Meet the New Yorkers Who Make Fashion Week Happen

Editor-in-Chief of Style.com

Lives: West Village

Style.com Editor-in-Chief Dirk Standen is not one of those fashion-world luddites who finds technology suspiciously unchic. He has an eye for images and objects that elicit the most desire, and he presents them so that an online audience can find them, efficiently and obsessively. It’s hard to stop clicking at Style.com — images of runway shows are posted seemingly simultaneously from the catwalk. During Fashion Week, Standen oversees Style.com’s show coverage. That means attending runway shows during the day, going to dinners and parties at night, then editing reviews and writing headlines until early morning. He does the same thing for 30 days in a row. This year is his fifteenth fashion show season.

Victoria: What gets you out of bed in the morning?
Dirk: Coffee.

Q: What’s your favorite store in your neighborhood?
A: Casa [in the West Village] has the best selection of magazines in the world, and if they don’t stock [what you want], they’ll help you track it down.

Q: What do you find most compelling about the West Village?
A: Even though they keep insisting on putting up fancy new glass buildings, it still has a human scale.

Q: Your Fashion Week DO and DON’T?
A: Do try to enjoy every moment. Don't take it for granted.

Q: Who was the most glamorous person in the world when you were a teenager?
A: Debbie Harry.

Q: Who is the most glamorous person now?
A: My wife.

Q: Who in the fashion world do you admire?
A: Sarah Andelman from the Paris store Colette has an unerring eye for cool design, and she's incredibly gracious and unpretentious. Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele, the stylist, truly knows fashion but also knows how to have fun with it. She's a force of nature. My team [members] at Style.com are the ultimate professionals. They get the job done, and they don't get caught up in the bullshit.

Q: What Fashion Week shows are you especially excited for this year?
A: I'm intrigued to see Alexander Wang's debut at Balenciaga and Hedi Slimane's sophomore collection at Saint Laurent.

Q: What do you think of dandyism these days?
A: Most of the usual subjects you see on the street style blogs aren't dandies. They're just overdressed. They used to say you didn't notice what a well-dressed man was wearing until after he'd left the room.

Q: What’s your favorite movie based on style?
A: "Performance."

Q: What’s your favorite way to wear the Standen scarf?
A: The beauty of these scarves, which my wife Susan designs and sells in places like Barneys, is that you can wear them any way you want and they look good.

Q: What post on Style.com has gotten the most traffic of all time?
A: The Chanel show invariably gets the most page views, something like 2.8 million the first 24 hours last season.

Q: How soon after the shows do you post the images you've captured from them?
A: We now post most of them instantly.

Q: What’s the best Fashion Week party you’ve been to?
A: The best parties happen when you're not expecting them, which usually means outside Fashion Week.

Q: Is it true that brands make their money on perfume and handbags, and not the clothes?
A: Yes.

Q: List your top three picks for emerging talent.
A: I could tell you, but I'd like to hold on to them a bit longer before someone poaches them.