Before we get to the job swaps and editorial shakeups, we thought we’d touch on a big scandal that’s been racing through the media world and beyond.
The latest dust up between a well-known designer and Cathy Horyn, the generally respected fashion critic and On the Runway writer, has everyone in fashion and media a-twitter. Previously this season, Ms. Horyn ruffled the feathers of Oscar de la Renta when she made an ill-advised hot dog pun in her review of the Oscar de la Renta S/S 13 presentation. The designer quickly responded by taking a full-page response in WWD accusing Horyn of resorting to personal attacks and refuting several of the points in her review. Refinery 29 has a brief recap of the kerfluffle here (including Lady Gaga’s involvement in the fallout). All is seemingly well between Cathy and Oscar, though, with Oscar assuring the press that Ms. Horyn will not be banned from future runway shows – that’s more than can be said for Giorgio Armani and Carolina Herrera, both of whom have banned the journalist in the past.
Cathy was making headlines instead of writing them again this week when Hedi Slimane barred her from his inaugural Saint Laurent presentation. That didn’t stop the journalist from writing a tepid review of the collection anyway, along with some choice editorializing about the history of their feuding. This seemingly enraged the designer who took to his Twitter to issue a scathing critique of “Miss Cathy” where he calls Horyn a “schoolyard bully” and a “publicist in disguise” before helpfully plugging his website. One hopes that the YSL PR team is at least pleased at that last bit of self-promotion by their designer.
The Guardian sums up the history of this pair, the On the Runway review, Hedi’s tweet and the varying fallout nicely here. It’s a fashion dynasty meets… well, Dynasty.
Now, it’s time to update your media lists, PRs, because there were a lot of editorial shakeups over the past week!
The most newsworthy tidbit is, of course, the appointment of Deborah Needleman to T: The New York Times Style Magazine as editor. The position was previously held by Sally Singer who left The Grey Lady at the end of August. Deborah arrives at the position after heading up WSJ. Magazine and the Off Duty section of the Wall Street Journal. For more background on the story see WWD or The New York Times. Of course, the next question becomes ‘who will succeed Ms. Needleman at WSJ.?’
Joanna Coles (newly appointed editor at Cosmo) isn’t the only new face at the pub. Abby Gardner has joined as the digital director of Cosmopolitan.com. Most recently, Abby was the website director for Marie Claire. She has also served at Glo.com and Fashionista.
There’s a lot of beauty news this week! Seventeen has brought Amanda Elser on as beauty assistant. She comes to the magazine from the blog Beauty High. Also, Nylon has found a replacement beauty editor in Katie Dickens (lately of People Style Watch). Katie replaces Lily Nima who recently left the site and who will continue to contribute to T Magazine.
New York magazine has brought on Jessica Silvester as a new shopping editor. Jess comes to the weekly from O, The Oprah Magazine.
And finally, Frederick Marfil will be leaving his position as fashion assistant at Complex magazine for foggier pastures and other opportunities in San Francisco working in marketing and branding for Hattery Labs.
In more amusing news, a glitch in the Conde Nast servers last week led to a few hours of bemusement for a handful of Vanity Fair staffers (and likely many others in 4 Times Square) as the domain names of their @Condenast.com e-mail addresses were changed to @golfforwomen.com. You can read Juli Weiner’s humorous recap here.
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