Written by Bachelor of Communication student Phoebe Le Page.
Fashion Weeks — New York, London, Milan and Paris— continue to capture our feeds, and our imagination. There is always something happening in the world of fashion and Glynis Traill-Nash, fashion editor at The Australian, is likely to be there reporting with the inside word.
Two weeks prior to jetting off to Italy for Milan Fashion Week, Traill-Nash attended her third national Women in Media conference, which this year was hosted at Bond University. As guests networked and enjoyed refreshments on the Friday evening, she took to the stage to give a live jazz performance.
“The first year Cath [Webber] asked if I would want to sing and I was like ‘sure!’ and so it’s just become a thing now,” she says. “I’m doing the Perth [Women in Media event] in about a month.”
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The writer, jazz singer and lover of vintage YSL has been a fashion editor for more than a decade, attending some of the most extravagant haute couture and ready-to-wear shows around the globe and meeting some of the industry’s greatest designers.
Despite the seemingly luxurious lifestyle, and the accompanying chic title, when asked what the biggest misconception about being a fashion editor is, her response was instantaneously “the glamour!”. “It’s about 5 per cent glamour and 95 per cent grunt,” she says. “The funny thing is, I think everyone thinks there is a team of us, there isn’t. It’s just me.”
Recently, sustainable and ethically sourced fashion has become a subject of interest and Traill-Nash is a “big believer” in this movement.
“I think we are heading in the right direction,” she says. “The industry has a handful of champions of it and the good thing is that everybody’s talking about it now. I think there are a lot of brands who have really taken it on board. Some are already doing it and have just never spoken about it, but it’s almost impossible to be 100% sustainable.”
For aspiring fashion journalists, Traill-Nash speaks favourably of consistently being factual, always writing clean copy, and being persistent, but in a really polite way.
“Don’t be worried about the journey that you take to get to the final destination,” she says. “People are always wanting to do it now, and I understand that, but at the same time the journey can be really interesting. I think any opportunity that turns up, consider it really seriously and be open.”