From the Archives: Catching Up With John B. Fairchild

John B. Fairchild created and epitomized the modern Women’s Wear Daily.

Fairchild started at his family’s company at age 13 as an intern in the Washington bureau. After Princeton and military service, he was sent to the Paris bureau, where his scoops and reviews forced designers to alter their view of Women’s Wear Daily as unimportant. He became the paper’s publisher in 1960 upon his return from the Paris bureau and immediately set about recasting its image. It was Fairchild who abbreviated the title Women’s Wear Daily to the more modern WWD.

In his view, fashion was being created everywhere, and WWD had to be there to report on it. So the paper introduced coverage of the women who wore the clothes and began reporting on designers as personalities rather than simply names on labels. In Fairchild’s view, designers were as much celebrities as their customers.

WWD also broadened its reporting on the arts to include movies, books, television, museums and even opera.

Fairchild retired as chairman and editorial director of Fairchild Publications in March 1997 on his 70th birthday. For WWD’s 90th anniversary issue, James Fallon, then the publication’s London bureau chief and now chief content officer of WWD as well as all of Fairchild Media Group, interviewed Fairchild, who reflected on the WWD of the past and the state of fashion then — much of which hasn’t changed.

WWD: Was Women’s Wear Daily always the company’s flagship?

John B. Fairchild: No! At first it was the Daily Trade Record, which became Daily News Record. That was the newspaper my grandfather Edmund bought in Chicago in 1890 to start the company. It was the most extraordinary thing in history: The company started with my grandfather selling gray goods from a horse and buggy in Chicago and it grew from there. At one time, Fairchild even had an aviation paper because they were making airplanes out of cloth.

So WWD really started out as a paper interested in fabrics and textiles and then became a fashion thing. My grandfather and my father, Louis, were always interested in fashion and even then traveled to Europe because they believed, correctly, that the most interesting fashion was in Paris. So they would go to Paris by ship every season to see the collections.

WWD: What impact did each of them have on the paper?

J.B.F.: Well, my grandfather was a creative genius. My uncle Edgar was interested in the mechanical aspects, i.e., printing presses, which he was strongly attached to. My father was the one who really believed that the key for WWD was to focus on fashion and business news. He had a true head for business news and was fascinated with personnel changes in the stores and the buying and selling of stores. He also believed strongly in fashion. In his view, the key to womenswear was what was going on in the stores.

WWD: When you first arrived in Paris, WWD was barely known there and was allocated a seat in the back rows of the shows. How did you make the leap to the front row?

J.B.F.: By persistence and nastiness.

WWD: What convinced the designers to move you?

J.B.F.: We started writing reviews of the collections and about the designers as personalities. At the same time, we became fascinated with the personalities of the business executives and the social world. We were looking for people who made the world tick. That’s what it has to be about. All the other coverage then was just endless descriptions of clothes. Nothing to me is more boring than that. After all, they’re just body coverings.

WWD: During your time in Paris, you met all the leading designers of the day. Were they part of the social world then as well?

J.B.F.: Not in the case of Balenciaga or Dior. Balenciaga was like a monk and never left his monastery. Dior was shy and led a quiet life and enjoyed food. Then there was Madame Grès, who was like Balenciaga. She was a nun in her nunnery. The leader of the pack in that regard was Coco Chanel. She not only was a great, great designer and dressmaker, but led the way out of that dressmaking world into the artistic and social scene of Paris. As a woman, she understood what a woman wanted to wear and a woman’s body.

WWD: Any anecdotes?

J.B.F.: I remember Chanel standing before me in Paris while I sat staring up at her. When she got furious she removed her hand from her hip and beat her skirt between her legs. She came over and yanked my jacket. “Bad tailoring! Look at those armholes,” she yelled. She had an obsession about armholes; she thought they should be nailed tight in the pit of the arm. I’d sit there for two hours watching her do a fitting. Sometimes, she’d cut so close she’d draw the blood of the model. She was a perfectionist.

She’d walk over to a table, reach into a drawer and pull out a small silver box, out of which she’d take a tiny blue pill. She’d tell me to swallow it as she handed me a glass of whiskey. We’d then spend the night drinking more whiskey, Champagne, Chateau Lafite. I always thought I’d wake up with a major hangover, but never did because of that magic blue pill. I never did find out what was in it. We’d fall asleep together on her suede couch or I’d walk her back to her room at the Ritz across the street. In later years, she had a nurse there who had to strap her into her bed because of bad dreams or something.

WWD: What about Christian Dior?

J.B.F.: I finally met Dior through Suzanne Lulling, the directrice of his couture salon. We were invited to lunch at Dior’s residence in the 16th arrondissement with Dior, my wife, Jill; Madame Lulling; the Dior director Jacques Rouet, and me. Dior was an unassuming, kind man who seemed weighed down by his position as a celebrity and probably would have preferred to be back in Normandy alone or at the spa in Montecatini, where he’d go to lose weight. Anyway, he hardly spoke, and all I remember from the lunch was the dessert — a Dior bombe glacé. I was impressed with how he managed to get the hot chocolate sauce inside the vanilla ice cream.

But that bombe glacé was important — word spread fast that I’d had lunch with Dior and from then on, my relations with the other designers in Paris improved.

WWD: Except for Balenciaga. You never did manage to see one of his shows.

J.B.F.: No, no one did, except for the buyers and Carmel Snow, the editor of Harper’s Bazaar. I’d have to stand outside and ask the buyers to describe the clothes. It was maddening. So I decided to ask one of them to draw me pictures of all the clothes he could remember, which helped, but not much. So one time, we positioned a photographer with a long telephoto lens on the roof across the street from the Balenciaga salon. We practiced by getting some photos of a fitting, which were blurry, but were at least something. On the day of the show, we did it again and watched as all the buyers filed in to take their gilt seats. The photographer was all ready not to miss anything — and just then the directrice of the salon walked over, stared right into the lens of the camera and drew the curtains.

We finally got our photo of Balenciaga himself, though. We shot him when he was walking out of his favorite restaurant in Paris. We only got about three frames, but were so excited that I had them cut all the photos up. It ended up looking like a Picasso portrait. We ran a photo of his eyes, his arm, his feet-even his ears. It made it look like we’d taken tons of photos rather than only three.

WWD: Were there American designers then on a par with the French ones?

J.B.F.: Certainly. The whole power of American sportswear influenced the world. People like Norman Norell, Bonnie Cashin, Clare McCardell. They were interesting designers, but they weren’t really part of social life, except for Mainbocher and perhaps Charles James. James Galanos came a bit later, but he wasn’t that good, really. The other designers didn’t mix in society. It took Bill Blass and Oscar de la Renta to become social fashion butterflies and to be adored by the socialites.

WWD: Were the designers as catty and ruthless toward each other as they are now?

J.B.F.: Designers never like each other. It hasn’t changed. They are always quick to criticize each other’s clothes. Chanel loved to criticize Balenciaga’s and Givenchy’s clothes. She used to say Balenciaga didn’t know how to cut a blouse. It’s the same now — except today they criticize each other’s ads and say their clothes don’t sell.

WWD: Were the designers the icons then that they are today?

J.B.F.: Yes, a few. Balenciaga, Dior, Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent were respected and worshipped. Women were clamoring to wear their clothes because they made them look beautiful and they felt good when they wore them.

Chanel was the greatest icon of them all because she was in society and in the artistic world. She lived with rich people like the Duke of Westminster and understood their lives. She was an icon in the fashion sense because you could travel anywhere in the world and most people who knew fashion would recognize a Chanel suit. It’s like Ralph Lauren’s man on a pony: It’s instantly recognizable.

WWD: How did you first meet Yves Saint Laurent?

J.B.F.: We met at a Dior lunch at a restaurant in Paris called Berkeleys. He reminded me of a fawn in the fashion forest with those penetrating eyes that still never missed a trick. He was the first modern couturier. He had grown out of the traditions of the past, with its pure perfection of technique, but he was moving it into the future. He knew how to make clothes for today’s living — pants, the peajackets and the alligator motorcycle jacket.

WWD: How did your friendship with him develop?

J.B.F.: Because from an intellectual point of view he is civilized, educated and a gentleman. He is like Chanel because he’s highly educated and likes paintings, music, art….As a matter of fact, he rarely talks about fashion, except he groans and moans about the hedonistic fashions of others.

WWD: What makes a great designer?

J.B.F.: Clothes that are perfectly made, and clothes that are worn by normal women, not just models. In short, the great designers make clothes that sell.

Clothes can’t be isolated in a vacuum; that’s not what great design is about.

WWD: Does longevity matter?

J.B.F.: Dior used to say that the life of a designer is only 10 years, but I don’t think that is the case. Good designers go on and on. Chanel was timeless and continued forever. What is most important is the craft and technique. Let’s be realistic: Fashion is definitely not an art, it’s a craft. I feel very strongly about that. The idea to me is that fashion is just like a good, juicy steak: It needs to be devoured, but it shouldn’t be too rare.

WWD: In your 1989 book, “Chic Savages,” you listed the world’s six greatest designers as Yves Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani, Karl Lagerfeld, Emanuel Ungaro, Christian Lacroix and Vivienne Westwood. Who do you think would be the greatest designers today, and who among the younger designers have the potential for greatness?

J.B.F.: Well, Saint Laurent today is still enormously influential, as are Armani and Lagerfeld at Chanel. And you’d have to say Ralph Lauren. As for others, I’d say Miuccia Prada, Jean Paul Gaultier, Helmut Lang, Dolce & Gabbana and Martin Margiela are certainly designers others look to. [Editor’s note: Mr. Fairchild subsequently added to that list John Galliano, who at the time of the interview was at the height of his fame at Dior.]

And Tom Ford is definitely influential. Among the younger ones, you’d have

Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan are the ones who seem to be leading the pack.

WWD: You introduced the witty catch phrases that would become a WWD hallmark, such as Ladies Who Lunch, Jackie O, Walkers, the Midi and so forth. How did these develop?

J.B.F.: It was easy — we had to make the paper more amusing. Writing about people has to be amusing; it needs a little zip and zap.

WWD: But it can also get you in trouble. You are renowned for the feuds you had with such designers as Geoffrey Beene, Giorgio Armani, Pauline Trigère and even Saint Laurent. What was the background to these disagreements?

J.B.F.: There is no background. I never had a feud with Geoffrey Beene because I was never invited to his collection and I’ve never seen one, except in magazines. But I have to believe it when a publication like the New York Times says Geoffrey Beene is above fashion. I have to think that one out because, in my opinion, everything is above fashion.

It’s the same with Pauline Trigère — I never saw one of her collections. But I think she’s a grand old lady.

With Giorgio Armani it was simple: One season he closed his show to all the press except for Time magazine, which offered him the cover if he would do it. I told him, “Look, Giorgio, I’ve been on the cover of Time, too.” It was a matter of survival. After that one season, things went back to normal.

The argument with Saint Laurent was because one season, he didn’t get a good review and he didn’t like it. Pierre Bergé called me a megalomaniac and threw me out the next season. So we sent him a book with all the coverage WWD had given Saint Laurent since the beginning. I don’t know whether they even looked at it, but we were allowed back in the next season.

WWD: In the ‘70s and ‘80s, you were one of the champions of American design. How did you choose which ones to feature?

J.B.F.: American designers know how to dress the world and how to dress people with little money, not only lots of it. Their fashion contribution has been that fashion should be for everyone. We highlighted the ones that we thought were creative and did the most impressive collections.

But that applies to any designer. Look at Giorgio Armani, who revolutionized fashion for the modern woman, especially the woman who worked. He still designs clothes that a woman can wear to work in the morning and still go out in in the evening. He is all about relaxed fashion so that a woman can look super-smart and chic all day long. He Armani-ized the world by designing simple fashion in beautiful fabrics. He certainly is one of the century’s most important designers.

Ralph Lauren is another example. If you say who is the designer most recognized in the entire world, it would be Ralph Lauren and his man on the polo pony. He merchandised fashion to the nth degree and made a name. His store on Madison Avenue is one of perfection, and he has always stuck to that quality and image. He isn’t all over the place like a lot of other designers. He is focused, like Halston was focused. Halston did more to make American sportswear chic than anyone. He and Bill Blass.

WWD: How has fashion changed since the ‘60s and ‘70s?

J.B.F.: The sad thing for fashion is that unless you have the backing of a big business machine, it is very, very difficult for a talented young designer to get started. And after they get started, they are never given enough time to prove themselves. With what it costs in merchandising and hype, it’s extremely difficult for a designer to make a name for himself. Saint Laurent started with practically nothing and had to borrow money from an American used-car dealer to set up his house. That would be impossible today.

The other thing is that these huge business machines don’t get the message of fashion. The most outstanding concepts are Prada and Gucci, because when you walk into one of their stores, they are of the same standard everywhere. They have Prada-ized and Guccified the world.

WWD: What about the growth of the huge fashion conglomerates?

J.B.F.: They are both good and bad. They limit the game to only a few big names, and the danger is the public will get bored. Fashion needs new names and excitement. It needs for the underdogs to bark.

WWD: Could you do today what you did at WWD in the ‘60s?

J.B.F.: No, times have changed. The sad thing is that the openness and fair play in writing about fashion have changed enormously. The fair play is gone. It’s all advertising-driven now or about these crazily forced fashion pictures in magazines that don’t mean anything to the general public. What I’m fearful of is that the general public has lost interest in fashion. It’s become so extreme and the fashion world is more interested in itself than what the consumer wants.

The fashion world has forgotten that the ultimate thing is the consumer. Designers are more concerned with what other designers think about their advertising than what the consumer thinks. That’s a sad thing for fashion, because fashion is about titillation and should be fun. It shouldn’t be played like some deadly serious game.

Now, fashion is very parochial and very predictable. It’s sort of boring. It’s all gone promo-Hollywood and MTV. The rule in publishing is that the big problem is to get people to read. In fashion, the big problem is to get them to wear clothes. Women need to be tempted into the beauty of fashion, not its ugly side.

When I was in Paris, Mr. Dior invited me to go to Russia for a fashion show he was giving there. It was at the height of the Cold War, and Americans were rarely allowed to go. I went to write a story. We had a rather attractive young lady as our interpreter and guide, and she asked me what I liked about Russia. I told her the books and Shostokovich. So a few days later, she got me some Russian books in English translation and some 78-records of Shostokovich. But the whole time, she kept pooh-poohing fashion and saying how could it be interesting because it was decadent and a waste of money.

Well, Dior showed his collection at the arena where the Moscow Circus performed, and she sat next to me. I looked over at one point and tears were streaming down her face. I asked her if she was OK, and she said, “It looks just like it must have in the time of the Tsar!”

That’s the magic of fashion.

WWD: What makes a good journalist?

J.B.F.: A good journalist or editor has to always have something no one else has. That’s what I always tried to do. It’s unlike today, when you can pick up the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and they have exactly the same story. My rule was to never have anything on the front page anyone else had.

To survive, you have to be unique. It’s a matter of survival.

WWD: Do you need controversy?

J.B.F.: You’ve got to be controversial in fashion because, basically, it’s a bunch of blah blah. Controversy makes it lively. Luckily, the egocentricity of the business makes for very interesting pickings.

WWD: What are you proudest of?

J.B.F.: The alumni of WWD are everywhere, and it’s nice to think we started them off. Some of them are extraordinarily successful, and they deserve it. WWD was their training ground. After all, it was for me, too. The great Eugenia Sheppard worked at WWD and she started me off. I copied every great idea she produced.

So it would be the people I worked with-and the fun. We always had fun.