Katharine Zarrella’s Fashion Unfiltered

Katharine Zarrella, former news editor at Style.com, senior editor at V Magazine and VMAN, and prolific contributing fashion writer all over, has branched out on her own with the new fashion site, fashionunfiltered.com, which seems to have a cleaner mission than any we’ve seen in the recent past.

We’re joined in the studio for this episode by WWD‘s Media Editor Alexandra Steigrad.

highlights:

KATHARINE: “I would like to shift the consumer focus away from the Kardashians and whoever is wearing whatever on the red carpet, and make them think about the clothes that they’re putting on their body, whether it’s from a conceptual and artistic perspective, whether it’s from a green perspective (you know, what is this doing to the environment, how is this affecting other people, how are the factories that are making these things affecting the factory workers), and I just want people to be excited about fashion. I want them to love fashion as much as I do, and see all the different facets and sides of the industry.” (5:28)

KATHARINE: “What’s online needs to be a little more digestible, whereas print is an opportunity to really dive in to these incredible stories that are visual, or journalism, and kind of lose yourself in it as you would with a book, and I think that’s what’s happening with print. It’s a tangible thing that’s precious and kind of luxurious in a wold that feels very impermanent and fleeting. It’s something to get lost in and hold on to.” (35:57)

KATHARINE: “If you’re not breaking a story, there’s no rush to get it up. And, I think, so many editors think that, “oh, my God, Womenswear just broke that this is happening at Lanvin. We need to get somethign up about it ASAP!” No you don’t. If you don’t have anythign to say about it that’s different than the Womenswear story, you don’t need to get it up ASAP. Send out a tweet and maybe link to the Womenswear story (which is obviously not great for clicks for you site) or just send out something that’s informational. But if you’re not breaking the story, you don’t need to be first. Wait until you have something to add.” (43:06)

ALEXANDRA: “When you hear certain CEOs of big magazine companies talk about future plans, they’re talking about their advertising partners as if, ‘we’re creating content for them.’ There’s a shift in thinking there, and it’s problematic. You guess you can do a great video, but it has to be sponsored by ‘brand X,’ and I think throwing money at a journalist and letting them go crazy is not really what’s happening right now.” (59:15)

references:

• RewardStyle
• SHOWstudio