As you may or may not know, I started this blog to keep in better touch - including pictorially - with my friends and family far away. I think it's doing the trick, and although I would love to have the time to do research and have a design-oriented done as well as, say, Cup of Jo - the likelihood is that this will remain a wonderful showcase for my recipe and restaurant reviews, as well as the occasional cultural post, but not much more. Memo Pad: Will They Blog About This Too?...
Published: Tuesday, April 01, 2008
WILL THEY BLOG ABOUT THIS TOO?: Cathy Horyn, fashion critic for The New York Times, first came up with the idea for a blog in August 2006. She was watching the original "Charlie's Angels" reunite at the Emmys and thought about the little things one wants to write, without turning them into a full article. Soon after, Horyn approached "a digital guy" at the Times and beginning in January 2007, she had a blog. Horyn participated in a panel discussion on Sunday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on fashion blogs, which included The Sartorialist's Scott Schuman and Diane Pernet of Zoo Magazine and ashadedviewonfashion.com. The museum's "blog.mode: addressing fashion" exhibition, located in the Costume Institute, is on display for two more weeks.
Horyn said she reads every single comment about her postings. "I'm motivated by the quality of thought," she said. She also balances her time between the newspaper and The New York Times Magazine. "It's one of the challenges of contemporary journalism," she added. "I can't do enough for it [the blog]." At first, Horyn submitted her posts to an editor, but eventually, she asked for and was granted autonomy from the editing process.
She said one example of how blogs and journalism go well together was the infamous Marc Jacobs show two seasons ago that ran a few hours late. She blogged about it from a restaurant on Park Avenue and at the show and her comments led to several weeks of debate. "People didn't get sick of it," she recalled.
Schuman talked about how his entry into blogdom came while he was a stay-at-home father. He began shooting more photography when his children were born and eventually expanded to strangers, from Chinatown to the Fulton Fish Market. He noticed that everyone he shot had something in common: they had a style that inspired him. A blog soon followed and it wasn't long before Style.com and GQ came calling.
Diane Pernet, in her signature tall, black veil, said she began blogging well before the rest of the pack. She now has 15 contributors worldwide and her photographers were granted backstage access at New York Fashion Week. "I post what I like and what I find interesting," Pernet said, noting she particularly focuses on new designers. Aside from blogs, though, several in the audience were buzzing about Pernet's towering headdress. She said she wears it to please herself. "This is how I feel comfortable." — Amy Wicks
