I love reading this article featured in NY Times The Cut blog . . . it's so true what she said . . . it isn't what it use to be . . . it's suppose to be free flowing and gut instincts . . . now everyone is motivated by money and how others (advertisers) would view your work . . . WHO THE FUCK CARES . . . is what I say!!!
Here it is:
Venetia Scott styles Marc Jacobs's runway shows and has been styling editorials for magazines for many years. She recently spoke to Ponystep about her disenchantment with fashion magazines:
"I find magazines less and less interesting — I don’t really buy magazines or look at magazines. I mean I’ve got a twelve year old [daughter with ex-husband Juergen Teller] and we were talking about it yesterday — she’ll go on the internet and probably look at something like your [online] magazine [Ponystep] more. She would not ever go to a newsagent and buy a magazine. And even here when we get sent ones that I’ve got work in, she’s not really interested in it. In a way I’m doing less editorial because it seems a bit tired now."
Scott added that styling isn't what it used to be.
"When I first started at [British] Vogue [around 1987] you’d get all the clothes in, have your rail and you’d make looks. Whereas now the designers do the looks. You can’t mix Chanel now with other designers — the power of advertising is that if you don’t do it in the way that they want you to shoot it then the magazines become scared that they’ll lose the cash. When I first started there wasn’t really any bargaining power between the advertisers and editorial; they were two completely separate things. Now it’s ‘I’ll take out a couple of pages and you give me a couple of pages.’"
A respected veteran of her profession with a cushy Marc Jacobs contract, Scott feels more at liberty to take risks in her work. She will chance breaking up a look and sticking sneakers at the end of a Chanel dress if she feels like it because she knows she has Marc Jacobs to fall back on and will always get more work elsewhere. However, she worries for young stylists whose talents may be stifled by editorial deals:
"I think [many stylists] play the game much, much more. And there’s even some who I’m so surprised that they’re playing this game — they don’t realise that if they didn’t play it they’d still get the work because they’re good, you know? I was talking to someone, saying ‘why are you doing all this stuff, why are you doing all these shoots?’ And he says because his agent says so, he has to do this, that and the other. You’re the one that’s really in control, you know? I’m amazed that they’re listening to their agents. And I’m amazed by stylists that are also maybe a bit younger than me but sort of my contemporaries, who are established and good, and they’re saying they have to include all these credits. I've done shoots with these stylists and I think ‘just say f*ck it, it didn’t work’. It doesn’t work within the story. The sense of belief is going to be broken because there’s a Prada shirt sticking out like a sore thumb and we’re meant to be doing Russian prisoners. If you put that in, it’s not believable anymore."
It's nice to hear someone speak so honestly on these issues.
