Though Robin Givhan may have won a Pulitzer for fashion criticism — the first person to do so, in fact — to call her a critic almost feels like selling her short. She’s also an interpreter, introducing a general audience to fashion’s visual language via politicians’ sartorial choices. She’s a chronicler, capturing pivotal moments in fashion history and profiling the designers at its vanguard. Sharp, witty, approachable, and unafraid to deliver harsh criticism — an all-too-rare trait among fashion writers — Givhan’s body of work will be one we turn to decades from now to make sense of this era of fashion. We spoke with her about explaining fashion through car analogies, the state of fashion criticism, the efficacy of runway shows, and the industry’s shifting attitudes towards copying. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Could you tell me a bit about how you came to be a fashion critic?

Well, I really started out as a journalist, basically in the features department. I sort of fell into fashion because it just happened to be the beat that was available at a certain point. I wasn’t particularly interested in fashion anymore than I was interested in music, or art, or politics, or what have you. It really just started as an opening that needed to be filled, and I happened to be available.

Was there a break through moment for you where you were like, “Okay, I’ve figured out how to cover this in a way that is more than just talking about clothes, that’s real, meaty cultural criticism?

I don’t know that there was a particular moment, but I would say there was a particular period of time, when I first came to the [Washington] Post in 1995. It was the first time I was covering fashion for a newspaper that didn’t have a dedicated fashion section. At the [Detroit] Free Press, there was a fashion section. What I found what was really great about [the Post] was that the subject of fashion was thrown into the general cultural mix. Fashion bumped up against film reviews, and political features, and lifestyle features. I think it was a point at which I felt like fashion had sort of left its little bubble. The only way to really cover it in a way that made sense for the section was to try to welcome as many people as possible, and perhaps even lure in those who may have been adamantly opposed to reading about fashion.

What are some of the tricks you have learned for presenting fashion to a general audience in a way that could bring them in?

I think it’s harder to write for a more general audience if your goal is to be an insider, if you’re so passionate about the subject that you can’t step back and look at it from at least from a somewhat more objective point of view. So, I think that only helped that fashion has never been my obsession. I have never been particularly passionate about any one frock.

I think what I always try to do is never preach to the choir. Always try to give people a touchstone outside the realm of fashion that can help them understand something that is happening within fashion. Because I’m from Detroit, I’m very fond of using car analogies when people bring up the subject of runway fashion to me. They sort of marvel at it, like, “Oh, who would ever wear that, that’s just ridiculous.” Well, you go to the auto show, you don’t expect every car that you see to come driving down your neighborhood street. And every car that you clamber over and take pictures of, you certainly don’t expect that you’ll ever be able to buy. But there is a pleasure in admiring them for the sake of their beauty and the technological advancement.

It’s also a worthwhile pursuit to look at them because those cars at their highest level will ultimately have an impact on the car that’s parked in your garage. I mean, GPS did not start out in every little, cheap car. It started out as a luxury. So, I try to give people something that’s in a realm that they tend to think of as more down to earth, as a way of opening the door to fashion for them.

Do you think we are becoming more culturally conversant in fashion? Do you find yourself needing to bridge that gap less often?

I definitely think we are more culturally conversant in fashion. Certainly the prevalence of it on television has helped a great deal. I do think that there’s still a belief that it’s this separate and distinct and somewhat trivial aspect of popular culture. I still think that some people find it very hard to consider it as a million dollar industry, a global industry. I think sometimes they find it difficult to have a nuanced conversation about its influence on the culture. I tend to think that people see it in terms of either its bad or its great.

I also think that sometimes there’s still that hurdle of the runway, where fashion is at its most intense, at its most saturated. There’s still this irresistible urge to select the most outrageous photograph, either from the runway or some person walking into a fashion show, and to use that as the representative for all that fashion is. To me, that would be as if a photographer went to a baseball game and found the guy that had his face painted and took that photograph and used that as a representative of a sports fan base.

That’s why I think fashion still has a lot of catching up to do in the way that it’s culturally perceived. Some of it the industry brings on it self, because it can be over the top, ridiculous, extreme, exaggerated, and all these things. At the same time, I don’t know that a dedicated sports fan is any less over the top, extreme, and bonkers.

I might even say they’re more so.

I have never witnessed a brawl break out at a fashion show. I’ve seen a lot of things happen, but brawling fashion hooligans, I have not witnessed.

Your career straddles a couple very, very important communication developments. You’ve covered fashion in the pre-internet and post-internet eras, and, maybe as significantly, the pre- and post-social media eras. Do you think the role of the fashion critic has changed, or has it remained static despite these sea changes in the way we share images and communicate?

I think that probably the role has become more difficult. I also feel like it’s become more important because there are so many voices. There are so many opinions out there. I’m going to go out on a limb here: I’m going to say all of them have a right to be heard, but I don’t necessarily should be given equal weight.

Hopefully, there will always be the critic who has context, who does reporting, who makes a considered assessment regardless of personal feelings about the aesthetic or the designer, who is trying to look at the industry in the most professional way possible, and to serve as a translator for a broader audience. Despite the fact that we all have access to Twitter and everything else, we don’t all have time to sit down and scroll through fashion images and tweet our opinions. The critic is there to cut through a lot of noise, to edit, to focus, and to try and moderate, direct, navigate, a thoughtful conversation.

Would you say that fashion has a healthy critical culture right now? Or is it lacking in some way?

I think that the criticism that it has is healthy. I think it’s not as bountiful as it could be. Some of that is the failure of media, because a lot of legacy publications have long ago stepped away from devoted fashion coverage. They either tucked it under the broader umbrella of entertainment and parachute in at Oscar time, or they’ve forgotten it all together aside from the occasional business story about a mass brand and what it happens to be doing.

Right. Yeah, it seems strange to me, because as you’ve just pointed out, we’re becoming more and more accepting of the idea that fashion is a real cultural resource and something to be celebrated and protected. Yet at the same time, there are fewer and fewer newspapers with fashion sections. It seems like there are fewer media outlets actually investing in legitimate coverage.

I think that one of the biggest investments that have happened in terms of fashion coverage, has been digital media.

With most of the new investments in fashion coverage coming in the digital space, do you worry at all about archiving? Is this something publications seem to be mindful of, or has it been left to authors to make sure they’re keeping copies of all of their work? 

I think I have been working under the assumption that everything will be eternally searchable online. I only keep hard copies of stories that were particularly meaningful. But even when everything was in print, it was impossible to archive all one’s work. I had to edit and only keep those things that I felt were especially representative of my voice or reporting skills.  That said, the Post keeps a digital archive. So I do rely on that whenever I need to find a story from years ago.

Jumping back to the runway, you’ve said you will never review a show based on images or video alone. Can you explain why?

I probably shouldn’t have said never. The reason that it’s almost never is that I think you’re seeing a different show. Oftentimes I’ll look at the show in photographs and a show that I didn’t think was that great in person photographed beautifully. There have been times when I have thought that a show was absolutely marvellous in person and then I’ve gone to pull photos to illustrate it and I’ve found that the photos don’t even begin to do it justice. It just looks flat and boring. I think that if you’re going to review something based on photos or based on video, you have to make that very clear. Sometimes it can be the equivalent of looking at a completely different show.

Reviewing a runway show seems like one of the hardest jobs in fashion writing, especially now that you’re expected to return them around within twelve hours from the show ending. How do you approach them?

Well, to me, twelve hours sounds like a fabulous eternity. When I was writing strictly for print, I would often only have a few hours to write a review.

You may actually have more time now that we’re doing a lot of digital-first, digitial-only stuff.

In a weird way, I often do. In the past, I would have to meet a deadline at 10:00 PM EST.

Yeah, you actually had to print those papers.

Right, and if I’m in Paris, that means I’m following the stories, so it would have been the middle of the afternoon, then trying to get it done before racing off to evening shows. Whereas now I have the great luxury of being able to stay up all night and until the crack of dawn.

In either case, I always feel like the best things always stay in your memory. They always stay front of mind. The things that were the most disappointing stay front of mind. Everything that’s sort of in the middle just kind of goes away, and that’s really not what you’re interested in writing about anyway. In terms of making the deadline, I’ve always said that a blank computer screen and a ticking clock are great motivators to get the writing done.

One thing I don’t like to do is answer, “What did you think of the show?” after walking out of the show. I feel like you need a minute to digest it and to think about it. I find that often the best shows, or at least the most interesting ones, are the ones you don’t necessarily know how you feel about it right away.

Do you think that we’ll still be doing runway reviews in ten years? Or are they something that will fall by the wayside with the instant availability of imagery and video?

I think we’ll still be critiquing collections as they are presented. Ten years from now, who knows if they’ll still be presented in a runway show format. Who knows how those critiques will be dispersed to readers, what form they will take. I think there will always be a need for designers to present their collections in a cohesive way that speaks to their entire visions as opposed to just an assemblage of garments. I think that there will only be more and more and more stuff being put out there for consumption, and there will always be a need to edit that or to have it sort of thoughtfully categorized. I think there will always be a need for help in making your way through it. The role, the need for a critic, the need for some kind of presentation of clothing will always be there.

Do you think the runway show is still the best form for those presentations to take?

It depends on the designer and it depends on the collection. For me, a runway show is the equivalent of climbing up on a Broadway stage and turning on a giant spotlight. The rare designer, the rare performer can do that and deliver a captivating monologue. Every now and then there is someone who can do that. I think you have to have this bold vision, this statement that requires a stage like that.

There are certainly a lot of collections that are best seen in a much more intimate way. I recognize that this is a difficulty that smaller brands have in this great debate. On one hand, they know that they’ll likely get more attention if they’re able to produce a show and play in that realm. But often those collections are not seen to their best advantage in that way. It can be a struggle to get people to come in and get people to look at and understand the collection in a static way. I think that with some creativity it can be done. There are a lot of smaller brands that are able to do it and are able to really get some vision across without having to undertake the massive cost of a runway show.

Something I heard from designers during New York Fashion Week: Men’s earlier this summer is that everyone tells them how much they love presentations, and they wish more designers would be presentations, but that people tend not to come unless you stage a full show.

Yeah, I mean, it’s a real struggle, and I get it. I love the two separate group presentations that happened during the men’s shows, where they had five or six designers who show in the morning, then five or six who show in the afternoon. I think that’s a great way to see a lot. Maybe it’s easier to consume it when it’s menswear, although I think that’s less and less the case as men’s wear evolves.

With the women’s shows, part of it is just sheer lack of hours in a day. The double booking of time slots and things like that. I’d argue that it does not make sense for a lesser-known, smaller brand to try to mount a show when they’re competing with some other, bigger brand that’s putting on a show. Better to do a presentation that goes for two hours.

Robin, a lot of your work as a fashion critique has focused on the political realm. I’m sure part of it is because you’ve spent a lot of time at the Washington Post, but, also, politicians seem to be really ripe targets for sartorial examination. Why do you think that is the case?

Well, they’re all about trying to communicate on a public stage, in the public sphere. A lot of communication happens through ways that are not just about the words. They are very judicious in terms of where they chose to speak, the people that they like standing behind them for the T.V. shot. There’s a whole litany of details that are considered when a politician is making a speech. It is not just a random group of people who assemble in the rose garden when the president is signing a bill or something. I think that the clothes and they way that they present themselves are all part of that broad form of communication. They certainly will change their attire depending on the audience, and it’s so deeply connected to their public image. I do think that it’s something that’s worth considering, that we should consider, particularly when we think about the way in which it subconsciously influences how we think about them. There is an expectation of what an authoritative person looks like, and if a politician doesn’t happen to adhere to that particular cliché, we react to that in a different way, and sometimes we don’t know even necessarily why.

This is an unexciting and exhausting time in U.S. politics as we’re moving towards primaries. Have there been any surprises for you, with regards to how certain candidates are presenting themselves?

Aside from Donald Trump?

Well, I do have his name written down here with a question mark beside it. If you had any feelings on him, I’m sure our readers would love to hear them.

Well, he’s a guy who, in all aspects, goes against the grain and doesn’t play by any of the rules, whether it’s in terms of his political speech, his civility, or his appearance.

I think that initially people were intrigued to know how Hilary Clinton was going to present herself. I think she’s been very savvy in that she has stuck to her beloved, colorful pant suits.

Yeah, she’s really embraced it.

We got all of that out of our system the last time around. Now it’s her uniform. She is much more relaxed about it, much less self-conscious in a conversation about her appearance. I think she’s a better communicator because of it.

One of the things I vaguely amused by during the prime-time debate was how banal they all looked. I wrote a piece about how they were all so intent on invoking Reagan’s name. When you go back and look at the way that he dressed and the way he used his style as part of his entire persona, it’s really striking. He was an extraordinarily stylish man. These candidates who are constantly singing his praises seem to be completely, studiously avoiding one of the great tools that he had in his quill, which was style.

You recently put out a great book called The Battle of Versailles that I believe you were working on for many years.

Well, not that many.

Regardless, for our readers, I would call it a must-read. Early in the book you discuss how in mid-20th century American fashion, copying French fashion was sort of the backbone of the industry. It was something that was an accepted part of the industry.

Oh, for sure.

Now, copying remains the backbone of the industry but it’s moved places. Rather than happening in the Garment District in New York — although it probably still happens there — it’s become the province of fast fashion, of your Zaras and H&Ms, and also smaller upstarts like Nasty Gal. Why do you think the public perception towards copying has changed? Or has it changed?

It has changed. Part of the reason I would say is because the prevalence of which fashion trends and ideas flow has really changed. Back in the 1950’s and prior to that, the voice of fashion was really a french voice. There was almost this presumption that if you were going to participate in fashion — basically, if you were going to get dressed — you were going to be wearing some iteration of what had ultimately begun in Paris. Obviously, a working class woman is not able to afford couture. She’s not able to afford the Bergdorf rendition of couture. It makes sense that there were all of these iterations that trickled down from the very top. Ultimately, the people at the very top received their due. They received the credit and they received financial gain.

It was a very orderly system of copying. Now, the inspiration, the voices, the trends, come from all directions. It comes from the top, it comes from the bottom, it comes sideways. People are not taking their marching orders from Paris and it’s almost as if there’s kind of a willy-nilly knocking off and copying and borrowing and paying homage to in all varying degrees of civility in the production of the clothes.

I think what’s happened is the people who originate an idea, as much as one can originate an idea, often don’t even have a chance to profit from it before someone else has taken it up. I think that’s the crux of it. That people who feel as if they are owed financial gain aren’t getting it. People who feel that at minimum they are owed a certain creative applause aren’t even getting the kudos, or, “Great idea!”

The other big difference is that for the women of that era, the ones who are spending scads of money on these clothes, they were getting them within that season. The trickle down process was so much slower. It also came with rules. A woman who just spent $700 — which today would be several thousand — for a dress is not going to see someone on the street wearing something that looks eerily similar two weeks later.

Now it’s practically instantaneous.

Exactly. Back then there were embargoes on when photos could be published. There was a time lag in between when Bergdorf could do its iteration of a couture dress and when Joe the Manufacturer could start turning it out.

Can you conceive of any way that the system could be changed to keep everyone happy? Or are we far beyond that now?

It is a bit like trying to close Pandora’s Box. The challenge really is for those designers who are working at a luxury end to create those things that really can’t be recreated cheaply. There’s a part of you that goes, “Well, if this Club Monaco version looks almost as good as this designer version, then why the heck am I spending thousands of dollars more for this designer version?” It raises the question of value. I think that the way to survive that is for a luxury brand to make sure that there really is value behind the thousand dollar price tag and not just a label.

Part and parcel with the speeding up of the industry is an idea that I’ve seen advanced a lot in the past year, regarding the ends of trends. Some people are suggesting that we no longer experience trends in fashion the way we used to, that it’s just everything happening all the time now. Do you think that’s accurate? Or do you think we’re still subject to trends in the traditional sense?

Well, if by traditional sense you mean that this particular look kind of just sweeps across the country and all of a sudden every woman is wearing mini-skirts, or every guy is wearing, I don’t know, a leisure suit, I think that era is over, but there are definitely shifts in fashion that you see move across the culture from high-end to low, or vice-versa, or however. Some of them last much longer than others and some of them are quite short lived.

I’m thinking about the impact that Celine’s minimalism has had. That was definitely something that was a trend and that influenced the way that people thought about dressing. Then the pendulum began to swing the other way.

And then there are things like sneakers as acceptable footwear for almost any occasion. I think that if you could say that that’s not a trend anymore, that’s just a shift in our cultural sense of what is appropriate at any given time.

When you introduce Stephen Burrows in your book, you paint he and his circle as very comfortable with the kind of gender-fluid fashion that’s currently having a moment with Alessandro Michele at Gucci, Jonathan Anderson, and so on. Reading some of the coverage of these designers, you’d think what they were doing was unprecedented — do you think that’s true? Or is it more hyperbole and short memory?

I was writing about the recent wave and actually did reference Stephen’s mindset. I think some of the coverage today treats gender neutrality as something unprecedented because it is a trend with a pretty decent tailwind. I’d say the industry-wide interest in it surpasses what was going on in Stephen’s heyday. That said, it’s always dangerous to treat anything in fashion as unprecedented. So much of fashion is repetitive. For Stephen, a lot of his contribution has been lost to history, despite the City Museum of New York retrospective of his work a few years ago. So  yes, I’d say the current coverage is a combination of hyperbole and short memory, plus the new media reality that allows us to see what people are doing in all sorts of nooks and crannies and then connect the dots.

It seems to me that there’s no industry that places as much importance on its advertising as much as fashion does. I don’t know of any other industry where the trade publications and the papers of record of that industry will rank ad campaigns for the season. Why do you think fashion cares so much about its advertising?

Interesting question. I never considered that. Although, I was just writing about the September issues and I had just noted that companies will brag about the advertising campaign that they have in the September issue of Vogue or Bazaar or something, as though they didn’t pay for the privilege of having the add in there.

I think in part because it is one of the few industries that sells a product that is so reliant on smoke and mirrors, on magic, on dreams, on desire. Unless you are the Gap, or Hanes, you’re not really selling clothes that people need. You’re tapping into their desire. The way that you make that happen is through the advertising. It’s an industry where you have some of the most beautiful advertising, where the line between what is editorial and what is advertising is really blurred because the same photographers, the same stylists, the same creative directors regularly go between the two worlds.

Q&A by Adam Wray, Curator of FashionREDEF. You can follow Adam on REDEF and Twitter (@FashionREDEF, @terminal_avenue), or reach him at adam.wray@redefgroup.com