Illustration by KIRSTEN ULVE
Fashion is an industry that thrives on disruption. The latest shift, at least from a media standpoint, is a growing crop of influencers who are focused on perspective, not persuasion. While get-ready-with-me Reels and sponsored posts are not going anywhere anytime soon, bona fide fashion criticism is flourishing in a meaningful way on social media where disembodied talking heads wielding tiny microphones are telling you what they really think about the latest collections.
The current exemplar is celebrity fashion observer Luke Meagher, aka @HauteLeMode, who recently signed with Hollywood entertainment and sports talent agency UTA. A Vogue profile hailed Meagher as a new kind of fashion critic, calling him “more Joan Rivers than Cathy Horyn,” the latter a reference to the leading New York Times runway reviewer voice of the early aughts. The profile nailed what’s appealing about Meagher and his contemporaries’ dynamic style: a fusion of informed industry and aesthetic analysis with entertainment.
In addition to Meagher’s videos, today’s fashion criticism diet also includes podcasts by Avery Trufelman (Articles of Interest) and Eugene Rabkin (StyleZeitgeist), Canadian fashion journalist Mosha Lundström Halbert’s TikTok series NewsFash and a hit of brainy Bliss Foster, who analyzes collections in richly detailed YouTube videos embedded in cultural theory.
Regardless of medium, the best fashion criticism always reflects product knowledge, solid research, objectivity and, perhaps most challenging, an unflinching willingness to deliver bad news. Lately, it feels like that last part is key: the honest opinion of informed outsider perspectives is keeping fashion interesting.
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These digital critics rarely have any formal fashion training, but then, neither did I embarking on what became an arts journalism career specializing in fashion and cultural history. Armed with enthusiasm for the subject, I followed my curiosity and fed it by reading my peers and predecessors, poring over vintage magazines, style and social history books to garner understanding of the historical contexts that influence fashion’s creative leaders. On-the-job learning through countless designer studio, retail and factory visits taught me tailoring, fit and fabric and trained my eye.
Jeremy Lewis (@lewissmag; previously of the defunct semi-annual fashion zine Garmento) followed a similar path. Mentored by the late fashion designer and educator Charles Kleibacker, Lewis’s Instagram presence balances opinionated runway reviews that reflect time spent both thinking about and examining clothes and excavating fashion history.
In a continuing cultural shift that eschews hierarchies and gatekeeping, it helps that educating oneself about fashion is more accessible than ever. In June, the Vogue Archive at Condé Nast partnered with Google Arts & Culture to make thousands of photographs and digitized issues free to all online.
Early access to finished garments in runway collections (or direct contact with designers) is less crucial to the social media branch of fashion commentary – anyone can eventually see garments up close in a store – but handling the goods still matters, in the same way restaurant critics can’t hone their palate by just reading cookbooks. They must taste the food.
Canadian content creator Neelam Ahooja, a former accountant whose expertise and passion coalesce around the minimalist American label the Row, is open about the “steep learning curve” involved in honing an expert eye – and opinion. We both reference Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule when talking about the years she spent admiring, browsing and closely evaluating (and later, being able to afford and wear) pieces from designers such as Rick Owens and Max Mara. “I would go to Holt’s and just walk through racks of Dries [Van Noten] touching everything,” she recalls of shaping her critical skills. That investment of time transformed her enthusiasm into expertise and led to her role as a well-followed collector and reviewer of the Row.
As a client of the brand, Ahooja is invited to its shows alongside established buyers and journalists and even visits the showroom, yet her pro and con reviews remain realistic. In the inaugural edition of her Substack newsletter, Neelam Noted, she expressed doubts about the four-figure price tag of the Row’s trendsetting jelly shoes. Her evaluation of the PVC cage flats came with a note of caution that the jelly was likely a short-lived trend. “I owe it to my audience to not behave any differently than my authentic self,” Ahooja says of balancing access with integrity. “I always have to remind myself that while the Row is a significant part of the puzzle for me, it’s not the entire puzzle.”
Ontario pharmacist and self-taught seamstress Jennifer Wang is also steadily building a following on TikTok and Instagram as a de-influencer, a term coined for online personalities who tell their audiences what not to buy. Her approachable videos discuss and critique the quality of construction, design and fabric in everyday mall and fast-fashion brands like Zara and Aritzia, offering a valuable basic garment education for the uninitiated concerned with both sustainability and the rising cost of living.
For longtime fashion writers like me, it’s promising that the critical ecosystem is expanding to include more informed observers like Wang and Ahooja who are making the conversation accessible while also elevating the social media discourse in general. It’s been said since the birth of fashion criticism: without fashion commentary there is, arguably, no fashion – it’s all just clothes.