The Niki Bruce Interview
on Singapore’s fashion industry, advice for me starting out, Covid-19
During my brief editorial career at fashion magazines, “Niki Bruce” was a common insider name bounded around by colleagues and friends who’d heard of her through secondhand sources. Perhaps even more notorious than her blue hair (she’s worn the same shade for 10 years) is her reputation of shrewdness as editor-in-chief of Her World PLUS and stint as editorial director of Honeycombers.
Looking her up, one of her more critical stories, “Opinion: The Best, The Worst And The Scandals At Singapore Fashion Week 2017…” was the most accurate representation I could identify her by. While she was unsparing with praise for new designers and young models (which I applaud), she was also comically uncompromising in her slaughter of designer copycats—her sentiments resonated even with Diet Prada!
So it seemed fair that despite not knowing Niki personally, she was not an “everyday” editor. Her priorities were editorial-first, rather than filling advertising pages and cosying up to brands and socialites for freebies (which may seem ironic given the current status quo across many platforms); and yet she’s managed to lead media for so many years. How?
The blue hair.
It’s one of the few colours I like. It matches my eyes. I have emotional connections to colours. They’re important to me, which is ironic, because I wear a lot of black. I can see different shades of black.
It’s a signature, sign of independence from brands. As editors, you end up wearing a lot of brands to show support.
When you’ve worked for a long time, you find what works and just stick to it.
Why Singapore?
I started out as an editor before a writer, and found I was good at both. You can learn editing/writing, but some people just have it. Growing up I read and travelled a lot.
In 2008 I visited a friend in Singapore who worked at The Straits Times, met the editor of ST. Months later they hired me for the redesign of ST.com. Was headhunted to help relaunch HerWorld.com. Worked there for 9 years.
You helped magazines go online.
Then, SPH websites were “placeholders”, updated maybe monthly. Magazines were anti-online, they were terrified of it cannibalising print, didn’t understand how to make money off it, how much content was needed for it.
Tried Her World PLUS when magazines were trying the “umbrella” system of putting all their products under one URL. This was during the rise of sites like Refinery29 and BOF. We went from being treated like poor cousins to being a vital part of sales packages. I developed their Facebook, Instagram accounts. Built Simply Her, Her World Brides, Female, Nu You.
The great thing about digital is I could show numbers to our bosses.
My editor-in-chief couldn’t use her laptop at home because she’d lost her charger and didn’t understand she could buy a new one. These were 65 year-olds who’d been in media since they were 18.
You could literally see print was on the way out: between 2010 to 2012, budgets were cut, head counts went down, people who’d worked for 20 years were leaving to become bakers or florists.
There’s no reason for print today. All the exclusives break online anyway.
These days, ST and SPH Magazines don’t make money. They live off money from their buildings, real estate investments, shares/stocks. The only reason they’re still running is because the government needs a mouthpiece.
Why do so many editors still defend print?
They’re lying to themselves. With print, you can spend $10K on a fashion shoot, take a day out the office or even be sponsored to fly to another country. That’s glamour, looking at beautiful clothes, creating great images. That’s what creatives don’t want to lose.
It’s difficult justifying that money for online. It’s changed, to a certain extent (think NOWNESS), but a lot of those jobs are done by freelancers.
There’s nostalgia; a lot of editors are old. Before social media, people who were sent to shows could draw runway looks, describe the colours/fabrics, mail them back to the office. Only photographers had cameras.
Print had power for so long that when digital, social media and influencers came along they shook editors off their Chanel brogues.
You mentioned vanity publishing.
Think CR Fashion Book by Carine Roitfeld (she started it after leaving French Vogue); it publishes 3 times a year, just so she can get freebies and sit front row at Chanel. Same thing with celebrities who hire ghostwriters to write books for them.
The new gen media diet.
They don’t buy newspapers, magazines because they kill trees and have carbon footprint with delivery. They don’t trust big names because they didn’t grow up seeing it in their sisters’, brothers’ hands.
They don’t know the idea of waiting for a magazine. Which has given rise to fast fashion, #OOTD, TikTok (which is even less permanent than Instagram). Nobody cares.
Editorial woes.
When I came to Singapore, I wrote about Raoul (under FJ Benjamin). Doug Benjamin called to thank me for writing about them. Having worked in Australia and China, you always supported local. But no, in Singapore you only write about brands that are international or pay. Her World wouldn’t feature Raoul until they had handbags in Harrods, were featured in Elle UK; suddenly they were all “Singapore brand does well”.
Singapore’s turned from a fashion to shopping capital.
You go into media thinking you can have an opinion—bullshit. 90% of the time you’re sucking up a brand’s arse at an event you didn’t even want to go to telling them their handbags are gorgeous when they’re crap, or writing exactly that.
You can only have an opinion about a brand who doesn’t buy advertisements. Even then, you have to justify to your editor or their boss why they’d never buy advertising.
Because no one buys magazines anymore, all the money comes from clients. There’s no real fashion criticism anymore. There’s only Cathy Horyn, Robin Givhan [and Tim Blanks?] who write thoughtful criticism. Nobody knows why they like Gucci, they’ve just been told to.
Everyone in the influencer market is crap. They’re not trained as journalists. They don’t know what fabrics they’re looking at, they don’t know the history of brands.
Fashion issues.
The world doesn’t need fashion; almost all of it goes to landfill. The only conundrum is the poor factory workers in Bangladesh and China who need $5 t-shirts to be sold to feed their kids.
The industry is becoming dumber and dumber. It was interesting following the most recent fashion season, everything looked the same. Algorithms have affected design; designers are making things they think will sell based on clicks. As a user also you never see anything new if you don’t actively put up a new search.
My fashion friends in Japan told me there’s not been a new underground cult trend since Mori Girl which started ~2006. Street magazines have closed down because there’s no one else to photograph anymore. Not only are there fewer youth, those youth are all influenced by K-pop, which is influenced by American pop — they’re all wearing the same thing!
People are wearing exactly the same thing today as they did 10 years ago.
I grew up in Kuching, Malaysia. All the girls wore beautifully coloured, matching baju kurung. Vaguely, one of the more interesting areas of fashion is modest dressing, because they’ve to work in strict boundaries. But then comes conundrums like, if you’re not muslim is it okay to wear hijab/turban/headscarf? I used to wear a headscarf while growing out my hair. Now I’d think twice about it; am I misappropriating someone else’s culture?
Covid-19.
I’m hoping the coronavirus combined with awareness of sustainability within the industry and make change. Big brands are finally realising they have to be at least perceived as being more sustainable.
People are going to realise the newest fashion doesn’t matter. Try vintage, recycled clothing. Hobbies will come back. #mymakes is trending. With slow life, “Keep Calm and Carry On”, WFH, people don’t need to wear suit or dress up every day. Style may disappear or become more assertive.
We’ll either become kinder to each other, or, like those who hoarded toilet paper, become more scared of losing things.
Advice.
A lot of us who’ve worked a long time are cynical, burnt. I don’t think there’s no point to it, but you need to do it in a new way that makes change. It’s good to go in with enthusiasm, keep your eyes open.
Build a voice, personality, authority. Get contacts, grow. When you’re looking for work, make sure you get permission to keep your blog.
