Editorial Styling: Between Creative Solutions and Economic Restrictions

While scholars have explored some areas of cultural production in fashion—including photography and modelling—styling has not received substantial attention. As a result, we know very little of the history of styling and its actual practice. This article examines how the stylist emerged as a new profession within fashion magazines in the 1960s and was established as profession in its own right by the 1980s. In addition to uncovering the roots of editorial styling, the article explores the cultural and economic practices of styling for fashion magazines in the present day. It argues that the aesthetic practices of editorial styling today are inextricably linked to the economic values of the field of fashion. The findings are part of a wider project on the practice of styling. As a “cultural intermediary,” the stylist occupies a creative position between the designer and the consumer, but s/he is not simply mediating fashion according to the designer’s vision; the stylist’s own aesthetic interpretations and dispositions shape how fashion is mediated. Yet these are not given free reign but shaped by complex symbolic and economic negotiations with advertisers and press offices.