NEW YORK, United States — Vanessa Friedman, the longtime fashion editor of The Financial Times, has joined The New York Times as fashion director and chief fashion critic. She will start at the newspaper next month and oversee fashion reporting and coverage for both The New York Times and The International New York Times editions.
“I’m thrilled to welcome Vanessa to the Times. She is the perfect journalist to be our leading voice on global fashion,” said executive editor Jill Abramson, in a statement.
Friedman will take on the dual roles left by Suzy Menkes, who announced last week that she is leaving The International New York Times (formerly The International Herald Tribune) for Condé Nast International, and Cathy Horyn, who left her position as fashion editor of The New York Times in January for personal reasons.
Importantly, Friedman will also play a crucial role in organising the newspaper's lucrative annual luxury conference, now in its 14th year. The next installment of the conference is set to be held at the Mandarin Oriental Miami Hotel from December 1st to 3rd to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach. Friedman will join a Times fashion team that includes Deborah Needleman, editor of T Magazine, and Stuart Emmrich, editor of the main newspaper's Style section. At the FT, Friedman helped to coordinate the the paper's Business of Luxury conference, which was last held in June of 2013 in Vienna.
A graduate of Princeton University, Vanessa Friedman was the first fashion editor of the London-based Financial Times, a position that she has held since 2003. Prior to that, she was the founding features and fashion director for InStyle UK and a regular contributor to The Economist, The New Yorker and Vogue. There is no word yet on her replacement.
