Sally Singer

Sally Singer is the editor of T Magazine, The New York Times Style Magazine. Before being appointed in 2010, she had served for ten years at American Vogue, where she held the position of fashion news editor and features director. Interestingly enough, before turning to fashion, she pursued graduate studies in American History at Yale University, and then was hired as an editor for the London Review of Books. All the way to Vogue…

How would you connect fashion to elegance?
I think of elegance as a way of being at ease with the world and of putting others at ease with the world through one’s ability to link one’s aesthetics in some way, not necessarily in an harmonious way, but in an interesting way, to the preoccupations and expectations of others and in some way behave in the world with a sense of grace. That is what I think elegance is. I don’t think it has a look to it, I think it has an emotional feel to it. Fashion can help you get there, if one uses one’s wardrobe as a way of exploring the world with grace and with the kind of beauty that is not at all prescribed, that is somehow intuitive and natural.

What is the role of history and art history in your conception of fashion?
I’m slightly burdened because, as I was a history student, I used to see history developments in everything. But I don’t think that fashion as it’s played over the runways should be labored with historical references. When you can see the reference in clothes, the clothes don’t work. You should sense the reference, but fashion is always about here and now, and what’s next. It just has to be. We have what was, and it’s good!

Would you describe fashion as a language and a discourse, as Barthes did it?
One could do a semiotic read of fashion, but that seems a bit retro. I think we’ve moved beyond signs and symbols. I think of fashion as a performative popular stream in the culture: every needs to get dressed in the morning, and everybody wants to be something because of that effort. It’s an inevitable and inescapable text in our lives, whether we see it as fashion, or downgraded to clothing, or upgraded to personal style.

"Fashion defines for generations a look with which people can pick out their allies and can pick out heir foes"

The word "intellectual" was coined in a time of great political distress. Does fashion have a political role? And in which way?
Fashion defines for generations a look with which people can pick out their allies and can pick out their foes. So I think it’s very good at being a visual manifestation of where you stand. We’ve seen that even recently, in places like Tahrir Square in Cairo. It has a way of mobilising and informing the crowd. And that’s political.

How would you relate the concept of "fashion" to the one of "style"?
The usual way to do that is to say that fashion is about the trends, and the clothes, and the here and now, what’s in, what’s out, whereas style is a longer and more personal narrative. I guess that’s true. There’s a fashion industry, and there’s a style industry. But the fashion industry has a much more definitive influence.

What does fashion have to do with intellectuality ?
Absolutely nothing. And it shouldn’t be burdened by that weight. It can't hold up to it. It just can’t. I’m tempted to go back to Roald Dahl and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory: there’s a line in the Tim Burton version - candy don’t have to serve a purpose, that’s why it’s candy. Fashion needs to have the ability to be that weighless to therefore retain its magical power and, in a sense, its importance.

At Vogue, and now at T Magazine, it has always been very important for you to include fashion in a broader conception of culture. In which way is fashion part of culture ?
I believe fashion, when it serves you well, allows you to get up in the morning, get out and not think about what you’re up to. It’s most wonderful when it frees your mind from thinking about other things. So clothes that work the best allow you to be the self that you want to be in the world. Maybe it’s a taller self, maybe it’s a thinner self, maybe it’s a more powerful self, maybe it’s a more interesting self… You become yourself in the world and, by doing that, you don’t have to think about yourself all day. You’re not wondering if your bum looks big in the trousers, or if your shirt fits the room, or you’re wearing the right tie…You actually know that you’re comfortable inhabiting the look you’ve created for yourself, whatever that look is. And then you can think about the world. In the act of being some egotistical self, you actually get rid of the ego at a certain point of the day. And that’s, to me, the most important part of it.

Some people say that fashion’s ever changing moves make it the sign of decadent times. How do you feel towards that statement ?
First, let’s not forget that everybody needs to get dressed in the morning – you do have to put something on the top, something on the bottom, and probably a shoe, depending on where you live. So that’s about utility, and doesn’t have anything to do with decadence. All the sort of permutations of what clothes are, well, sure, some of them are decadent, and that lifestyle choices can be seen as decadent. But who’s to say ? One’s decadent times are another’s playful and responsible times. In everything involving lifestyle, it’s about personal responsibility. It’s for individuals to participate in and thereby shape the fashion industry they want to represent their times. If people buy indiscriminately and whimsically and have closets full of unworn garments, then you’re going to have a fashion industry that’s going to be out of control. It’s for us as a society to shape the system we want: I feel that way towards the political system, I feel that way towards the corporate system. We have the system we deserve. Lifestyle doesn’t have to be perceived as decadent. It can be very much about responsibility, forward-thinking, and civic-mindedness.

In two weeks Donatien will be interviewing the blogger The Sartorialist Scott Schuman.