Fashion journalist Katharine K. Zarrella \u201908 makes no apologies for who she is: \u201cfearless, unbothered, and unhinged.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such boldness has marked \u2014 and sparked \u2014 her fashion reporting career, which has included stints with Women\u2019s Wear Daily<\/em>, V Magazine<\/em>, the Wall Street Journal<\/em>, and, most recently, with Document Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, before her name was \u201con the list\u201d at VIP-only fashion events, she\u2019d get in \u2014 somehow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was not afraid of being screamed at,\u201d says Zarrella, who once wore Ala\u00efa hot pants, fishnets, thigh-high boots, a one-arm leather jacket, and Chanel cap when caught climbing a brick wall to see a Jason Wu show. She apologized, but insisted, \u201c\u2018I HAVE to see this show\u2019 \u2014 and I did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n These days, \u201ceveryday experiences\u201d have included a warehouse photoshoot where a naked Lady Gaga awaited a selection of archival Alexander McQueen clothes, the photographer\u2019s two Great Danes roamed, and a tuxedoed bartender served cocktails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it\u2019s Zarrella who often draws notice, in her omnipresent turbans, top hats, and funereal yet sculptural garb. With such customary attire, she\u2019s no fan of Halloween, \u201cbecause people on the street assume I\u2019m in costume.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her attitude and determination have helped her slice through the snark-infested waters of fashion to become the Wall Street Journal\u2019s<\/em> fashion director in 2019 and, most recently, fashion critic-at-large for the independent fashion magazine Document Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI write like I talk,\u201d says Zarrella, who loves punny double entendres and cheeky headlines (for a 2023 WSJ<\/em> story on worn-in fashion: \u201cShould you beat up your Birken?\u201d). She\u2019ll also take unpopular stances, as in a recent New York Times<\/em> guest essay in which she decried big-name brands for becoming \u201cobscenely, disgracefully, inconceivably costly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zarrella\u2019s fashion obsession began early. Her \u00fcber chic mother, an anthropologist and philanthropist, indulged both of their style whims. Classmates teased her for preferring tulle puff skirts to jeans. \u201cI refused to wear pants,\u201d says Zarrella \u2014 who was \u201cmore outrageous\u201d than her mom, \u201cbut she understood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She also enjoyed writing, yet never imagined making a living from her passions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At Colgate, she majored in English and lucked into a summer internship with Women\u2019s Wear Daily<\/em>. \u201cThat\u2019s when I decided I was going to do this the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She later interned with designer Zac Posen, \u201cwhen he was hot, hot, hot,\u201d holding fabric as he draped it, packing his travel bags \u2014 and ferrying his poodle to and from grooming appointments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A hiring freeze in publishing greeted the aspiring fashion writer upon graduating from Colgate in 2008. So she moved to Paris, as she\u2019d vowed to her mother on a trip at age 12. \u201cI recall saying, \u2018I have no idea what I want to do, but I\u2019m going to do it in Paris.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She returned to New York a few months later, where she covered fashion week \u2014 though not always invited. After sneaking in and making her way backstage, she wasn\u2019t afraid to approach designers and launch into her questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her favorite designers are surrealistic, irreverent, witty, and not for the faint of heart. In those days, she financed her fetish for Ala\u00efa, Schiaparelli, and Comme des Gar\u00e7ons writing for indie magazines such as i-D, Dazed<\/em>, and the Dossier Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But she loathed interviewing celebs, recalling a party where she ranted that fashion coverage should focus on the art of making clothes \u201cand not some idiot in the front row.\u201d A man nearby overheard \u2014 and offered Zarrella a writing job on the spot. She accepted before learning that he was Christopher Bollen, then\u2013editor-in-chief of Interview<\/em> magazine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s how my whole career started. He knew everybody, people saw my work, and I started getting commissions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To hone her skills, she earned a master\u2019s in fashion journalism at London\u2019s lauded Central Saint Martins (CSM) in 2012. She later landed at Style.com, then V Magazine<\/em> and its men\u2019s fashion offshoot VMAN<\/em>, all based in Manhattan. In 2016 she launched digital platform Fashion Unfiltered (\u201cno fluff, just fashion\u201d), now part of CSM\u2019s master\u2019s program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Wall Street Journal\u2019s<\/em> fashion director from 2019\u201324, she\u2019d try to sneak her racy headlines past editors. (\u201cClothes Before Hoes\u201d almost got through for a gardening feature.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, Zarrella lives in New York \u2014 amid 300 hats and mannequins \u2014 with her three rabbits: Schiaparelli, Coco, and Dal\u00ed. The pets accompany their owner to Nantucket when she works on her novel, a satire of the publishing industry, and feed her lifelong obsession with Alice in Wonderland<\/em> \u2014 a fitting literary metaphor for Zarrella\u2019s perspective on fashion at large: \u201cI love clothes that transport me \u2014 lift me out of this world to another one,\u201d she says. \u201cI still want to be down that rabbit hole, but in a happy place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Katharine Zarrella \u201908 has a fashion reporting career that’s as bold as her wardrobe. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":17754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2847,2841,2839,2844,2845,2842,2840,2843,2846,2838],"coauthors":[1890],"class_list":["post-17074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-endeavor","tag-avant-garde-fashion","tag-bold-fashion-style","tag-central-saint-martins","tag-document-journal","tag-fashion-critic","tag-fashion-journalist","tag-fashion-reporting","tag-haute-couture","tag-katharine-zarrella","tag-wall-street-journal-fashion"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-4ro","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/05\/emilligan_VC_090524_NYFW-KZ-finals099-2_edit.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17074"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17288,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17074\/revisions\/17288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17074"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=17074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}