Biography
As fashion critic for The New York Times, celebrated journalist Cathy Horyn was widely recognised for her intelligent and informed reviews and critiques of the fashion industry. Appointed to the role in 1999 — only the second fashion critic to have served at the publication — Horyn’s forthright and uncompromising view resulted in the much-publicised backlash of designers such as Oscar de la Renta , Giorgio Armani and Hedi Slimane . Her professional response to these "feuds" garnered the reporter a legion of supportive followers, as well as a fair share of infamy within industry circles. In 2001, Horyn’s work was recognised by the Council of Fashion Designers of America, who awarded the critic the prestigious Eugenia Sheppard Award for fashion writing. She left her position as fashion critic for The New York Times in 2014. In 2015, she was appointed critic-at-large for The Cut, reviewing womenswear shows in New York and Paris.
A graduate of Barnard College and the prestigious Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Horyn’s early career saw the budding writer covering news beats on courts and education systems for the Associated Press in Chicago and the Virginia Pilot. In 1986, Horyn secured her first post as a fashion writer at The Detroit News, where she spent four years reporting on fashion news and events within the wider Chicago region, before joining The Washington Post in 1990. Prior to joining The Times in 1998 as a fashion reporter, Horyn contributed feature articles to Vanity Fair and has since also collaborated with publications such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and The International Herald Tribune.
Horyn has also published a series of books on fashion such as "Bare Blass," "Carine Roitfield: Irreverent" and "Impact: 50 Years of the CFDA." The journalist also penned the daily On The Runway blog for The New York Times before her 2014 departure.