The Calvin Klein Collection spring 2015 runway show. Photo: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week
Achieving the status of street style star requires serious effort, but it often has nothing to do with one's importance in the industry's hierarchy, which, during fashion week, is designated by what row you sit in at the shows. There are a number of powerful front row VIPs you'll never see posing for the photographers, and whom we've listed here for you to get to know.
Editors like Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington, identifiable in their own right even before "The September Issue," and popular glossy mag editors in chief who also skip past the hoopla outside the shows didn't make our list — and neither did anyone made highly visible by appearing on a TV show or video series. There are many buyers and executives who fall into this category, but we focused on editors, writers and stylists whose bylines are much more recognizable than their faces — and who still get front row priority seating season after season. The actresses, bloggers and "It" girls come and go, but these folks have been there through it all.
Read on for our list of low profile — but important — fashion editors, writers and stylists.
Nicole Phelps and Dirk Standen
Nicole Phelps and Dirk Standen in 2012. Photo: Rabbani and Solimene Photography/Getty Images
The former Style.com colleagues are still at Conde Nast. Phelps is the director of the new Vogue Runway and Standen has been named editor-in-chief of 23 Stories, the publishing company's native content division.
Robin Givhan
Robin Givhan in 2015. Photo: Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Robin Givhan
Givhan is The Washington Post's fashion critic. She has previously written for Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Essence, New York magazine and many more. She won a Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2006 for her work at the Post.
Katie Grand
Katie Grand in 2015. Photo: Jacopo Raule/Getty Images
The stylist and founding editor-in-chief of Love magazine is known for her long-term collaboration with Marc Jacobs.
Sarah Mower
Sarah Mower in 2015. Photo: Foc Kan/WireImage
Mower has written for Style.com and The Daily Telegraph and is now Vogue's chief critic. Her front row status is so important to the magazine that Anna Wintour once gave up a front row seat for her at a Valentino show. The London-based journalist is also the chair of the British Fashion Council's NEWGEN committee and was even made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her services to the fashion industry in 2012.
Edward Nardoza and James Fallon
Ed Nardoza and James Fallon in 2005. Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Nardoza has been editor-in-chief of Women's Wear Daily since 1991 and Fallon has been editor of the same publication since 2001.
Bridget Foley
Bridget Foley in 2012. Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Barneys New York
Foley is the executive editor of Women's Wear Daily, where she has worked since the mid-'80s. She's known for her column, "Bridget Foley's Diary."
Vanessa Friedman, Stuart Emmrich and Alexandra Jacobs
Vanessa Friedman, Stuart Emmrich and Alexandra Jacobs in 2014. Photo: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for 'The New York Times'
The three work at The New York Times where Friedman is the fashion director and chief fashion critic, Emmrich is the Styles section editor and Jacobs is a fashion critic and features writer.
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Kristina O'Neill and Magnus Berger
Kristina O'Neill and Magnus Berger in 2015. Photo: Ben Gabbe/Getty Images
O'Neill, formerly of Harper's Bazaar, has been the editor-in-chief of WSJ. Magazine since 2012. She hired Berger as the publication's creative director the same year.
Meenal Mistry
Mistry has been the fashion director of Off Duty at the Wall Street Journal since 2012. She previously reviewed shows for Style.com and has worked at WWD and W.
Christina Binkley
Christina Binkley. Photo: Wall Street Journal
Binkley is a reporter and has been the Wall Street Journal's fashion and style columnist since 2007.
Jessica Diehl
Vanity Fair's Jessica Diehl and WSJ's Magnus Berger in 2015. Photo: Ben Gabbe/Getty Images
Vanity Fair's fashion and style director, photographed here with Magnus Berger, was promoted to the top job in 2010. She styled Caitlyn Jenner's landmark cover this year.
Stephen Gan
Stephen Gan with Miley Cyrus in 2014. Photo: Chelsea Lauren/Getty Images
Gan is a co-founder of Fashion Media Group, where he is the design director of CR Fashion Book and the editor-in-chief of V and VMan. On top of all that, he is the creative director of Harper’s Bazaar.
Booth Moore
Booth Moore in 2014. Photo by Ari Perilstein/Getty Images for 'Vogue'
Moore has been the Los Angeles Times's fashion critic since 2004. Before joining the newspaper in 1999, she was a reporter at the Manchester Journal and The Washington Post.
Roopal Patel
Roopal Patel in 2014. Photo: Chelsea Lauren/Getty Images
Just last week, Patel was named fashion director at Saks Fifth Avenue. Before that she was a fashion consultant for clients such as the CFDA, Ostwald Helgason and Farfetch. Before that, she was the senior fashion director at Bergdorf Goodman, the senior fashion director for Neiman Marcus and the executive fashion director at Moda Operandi.
Maya Singer
Maya Singer in 2012. Photo: Ben Gabbe/WireImage
Formerly a writer and editor at Style.com, Singer now writes for Vogue.com.
The Fug Girls
Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan in 2010. Photo: Getty
The popular writing duo the Fug Girls, also known as Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, have been writing about celebrity fashion on their site since 2004 and have covered fashion week for New York Magazine and Cosmopolitan.
Melissa Rubini
Rubini is a former stylist and now fashion director of InStyle.
Elissa Santisi
Former Vogue style director Santisi is a contributing senior fashion editor for Harper's Bazaar who also styles for WSJ. Magazine.
