It was the spring 2005 season when Men.Style.com launched, expanding the reach of Style.com into menswear territory.
Ive been wanting to talk to you for forever, so Im glad that I found a good reason.
The only thing is that I didnt review New York that year.
Tim Blanks recording a voice over for an episode of his tv show, Fashion Files, in 1989. These days his medium is the internet and Instagram, but he is one of the last few holdouts still taking copious handwritten notes at shows.
I started coming for fall 2005.
And now theres no Menswear Fashion Week in New York.
But that was when New York was the epicenter of brilliant mens design.
Tim Blanks at the spring 2011 collections in New York City.
Who was your favorite, or what do you think made it the epicenter?
I lovedAdam Kimmel, and he got better and better over the years.
Apparently its still going, which I can hardly believe.
Duckie Brown, spring 2005.
I still have every single cashmere cardigan from Gilded Age.
The designers name was Stefan [Miljanic], and he was a tiny bit gloom and doom.
Like Alexandre Plokhov [ofCloak], who was such a big deal.
Adam Kimmel, fall 2005 menswear.
Duckie Brown, spring 2005.
Adam Kimmel, fall 2005 menswear.
Gilded Age, fall 2008 menswear.
Gilded Age, fall 2008 menswear.
Cloak, spring 2005 menswear.
I have this memory of doing 12 shows a day in Paris and then writing for 24 hours.
It was so exciting.
Cloak, spring 2005 menswear.
Menswear was such a volatile business at that point and it really felt like it was kicking off.
You mentioned the number of reviews you were writing then.
Im curious about how you feel now that you write less.
Raf Simons, spring 2005 menswear.
Jamie Pallot really liked the 200 word review at Style.com.
Ten years later Im writing an essay, a thesis, about a Raf show.
We do everything.Nicole [Phelps] and I would be doing everything, but it was fun.
Raf Simons, spring 2005 menswear.
Raf Simons, spring 2005 menswear.
She has these amazing stories of you both writing through the night in a hotel room.
Or even when I was doing it with Josh Peskowitz and wed be literallyhangingout.
Christian Dior, spring 1998 couture.
It all had that energy of newness.
We were doing something nobody had done before.
You were asking me about the volume, so writing a little about a lot?
Dries Van Noten, fall 2006 menswear.
We dont do individual reviews at BoF.
Now I review the day.
The challenge then is that I quite like to make a theme.
Dries Van Noten, fall 2006 menswear.
I love the themes.
That cant be easy to do.
Its funny, thats where your creativity and perversity comes in.
Dries Van Noten, fall 2006 menswear.
You make a theme of five completely unconnected shows.
It might be something really stupid.
You have to seduce them into reading about something or someone.
Dries Van Noten, spring 2005 ready-to-wear.
Everybody is there for Dior and Chanel.
I think hes amazing.
Incredible, I really hope he gets a really big job.
I mean, hes got quite a big job now.
Hes great and I love him.
Hes excited to tell you about his collection or know about what youre interested in.
Hes a good interview.
Do you find that designers have gotten better or worse at talking about their work?
Designers have gotten much better about being interviewed.
I find that they need to talk to you about the collections.
Yeah, that was the book.
Thats why your reviews are really valuable to the designer.
How do you feel about designers just not giving interviews.
Is it more prevalent now than it was then?
I think designers thought it was something they needed to do because they saw it as a new audience.
I think that then PR got in the middle and everything became super controlled.
And thenTom Fordcame along, and then KCD would be likejust four questions.
That whole thing was Tom, he absolutely started it.
Then people started doing it for no-names, too.
Youd be likeI dont even have four questions for this person.
I wont say names, but you’re able to guess.
It matches my progress through life.
I was chatty-chatty in the olden days and now Im like, you dont want to chat?
Im happy to go get a cocktail somewhere.
If you do want to chat, though, whats the way around it?
You did one ofPieter [Mulier]forAlaiawhen he started, which I thought was fantastic.
He gave you a quote about never doing logo hoodies, which Im keeping track of.
Theres almost voyeurism in that.
As a writer its always fun to profile, too.
Ive been saying that thats absolutely what has happened in my time covering fashion from 1985 until now.
Fashion is now entertainment.
I guess its humanizing fashion.
Its also distracting people from the sort of slightly monstrous nature of fashion in a way.
You touched on this a little bit, but its also the corporate feel that fashion has now.
It brings it back to the human.
I also want to ask you about writing about clothes.
You dont always talk about the clothes, but more about everything else.
Im curious if it has changed at all since you started doing this.
I didnt know the terminology.
I knew the history of fashion, but through people, so I never wrote about clothes.
I wrote about the mise en scene.
Who the fuck is going to write about the kind of stitching or the jacquard or whatever?
You just go gaga over the extravaganza andthatis what you write about.
You write about Nijisnky dancing in the lobby when you walked in.
My challenge was to translate it into words.
If the designer wants huge red wigs on the model, you mention them.
It seems more important to me than the skirts.
Christian Dior, spring 1998 couture.
I still love the skirts.
Some of these things are too extraordinary to not let the reader in on them.
All of it is also part of the fantasy and the designers message.
But speaking of music, I wanted to ask about your writing playlist.
I hear you always write with music on?
Believe it or not, Nicole and I had our playlist and all Ive done is add to it.
Its about 14 hours?
I have another playlist on Spotify, which is equally as long.
I will just add.
The last track I added is by the Irish band Lankum.
Ive been listening to St. Vincents album a lot too.
Switching gears a little bit, I also wanted to ask you about writing negative reviews.
Do you think you write more negative reviews now than you did in the past?
Do you think I do?
Well, Id rather you tell me what you think first [laughs].
[Laughs] Funny you ask me that, I am more impatient now.
I dont know if theyre more negative, but theyre definitely more impatient.
And thats a lot to do with the repetitiveness of fashion now.
People just stick to their groove.
It goes back to the corporate-ness of it all.
And then we have to find a way of writing it in a different way.
We used to laugh a lot.
There were designers where you could honestly take the review from the season before and just change the season.
Thats always been the case.
Now you have someone like Matches that goes under and sucks a hundred independent designers with it.
I think Im a little more critical, I dont know, it frustrates me.
So what do you think ofDries [Van Noten]?
I was going to ask you about Dries.
Ive been a fan of Dries for a really long time.
There are a lot of designers who come from tumblr.Mowalola, I think, andPeter DoandChristopher John Rogers.
Dries was one of my favorites.
We would post images and reblog them.
Hes just been very instrumental to me becoming a lover of clothes more than just fashion.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in La Paz, Bolivia.
Oh my, the highest capital city in the world.
Tim, Im screaming.
That is the fun fact I always give people when they ask about La Paz.
I love that you know it.
But yes, I love Dries.
I was heartbroken but excited to hear hes moving on.
How do you feel about it?
I feel like I saw his first show.
I dont know if I did, but I know I saw his second show.
Its not like when they announce a week later that that was their last show.
We actually get to say goodbye and thank you.
Dries Van Noten, fall 2006 menswear.
The way you put it just gave me chills.
I just never thought Id ever see it in person.
Black Emperor, or theanniversary showwhere we ate at a table and the models walked on it.
I mean, the greatest things youve ever seen.
You walked away thinking,fuck, this is why I do this.
I didnt care if I didnt write anything about it.
I had been taken somewhere Ive never been before and I will never go again.
This is like a proper thing.
Dries Van Noten, spring 2005 ready-to-wear.
Im curious about who your favorite designers to talk to are.
Im really consumed by curiosity about them.
The fabulous thing for me was always the microphone.
I do like talking to Rick Owens.
Id walk on gilded splinters, any day, any hour of the night to talk to him.
WhenHelmut [Lang]finally got talking… andChristian Lacroixwas amazing, a wonderful man.
You couldnt shut him up.
But I love people who have a reputation for not talking.
I did a great interview once with Rei Kawakubo.
Raf, when you got him talking, too.
Miuccia Prada is also a wonderful interview.
Just having an amazing time.
I went in and he answered the first question in English, and then, well, Kyoto.
I mean incredible people from another time.
What I also find interesting is the fashion school pipeline.
Designers being raised to be designers versus people finding their way into designing.
That still applies in some cases.
Just do it because its your calling.
Youre never going to be a billionaire.
Im proof of that [laughs].
Are you on TikTok at all?
How do you feel about that TikTok fashion commentary?
Im not on it.
So I havent seen it.
Its not, because its hard to find.
But I do see it as something people are trying to replicate.
It doesnt always hit, but theres lots of people running around with microphones in their hands.
It was a different time.
People were a little older.
I mean, I was talking to peers.
They were more thoughtful, probably.
When we soldFashion Fileto E!
said they needed a front person, somebody to lead the audience in.
They auditioned Tyra Banks.
It worked because it seduced people with its authenticity.
That andHouse of StylewithTodd [Oldham]raised me.
I have a lot of happy memories about it.
There were only three camera crews backstage, and eight months later there were 300.
We got incredible access to these incredible women.
I dont know if Id call them all friends, but Linda I would call a friend.
The others, its nice to see them when we see each other.
Im so happy that they remember and have fond memories because I do, as well.
It was an amazing time.
Youll have to show me.
I dont really get any reactions.
I dont get people reacting the way that they did with Style.com.
It had a reach and an intimacy that I think people were incredibly engaged with.
I dont think theres that degree of engagement in that medium anymore.
I think obviously theres engagement on TikTok or somewhere, but Style.com wastheforum, now theres a million forums.
But if I ever hear negative things or positive things from a designer, theyll usually contact you directly.
Thats also the reality of social media in terms of engagement.
Its that extra click that people have to do.
They like to be met where they are, I guess.
BoF will post when I write something.
Theyll post a picture and a little bit [of text] underneath.
People express their opinions about what the story is about, nothing to do with what I wrote.
There was something furiously negative.
But what people forget is that, in the end, everybody gets old [laughs].
I love that as an ending quote, actually.
Isnt it good when somebody gives you a last line?
