Women's Wear Daily

Infobox Newspaper
name = Women's Wear Daily


caption = The July 26, 2006 front page of "Women's Wear Daily"
type = Daily newspaper
format = tabloid
foundation = 1910
ceased publication =
price =
owners = Advance Publications
political position =
publisher = Ralph Erardy, Sr.
editor =
circulation = 30,000 daily
headquarters =
ISSN =
website = [http://wwd.com/ wwd.com]
price =

"Women's Wear Daily" (WWD) is a fashion-industry trade journal sometimes called "the bible of fashion." [Miller, Lia. [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30C11FA3E580C778DDDAA0894DD404482 "Women's Wear Daily Setting Its Sights on the Luxury Market."] "New York Times" (March 14, 2005).] Horyn, Cathy. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E2DD1538F933A1575BC0A96F958260 "Breaking Fashion News With a Provocative Edge"] . "New York Times" (August 20, 1999).] It is the flagship journal of Fairchild Publications, Inc.Rothenberg, Randall. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE0D6143FF934A2575BC0A96E948260 "From Pauline Trigere, a Dressing Down"] . "New York Times" (August 17, 1988).] WWD's publisher is Ralph Erardy, Sr., and its editor-in-chief is Edward Nardoza. As of March 6, 2000, WWD's circulation was 30,000 copies.Kuczynski, Alex. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E6DD1538F935A35750C0A9669C8B63 "Sibling Rivalry at Advance Publications"] . "New York Times" (March 6, 2000).]

The journal was founded by Edmund Fairchild on July 13, 1910, as an outgrowth of the menswear journal "Daily News Record".Trager, James. "The New York Chronology: A Compendium of Events, People, and Anecdotes from the Dutch to the Present." HarperCollins (2003), [http://books.google.com/books?id=xvGhQoNT27IC&pg=PA325&sig=5LiQE4R34zIa17Y25crXLGv75Kw p325] . ISBN 0060740620.]

Though WWD's reporters were assigned to the last row of the 1955 couture shows—a sign of the newspaper's low stature—the paper rose to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. John Fairchild, who became the European bureau chief of Fairchild Publications in 1955 and the publisher of WWD in 1960, improved WWD's standing by focusing on the human side of fashion. He turned his newspaper's attention to the social scene of fashion designers and their clients, and helped manufacture a "cult of celebrity" around designers. Fairchild also played hardball to help his circulation. After two couturiers forbade press coverage until one month after buyers had seen their clothes, Fairchild published photos and sketches anyway.Fairchild, John. "The Fashionable Savages". Doubleday (1965). (Cited in Gross, Michael. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE7D61330F93BA35756C0A961948260 "Women's Wear Daily and Feuds in Fashion"] . "New York Times" (May 8, 1987).)] He even sent reporters to fashion houses disguised as messengers, or had them observe designers' new styles from windows of buildings opposite fashion houses. "I have learned in fashion to be a little savage," he wrote in his memoir. John Fairchild was publisher of the magazine from 1960 to 1996.

Under Fairchild, the company's feuds were also legendary. When a designer's statements or work offended Fairchild, he would retaliate, sometimes banning any reference to them in his newspaper for years at a stretch. The newspaper famously sparred with Hubert de Givenchy, Cristobal Balenciaga,Gross, Michael. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE7D61330F93BA35756C0A961948260 "Women's Wear Daily and Feuds in Fashion"] . "New York Times" (May 8, 1987).] John Weitz, Azzedine Alaia, Perry Ellis, Yves Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani,, Bill Blass, Geoffrey Beene ("twice"- the first over Lynda Bird Johnson's White House wedding dress design [ [http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/geoffreybeene.html Geoffrey Beene Biography (Fashion Designer) — Infoplease.com ] ] , which Geoffrey promised to keep secret until the wedding day, and later over a WWD reporter Geoffrey did not like), James Galanos, Mollie Parnis, Oscar de la Renta, and Norman Norell (who was demoted from "Fashion Great" to "Old Master" in the journal's pages), among others. In response, some designers forbade their representatives from speaking to WWD reporters or disinvited WWD reporters from their fashion shows. In general, though, those excluded "kept their mouths shut and [took] it on the chin." [Former WWD publisher James Brady. Quoted in Rothenberg, Randall. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE0D6143FF934A2575BC0A96E948260 "From Pauline Trigere, a Dressing Down"] . "New York Times" (August 17, 1988).] When designer Pauline Trigere, who had been excluded from the paper for three years, took out a full-page advertisement protesting the ban in the fashion section of a 1988 "New York Times Magazine", it was believed to be the first widely distributed counterattack on Fairchild's policy.

In 1999, Fairchild Publications was sold by the Walt Disney Company to Advance Publications, the parent company of Condé Nast Publications. [Barringer, Felicity. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CE1DB1F38F936A1575BC0A96F958260 "Fashion Magazine Industry Consolidates with a Big Deal"] . "New York Times" (August 25, 1999).] Now Fairchild Publications is a unit of Condé Nast,Hoover's In-Depth Company Records. "Fairchild Publications, Inc." March 21, 2007.] though WWD is technically operated separately from Condé Nast's consumer publications such as "Vogue" and "Glamour".MacIntosh, Jeane. "Will WWD Play It Straight for SI?" N.Y. Post (Feb. 7, 2000).]

References

Further reading

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External links

* [http://www.wwd.com/ Women's Wear Daily online]