Merry Christmas!
I'm a little late in saying this, but Fashion Headline celebrated its first anniversary in December. I'd like to once again express my deepest gratitude to everyone who cooperated with our reporting, our readers, and everyone involved in delivering over 6,000 news articles over the past year.
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I was reading an article titled "Agnès b. 30th Anniversary in Japan" when it occurred to me. I've been a fashion editor since 1984, and next year will mark 30 years since then. It all started when I happened to see a newspaper ad announcing that New York's Fairchild Publishing Company was launching a fashion paper called "W Japan" in collaboration with Japan's Hanae Mori Publishing Company, and applied. After working in advertising sales at the Osaka branch for a year, I was assigned to the editorial position. My first assignment was a feature introducing the history of Western masterpieces and long-established fashion houses, such as Dom Pérignon, Rolex, Charvet shirt brand, and Lanvin. Naturally, there was no website, and the only materials were copies of the original Italian, English, and French texts held by the import trading company. The new editor struggled to put together the pages.
Looking back, it was probably a tie-up, but at the time, editorial tie-ups in magazines were uncommon and even taboo. However, fashion papers and culture magazines, unable to anticipate sales, established what we now call "monetization" as a new way of managing media. In any case, this was a time when the barriers between advertising and editing were gradually lifted in the fashion genre.
It's hard for editors today to imagine, but when I joined the company, there was no fax machine. Contact from overseas was made by telex (a kind of Morse code). Articles from business trips were sent over the phone (by word of mouth). Staff covering overseas collections would entrust their footage to a familiar trading company employee who was returning home first, and a low-ranking editor would ask for the flight number and go to the airport in Japan to pick it up.
I am truly grateful to have been able to continue doing the work I love in this glamorous world, even back then. While the infrastructure for fashion journals—fax machines, word processors, cell phones, PCs, and the Internet—has been developed, runways and exhibitions themselves have remained largely unchanged since 30 years ago. It seems the types of people who are passionate about fashion haven't changed much, either. The only thing that has changed is that anyone can become a contributor, as long as they have an Internet connection.
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Finally, Fashion Headline is entering its second year with a new editorial structure. I, Tatsuya Noda, have stepped down as editor-in-chief. Mitsuhiro Ebihara, who has supported us as deputy editor-in-chief for the past year, will take over as our new editor-in-chief, and we will begin a new chapter with a young team. Thank you very much for the past year. And we look forward to your continued support of Fashion Headline in 2014.
30 years ago (probably), I bought the bright red agnès b. scarf (pictured) at the Isetan Shinjuku store as a Christmas present for my girlfriend at the time. I'm sure there was a corner for it on the first floor on the Shinjuku-dori side... What's more, I'm now, 30 years later, interviewing a women's clothing buyer on the 5th floor of the Theatre Building, where Tsubaki House, a place I used to frequent at the time, was located, so I'm amazed at this strange coincidence.
