Tourist Magazine

On the internet, suggestions abound for how best to get into the fashion industry, to the point where handing out pithy bon mots about the process has become something of an industry itself; during my last year of university, having decided that I wanted to be A Fashion Journalist, capital A, F, and J, I spent my free time devouring websites and books which all gave me the same bland advice. Ask for writers’ guidelines, they'd suggest in unison, and send off as many freelance articles as you can. Try not to slip into a slough of despond when your work gets rejected, though of course you inevitably will, because fuck, it's a horrible experience, and don't worry about a degree because they're all worthless anyway. You should have saved your money for an Hermes coat or two instead. Buy fashion magazines whenever you can and study them as you would the word of God, because as far as you're concerned, that's exactly who these people are, these innumerable bastards with their double-barreled names, and you are to live your life under their credo for ever and ever, Amen.

Except the one thing which matters most about getting ahead in fashion isn't really any of the things that I just mentioned - even someone of my limited experience knows that.

It's lying.

Born ugly, and you can draw on a better-looking face with Illamasqua and Laura Mercier, or spike it into your forehead with botox. Too fat, and you can meticulously study which garments will make you look thinner, wear black, and get an adderall prescription from a Dr Feelgood. Fashion is, above all, about illusions - of wealth, weight, taste, height, beauty - and if you know how to harness them the world is your oyster; if you can't afford to eat oysters, you poor fool, pretend that you can and admit it to nobody.

It follows, then, that fashion journalism should be chock-full of those very same illusions. A fashion writer adopts the role of an arbiter of taste, but more often than not writes wearing a tracksuit, or beaten-up jeans. Doesn't matter! The deception's what's important - the reader should imagine you chic and supercilious, dictating your article from your chez lounge, martini in manicured hand. The tone is a chimera too, either vaguely condescending or willfully girlish, even if the author doesn't really give a damn about a Cartier bracelet that costs more than their house. After working a 9-5 writing job, I'm adept at covering my bitterness and cynicism with a saccharine glaze, like masking the stench of dog-shit with a spritz of Chanel No. 5. I have to be. I am a gun for hire, and it's not for me to say whom I should be taking aim at.

That isn't to say that the whole shebang can't be enjoyable. You're the Talented Mr Ripley of directional harem pants, after all. The David Copperfield of peep-toed boots. Because the thing is, creating the illusion that you're a stylish doyenne with a platinum credit card sounds like a drag, but it's a hell of a lot easier than actually trying to live it; imagine how tedious it must be for Roitfeld et al to be expected to pull off a pair of zebra capris at a moment's notice. It's the opposite of foot-soldiers in the trenches, who died in their thousands so that officers could remain behind the line of fire, pretending to be fighting a war - the lowest minions are sat at their laptops wearing slippers, while the head honchos at Paris Vogue are being petrol-bombed for an inappropriate skirt length. "If you can keep your boyfriend jeans, when all around you swap theirs for an of-the-moment, fun-fur micro-mini", Rudyard Kipling might have said "You'll be a fashion writer, yet, my son."

And that, my friends, is no lie.

Philippa Snow