{{short description|Fashion-industry trade journal}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}} {{Infobox newspaper | logo = Women's Wear Daily logo.svg | image = WWD 2024-12-13 issue cover.webp | image_alt = Cover of WWD magazine showing a model running in a fashion show with spectator taking photos or videos and clapping | caption = Cover of December 13, 2024 issue | type = Online publication | format = Magazine | founded = {{Start date and age|1910|7|13}} | owners = Penske Media Corporation | chief_editor = Michael Atmore, WWD; Chief Brand Officer, Fairchild Media Group | circulation = | headquarters = 475 Fifth Ave. 3rd Floor New York, NY 10017 | ISSN = 0043-7581 | website = {{URL|https://wwd.com/}} }}
'''''Women's Wear Daily''''' (also known as '''''WWD''''') is a fashion-industry trade journal often referred to as the "Bible of fashion".<ref>Miller, Lia. Women's wear dayA [https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30C11FA3E580C778DDDAA0894DD404482 "Women's Wear Daily Setting Its Sights on the Luxury Market."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131216093754/http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30C11FA3E580C778DDDAA0894DD404482 |date=2013-12-16 }} ''The New York Times''. (March 14, 2005).</ref><ref name="horyn">Horyn, Cathy. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E2DD1538F933A1575BC0A96F958260 "Breaking Fashion News With a Provocative Edge"]. ''The New York Times''. (August 20, 1999).</ref> Founded in 1910, the publication is widely cited for its reporting on the global fashion, beauty, and retail industries, and is known for its continuous coverage of industry news, business developments, and market trends. For more than a century, WWD has served as a primary source of record for professionals across fashion and retail. <ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-08-12 |title=About Us |url=https://wwd.com/about-us/ |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=WWD |language=en-US}}</ref>
''WWD'' is the flagship publication of Fairchild Media Group, which is owned by Penske Media Corporation.<ref name="rothenberg">Rothenberg, Randall. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE0D6143FF934A2575BC0A96E948260 "From Pauline Trigere, a Dressing Down"]. ''The New York Times''. (August 17, 1988).</ref> In April 2015, the paper transitioned from a daily print format to a weekly print edition alongside a daily digital edition.<ref>Edward Nardoza, [http://wwd.com/media-news/publishing/letter-editor-wwd-turning-the-page-10116610/ Letter From the Editor: Turning the Page. Today we say goodbye to an old friend, a morning habit for generations. This is the final newsprint edition of WWD.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160916053234/http://wwd.com/media-news/publishing/letter-editor-wwd-turning-the-page-10116610/ |date=2016-09-16 }} wwd.com April 24, 2015</ref> In 2017, WWD further evolved its publishing model to emphasize digital content, while maintaining print editions tied to major fashion weeks and key industry events.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Main |first1=Sami |title=Women's Wear Daily Scales Back Print Editions and Cuts Staff|url=https://www.adweek.com/digital/womens-wear-daily-scales-back-print-editions-and-cuts-staff/ |access-date=16 June 2020 |publisher=AdWeek |date=23 February 2017}}</ref>
In parallel, WWD expanded its business to include live events, conferences, and awards programming focused on fashion, beauty, retail, and culture. These include the long-running WWD Apparel & Retail CEO Summit,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-features/sarah-burton-willy-chavarria-wwd-design-honors-1238115539/|title=Sarah Burton and Willy Chavarria to Receive Top WWD Design Honors|author=WWD Staff|date=2025-09-08|work=WWD|access-date=2026-05-07|language=en-US|url-status=live}}</ref> the Beauty Inc Awards, WWD Honors, the Footwear News Achievement Awards (FNAAs), WWD Style Awards,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/james-fallon-amanda-smith-and-michael-atmore-attend-womens-news-photo/2255578795|title=Women's Wear Daily Presents The 2026 WWD Style Awards|author=Getty|date=2026-01-09|work=Getty|access-date=2026-01-09|language=en-US|url-status=live}}</ref> as well as live red-carpet coverage connected to major cultural moments including the Golden Globes. The brand has also expanded its consumer-facing journalism through initiatives such as WWD Weekend, the global luxury lifestyle hub launched in 2022, while continuing to prioritize timely, factual reporting across print, digital, video, and social platforms.
This evolution reflected broader shifts in media consumption while maintaining WWD’s role as a consistent and authoritative news source for the fashion industry.
==History== ===Founding and John Fairchild=== ''WWD'' was founded by Edmund Fairchild on July 13, 1910, as an outgrowth of the menswear journal ''Daily News Record''.<ref name="trager">Trager, James. ''The New York Chronology: A Compendium of Events, People, and Anecdotes from the Dutch to the Present.'' HarperCollins (2003), [https://books.google.com/books?id=xvGhQoNT27IC&pg=PA325 p325] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140708230136/http://books.google.com/books?id=xvGhQoNT27IC&pg=PA325&sig=5LiQE4R34zIa17Y25crXLGv75Kw |date=2014-07-08 }}. {{ISBN|0-06-074062-0}}.</ref> The publication quickly acquired a firm standing in the New York clothing industry, due to the influence of its first advertisers. Edith Rosenbaum Russell served as ''Women's Wear Daily''{{'s}} first Paris correspondent.<ref>''Women's Wear Daily'', August 22, 1911.</ref> Reporters for the publication were sometimes assigned to the last row of couture shows, but the publication gained popularity by the late 1950s.<ref name="horyn"/>
John B. Fairchild, who became the European bureau chief of Fairchild Publications in 1955 and the publisher of ''WWD'' in 1960, improved ''WWD''{{'s}} standing by focusing on the human side of fashion. He turned his newspaper's attention to the social scene of fashion designers and their clients, and helped manufacture a "cult of celebrity" around designers.<ref name="horyn"/> Fairchild also played hardball to help his circulation. After two couturiers forbade press coverage until one month after buyers had seen their clothes, Fairchild published photos and sketches anyway. He even sent reporters to fashion houses disguised as messengers, or had them observe designers' new styles from windows of buildings opposite fashion houses. "I have learned in fashion to be a little savage", he wrote in his memoir.<ref name="gross cite">Fairchild, John. ''The Fashionable Savages''. Doubleday (1965). (Cited in Gross, Michael. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE7D61330F93BA35756C0A961948260 "Women's Wear Daily and Feuds in Fashion"]. ''The New York Times''. (May 8, 1987).)</ref> Fairchild was publisher of the magazine from 1960 to 1996.<ref name="horyn"/>
Under Fairchild, the company's feuds were also legendary.<ref name="horyn"/><ref name="rothenberg"/> When a designer's statements or work offended Fairchild, he would retaliate, sometimes banning any reference to them in his newspaper for years at a stretch.<ref name="rothenberg"/> The newspaper famously sparred with Hubert de Givenchy,<ref name="rothenberg"/><ref name="gross"/> Cristóbal Balenciaga,<ref name="gross">Gross, Michael. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE7D61330F93BA35756C0A961948260 "Women's Wear Daily and Feuds in Fashion"]. ''The New York Times''. (May 8, 1987).</ref> John Weitz,<ref name="rothenberg"/><ref name="gross"/> Azzedine Alaia,<ref name="gross"/> Perry Ellis,<ref name="gross"/> Yves Saint Laurent,<ref name="horyn"/> Giorgio Armani,<ref name="horyn"/><ref name="rothenberg"/><ref name="gross"/> Bill Blass,<ref name="rothenberg"/><ref name="gross"/> Geoffrey Beene (four times – the first over Lynda Bird Johnson's White House wedding dress design which Beene promised to keep secret until the wedding day,<ref>[http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/geoffreybeene.html Geoffrey Beene Biography (Fashion Designer) — Infoplease.com<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130731200324/http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/geoffreybeene.html |date=2013-07-31 }}</ref> and later over the size of an ad in another of Fairchild's publications; Beene's allowing a rival publication to photograph his home; and a ''WWD'' reporter Beene did not like),<ref name="horyn"/><ref name="gross"/> James Galanos,<ref name="gross"/> Mollie Parnis,<ref name="gross"/> Oscar de la Renta,<ref name="gross"/> and Norman Norell (who was demoted from "Fashion Great" to "Old Master" in the journal's pages),<ref name="horyn"/> among others. In response, some designers forbade their representatives from speaking to WWD reporters or disinviting ''WWD'' reporters from their fashion shows.<ref name="gross"/> In general, though, those excluded "kept their mouths shut and [took] it on the chin."<ref>Former WWD publisher James Brady. Quoted in Rothenberg, Randall. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE0D6143FF934A2575BC0A96E948260 "From Pauline Trigere, a Dressing Down"]. ''The New York Times''. (August 17, 1988).</ref> When designer Pauline Trigère, who had been excluded from the paper for three years, took out a full-page advertisement protesting the ban in the fashion section of a 1988 ''New York Times Magazine'', it was believed to be the first widely distributed counterattack on Fairchild's policy.<ref name="rothenberg"/>
===1999 to 2013: Condé Nast Publications=== In 1999, Fairchild Publications was sold by the Walt Disney Company to Advance Publications, the parent company of Condé Nast Publications.<ref>Barringer, Felicity. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CE1DB1F38F936A1575BC0A96F958260 "Fashion Magazine Industry Consolidates with a Big Deal"]. ''The New York Times''. (August 25, 1999).</ref> As a result, Fairchild Publications became a unit of Condé Nast,<ref name="hoovers">Hoover's In-Depth Company Records. "Fairchild Publications, Inc." March 21, 2007.</ref> though ''WWD'' was technically operated separately from Condé Nast's consumer publications such as ''Vogue'' and ''Glamour''.<ref name="post">MacIntosh, Jeane. "Will WWD Play It Straight for SI?". ''New York Post''. (Feb. 7, 2000).</ref>
In November 2010, ''WWD'' celebrated its 100th anniversary at the Cipriani in New York, with some of the fashion industry's leading experts including designers Alber Elbaz, Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors.<ref>[http://www.rescu.com.au/_blog/Shopping/post/Fashion_wrap_up-_WWD_celebrate_100_years,_Kate_Moss_for_TopShop_and_more/ WWD celebrate 100 years]. ''rescu.com.au''. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101106224931/http://www.rescu.com.au/_blog/Shopping/post/Fashion_wrap_up-_WWD_celebrate_100_years,_Kate_Moss_for_TopShop_and_more/ |date=2010-11-06 }}.</ref>
===2014 to present: Penske Media Corporation=== On August 19, 2014, Conde Nast sold ''Women's Wear Daily'' to Penske Media Corporation (PMC).<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/08/19/cond-nast-deal-with-penske-media/14310947/ | title=Condé Nast sells Women's Wear Daily, others to Penske Media | newspaper=USA Today | access-date=August 19, 2014 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140820170921/http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/08/19/cond-nast-deal-with-penske-media/14310947/ | archive-date=August 20, 2014 }}</ref> The purchase by PMC included ''WWD''{{'s}} sister publications ''Footwear News'', ''Menswear'', ''M Magazine'', and ''Beauty Inc'' as well as Fairchild's events business for a sale price close to $100 million.<ref>{{Cite news|title = Penske Media to Buy Fairchild From Condé Nast for Nearly $100 Million|url = https://www.wsj.com/articles/penske-media-to-buy-fairchild-publications-from-conde-nast-for-nearly-100-million-1408483778|newspaper = Wall Street Journal|access-date = 2015-12-01|issn = 0099-9660|first1 = Ben|last1 = Fritz|first2 = Jeffrey A.|last2 = Trachtenberg|url-status = live|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151208080838/http://www.wsj.com/articles/penske-media-to-buy-fairchild-publications-from-conde-nast-for-nearly-100-million-1408483778|archive-date = 2015-12-08}}</ref>
On April 12, 2015, ''WWD'' announced on their website that they would launch a weekly print format from April 23 on. A daily digital edition of ''WWD'' is also available to subscribers.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://wwd.com/business-news/media/from-the-editors-wwd-launching-weekly-format-10094216/|title=From the Editors: WWD Launching Weekly Format|author=WWD Staff|date=2015-03-12|work=WWD|access-date=2017-06-28|language=en-US|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170715200433/http://wwd.com/business-news/media/from-the-editors-wwd-launching-weekly-format-10094216/|archive-date=2017-07-15}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.thecut.com/2015/03/womens-wear-daily-to-become-a-weekly.html|title=Women's Wear Daily to Become a Weekly|work=The Cut|access-date=2017-06-28|language=en|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180129060213/https://www.thecut.com/2015/03/womens-wear-daily-to-become-a-weekly.html|archive-date=2018-01-29}}</ref>
On July 20, 2015, Penske Media Corporation (PMC) and Tribune Publishing Company announced that ''WWD'' would appear on "LATimes.com" and would also be distributed to select ''Los Angeles Times'', ''The San Diego Union-Tribune'', ''Chicago Tribune'' and ''Sun Sentinel'' subscribers 12 times per year.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lat-wwd-partnership-20150720-story.html|title=Women's Wear Daily content to appear in L.A. Times, other Tribune papers|last=Chang|first=Andrea|date=2015-07-20|work=Los Angeles Times|access-date=2017-06-28|language=en-US|issn=0458-3035|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019111515/http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lat-wwd-partnership-20150720-story.html|archive-date=2017-10-19}}</ref>
== Editions == {| class="wikitable" !Country !Circulation Dates !Editor-in-Chief !Start year !End year !Ref. |- | rowspan="6" |United States (''WWD / Women's Wear Daily'') | rowspan="6" |1910–present |John Fairchild |1964 | | |- |Michael Coady |1970 | |<ref>{{Cite web |last=Feitelberg |first=Rosemary |date=2025-08-28 |title=Former WWD Editor in Chief Michael Coady Dies at 86 |url=https://wwd.com/eye/people/wwd-editor-in-chief-michael-coady-dead-w-magazine-86-1238090129/ |access-date=2025-08-29 |website=WWD |language=en-US}}</ref> |- |Ed Nardoza |1991 |2017 | |- |Miles Socha |2017 |2023 |<ref>{{Cite web |last=Brannigan |first=Maura |date=2016-12-16 |title='WWD' Has a New Editor in Chief |url=https://fashionista.com/2016/12/miles-socha-wwd-editor-in-chief |access-date=2025-07-30 |website=Fashionista |language=en}}</ref> |- |Eugenia Richman |2024 |2025 | |- |Michael Atmore |2025 |present |<ref>{{Cite web |last=Staff |first=W. W. D. |date=2025-08-25 |title=Michael Atmore Promoted to Editor in Chief of WWD |url=https://wwd.com/business-news/media/michael-atmore-editor-in-chief-wwd-1238078175/ |access-date=2025-08-25 |website=WWD |language=en-US}}</ref> |- | rowspan="5" |Japan (''WWD Japan'') | rowspan="5" |1979–present |Akira Miura (三浦彰) |1994 | | |- |Kazuyuki Yamamuro |2006 |2013 |<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wynne |first=Amanda Kaiser,Alex |date=2013-03-18 |title=WWD Japan's Kazz Yamamuro Dead at 53 |url=https://wwd.com/business-news/human-resources/feature/wwd-japans-kazz-yamamuro-dead-at-53-6851382-359959/ |access-date=2025-07-30 |website=WWD |language=en-US}}</ref> |- |Chika Tsuzuki |2013 |2015 |<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kaiser |first=Amanda |date=2013-04-12 |title=WWD Japan Taps Two New Editors |url=https://wwd.com/business-news/media/wwd-japan-taps-two-new-editors-6890552/ |access-date=2025-07-30 |website=WWD |language=en-US}}</ref> |- |Chizuru Muko |2015 |2021 |<ref>{{Cite web |title=Chizuru Muko > Events: Asia 2018 {{!}} Speakers / Advertising Week |url=http://archive.advertisingweek.com/events/as/2018/speakers/?id=10166 |access-date=2025-07-30 |website=archive.advertisingweek.com}}</ref> |- |Kaname Murakami |2021 |present | |- |China (''WWD China / 国际时尚特讯'') |2019–present | | | |<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-08-05 |title=Inside Penske Media's expansion to China: WWD and Variety |url=https://www.fipp.com/news/inside-penske-media-group-wwd-variety-expansion-china/ |access-date=2025-07-30 |website=FIPP |language=en}}</ref> |- |South Korea (''WWD Korea'') |2019–present |Reese Kim |2019 | |<ref>{{Cite web |title=WWD announces new launch |url=https://www.diarydirectory.com/newsarticle/wwd-announces-new-launch/27796 |access-date=2025-07-30 |website=www.diarydirectory.com |language=en}}</ref> |- |Thailand (''WWD Thailand'') |2025–present |Sethapong Pawwattana |2025 |present | |}
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
==Further reading== * {{cite book |author1=Isadore Barmash |author2=Edward Gold |author3=Marvin Klapper |author4=Sandy Parker |author5=Sidney Rutberg |author6=Mort Sheinman |author7=Stanley Siegelman |name-list-style=amp | year=2005 | title=Fashion, Retailing and a Bygone Era: Inside Women's Wear Daily—A Look Back | location=Baltimore, MD | publisher=Beard Books | isbn=1-58798-269-2 }}
==External links== * {{Official website|https://wwd.com/}}
{{Penske Media Corporation}} {{Authority control}}
Category:Fashion magazines published in the United States Category:Magazines established in 1910 Category:Magazines formerly owned by Condé Nast Category:Penske Media Corporation Category:Magazines published in New York City Category:Professional and trade magazines published in the United States Category:Women's fashion magazines published in the United States