I get this question a lot during the fashion week period. Sure you’ll end up reading a bunch of reviews that talk about the fabric used, the effect, how good something looks, what the crowd response was, but you’ll find that you rarely read a bad review.
Even with publications like Style.com and Elle who are “the industry” as it were you will find that reviewers often hide their negative thoughts in some sort of veiled praise. The example that most often crops up is the comparison between movie reviews and fashion reviews. There are a few brave souls in the industry that will actually say…hey this collection on the whole sucks. Lesser known publications do it all the time, but I’d venture to say they are lesser known for that reason among others.
So how does one pick a favorite, how can you truly know whether a collection really did stand out? A good number of times it comes down to personal preference. Though they will try to fool you, the reality of it is, voting with your money often is a good indicator of whether a collection is successful or not. There’s also Cathy Horyn at the New York Times who rarely minces words when it comes to a collection. The saccharin sweetness of Style.com will definitely leave a lot to be desired. Go through their reviews, it’s hard to find a bad one in the lot. Even at Papierdoll, I find sometimes that it is hard to tell whether Davina, Michelle, Caroline etc liked a collection or not. For the most part though when something is truly bad they will let you know and sometime be very vocal about it.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, do you think fashion show reviews are heavily biased towards positivity? Drop me a line: eva@papierdoll.net