3.1 Reporting:
Readers will always relate more to the content that is more clear. This demand more transparency in the back-end process, either managing on the field or off-field work but referring to data, statistics or organizing well-managed content that satisfies them.

3.2 Interviewing
Interviewing simply means a face-to-face conversation between industry experts like fashion designers, photographers, stylists, and retailers to gather required information on their collection and latest works mostly is involved in this category.

3.3 Articles & Reports
This parts includes one of the old forms of fashion journalism, writing. Involving writing well-researched articles on online portals with facts and information is also popular as fashion content writing. When fashion blogging is concerned, it has a more casual and personal approach to writing blogs.

3.4 Online Journalism Skills
Nowadays, it is very prominent that, traditional media shifting to going digital. So there are a varieties of other skills that sum up to digital fashion writing, such as shooting and editing videos, live streaming on various apps, etc.

3.5 Videography
Video creation and content becomes a new way of telling stories. While writing a articles, do on-field reporting or take interviews, instead of that videos are more engaging and keep the audience connected. With one of the survey, it was stated that 47% of US audiences engage with video content and connect to it.

3.6 Social Media Handling
Social Media is a whole new world that everyone has been tapped in. Various social media like, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, promote different layouts of content. While apps promote write-ups, others do photos and videos. Due to this it has not only helped brands to reach a wider audience but the growth has also increased.

3.7 Phone Proficiency
Good knowledge of mobile handling is one of the core skills required in journalism. Most of the users see the content on mobile hence skills like taking and editing photos, creating a story through feed, maintaining aesthetic vibes, and making sure that the content is easy to surf is required.

3.8 Communication Skills
Being a fashion journalist, having good communication skills is the core skill. A writer is the one who present well to the audience hence enhancing the writing by reading different authors, and practicing it well in the beginning is required for journalism journey.

4. Career Opportunities in Fashion Journalism
Depending on the particular interests and skills, one can find a interesting fashion journalist job that suits one’s style.

4.1 Fashion Publicist
It is good career option after fashion journalism. This kind of public relations specialist works with clothing companies, cosmetic industries and retail stores build strong public images, for increasing sales and consumer interest. For example, a publicist might request a celebrity, influencer or sports figure to utilize a fashion product to increase awareness among the public. Fashion publicists are more engaged in writing press releases and managing press conferences to publicize fashion related news through television, newspapers, radio, direct mail, social networking sites and Internet fashion websites.

4.2 Fashion Editor
A fashion editor basic role is to create and manage fashion-related content for wide public distribution. For a good fashion writer, supervisory experience and project management skills are needed. To produce the highest level of content, fashion editors are specialized in a particular field of interest such as cosmetics, clothing, footwear, handbags, athletic wear, makeup, undergarments, jewelry or other fashion accessories. The basic responsibility of fashion editor include presenting fashion-related information in a innovative way so readers will pay for magazine subscriptions or buy beauty products.

4.3 Fashion Writer
One of the most famous career opportunities for a fashion journalist is a fashion writer. Fashion writers write content for newspaper, magazines, websites, radio and television. To engage more number of audiences, many fashion writers work with photographers to create pop culture content about designers, celebrities, athletes and fashion models. As an added advantage, this fashion journalist job involves interviewing high-profile celebrities.

4.4 Fashion Marketer
The one having an interest in promoting beauty products, clothing and other fashion accessories, can consider a job as a fashion marketer. Fashion marketers basically create advertising campaigns to gain public awareness, negotiating with consumers that they need to purchase certain products and particular brands. As a fashion marketer, one has to analyze statistics and evaluate consumer satisfaction reports to determine which products are most popular.

5. What Influences Modern Fashion Journalism?
When Anna Wintour stepped into the world of magazines in 1988 at British Vogue, the definition and the meaning of fashion journalism has been changed. She had been known for revolutionizing how fashion and media publications work. She was the first editor to allow celebrity covers in Vogue issues. Even though she started featuring celebrity pictures on covers, she taken care that Vogue covers were fashionable yet relatable while fashion magazines followed glamorized model faces forever.

When the Modern Fashion Journalism is concerned, it consists of the following aspects:

5.1 Fashion Magazines
It are considered as a crucial aspect of the Fashion Industry. It’s a kind of channel through which stories are conveyed, involving designers, photographers, stylists, editors, Journalists, and influencers who can inspire aspiring fashion lovers to go for fashion studies. Examples of top fashion magazines like Vogue, Elle, Bazaar, Mode, Cosmo, Marie Claire, Glamour, Vanity Fair, etc.

5.2 Digital Magazines and Websites
Digital Fashion Magazines are the content which is available only on the internet. Because of the rise of digital media and communication, it has shifted from print publications to digital magazines as they’re more approachable and accessible. Examples are Net-e-porter, fashionista, WWD, and BoF.

5.3 Fashion Blogging
Because of the rise of digital media and content creation, it has led to many new opportunities that were not there earlier. Now-a-days, personal style blogging is going on. It means putting photo journals and fashion personal stories for the viewers to get inspired and is considered as an emerging business idea for many fashion enthusiasts.

5.4 Fashion Vlogging
The concept and definition of fashion journalism has also evolved due to popularity of Youtube. It has changed the game of how content was created. The main key for fashion vlogging is video creation and storytelling. It is finding that there are various fashion vloggers on YouTube and Instagram whose business is solely based on self-made video creation and promotion.

6. Conclusion
As per as fashion journalism is thought to be all about glamour and attractive, which is the reason that many students are drawn by it, it also requires tough hours of hard labor to create develop fresh content. Due to technology and internet, it has become easy to achieve new heights in the fashion sector in a less span of time, especially given that Fashion Journalism will be one of the developing job fields in the coming years because of digitization and social media. As the world will move towards fashion technology and innovation, Fashion Journalism is here to stay and will have a good scope of career in the coming years.

7. References

1. How to Become a Fashion Journalist in 2022?, By Shrestha Brahma . Updated: 23/06/2022, https://thefashionfrill.com/fashion/how-to-become-a-fashion-journalist/
2. How to Become a Fashion Journalist in 5 Steps, Written by MasterClass, Last updated: Sep 8, 2021, https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-become-a-fashion-journalist-in-5-steps
3. Everything You Need to Know About Fashion Journalism, Team Leverage Edu, Updated on  Sep 1, 2021, https://leverageedu.com/blog/fashion-journalism/
4. Careers in Fashion Journalism, https://work.chron.com/careers-fashion-journalism-5422.html
5. Fashion Journalism, Kate Nelson Best
6. Fashion Journalism – What is Fashion Journalism and Fashion Media?”. LIM. 2018-04-18. Retrieved 2019-09-07.

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Founder & Editor of Textile Learner. He is a Textile Consultant, Blogger & Entrepreneur. He is working as a textile consultant in several local and international companies. He is also a contributor of Wikipedia.

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