Watch Out, Refinery29: Yahoo Fashion is Getting Really Cool
First, there was the news that makeup master Bobbi Brown was going to be helming all beauty coverage at Yahoo. (Yes, Yahoo.) Now Elle creative director and all-around fabulous person Joe Zee has confirmed that he’ll be editing the site’s fashion coverage. (Yep, we’re still talking about that Yahoo.) Um, what? This is almost as weird as that time André Leon Talley announced he’d be the artistic director for shoe e-emporium Zappos. What’s next? Anna Wintour ditching Vogue for the Home Shopping Network?
The fashion world is all sorts of topsy-turvy now, with bloggers appearing on Broadway (17-year-old blogger phenom and Rookie editor Tavi Genvinson will star in This Is Our Youth alongside Michael Cera next year), creative directors popping up on HBO shows (see: Jenna Lyons on Girls), and designers playing restaurateur (Roberto Cavalli opened an Italian eatery in Miami in January). So Yahoo being the next big thing in fashion, well, I’m just saying that it’s not entirely impossible, even though a colleague of mine likened Yahoo to “a dinosaur and the meteor is a day away from earth.” (We’re very scientific over here.)
It makes sense: As traditional print magazines seek to find and retain audiences in the era of fashion websites, blogs, e-zines and editorial e-commerce sites, the web world seems limitless and enticing. (Hey, you’re reading this site now, aren’t you?) But while some moves make sense, the Brown/Zee Yahoo moves are, at least on the surface, total head-scratchers. But I’ve got to hand it to Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer: If she’s going to turn the site’s fashion and beauty coverage around, she’s got two of the heaviest hitters out there.
But she’ll need more than those two to really raise the well-groomed eyebrows of the fashion world. Here’s the dream team I think she needs:
1. Pharrell. I mean, come on. He can make anything cool. Even an Arby’s hat and singing a song about being happy. He could be a contributing menswear and culture/A&E editor.
2. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Love ’em, hate ’em, miss when they made movies like this, the duo set style trends and have managed to infiltrate the seemingly impenetrable world (especially for actresses that made movies like this) of high fashion. They’d make good market editors.
3. Andy Cohen. Let him take charge of Yahoo’s video content. The man turned Bravo into the guilty pleasure of an entire nation, for God’s sake.
4. Karl Lagerfeld. Every genius team needs a dose of crazy. Uncle Karl brings this—and his cat, Choupette!—to the table. FINGERLESS GLOVES FOR EVERYONE. Just let him do whatever he wants. You can’t pin this man down.
5. Beyoncé. She doesn’t even have to do anything. Just throw her name in there somewhere and it will be cool. Maybe she’ll toss in Solange, too.
Beyoncé and Solange at Coachella. Photo by Jeff Kravitz/Filmmagic.
