After 13 years at The Globe and Mail, fashion reporter David Livingstone is moving on.
Kelly, Deirdre. The Globe and Mail; Toronto, Ont. [Toronto, Ont]. 20 June 1996: D.3.
Thursday, June 20, 1996
The Globe and Mail
Toronto — FOR a guy who has spent the better part of his 48 years writing about couture, David Livingstone is no fashion victim. His clothes are workaday: a hockey sweater, a pair of Levi’s, comfortable shoes and a labourer’s jacket bought on his first trip to the Paris collections. But while simple, the uniform represents a studied esthetic. “A sense of style has nothing to do with money,” said the bespectacled scribe, with a drag of his ubiquitous cigarette. “Besides, I love the clothes of the working man. They’re honest.”
Livingstone’s admiration of what passes for truth in fashion — clean lines, natural fabrics and quality workmanship — has put him in good stead as a journalist. He is respected in fashion centres around the world as a writer of integrity and insight.
“You are the rarer kind of journalist [these days] who tries to communicate your ideas and inform your readers,” wrote London designer Vivienne Westwood.
“If everyone could guarantee themselves an interviewer as thorough and as thoughtful as you, no one could ever refuse to give interviews,” declared former New Yorker fashion writer Kennedy Fraser.
In Toronto, where Livingstone honed his craft first as a freelance writer on pop music and style for Maclean’s and Toronto Life Fashion and, since 1983, as fashion reporter for The Globe and Mail, the accolades run thick in a business known for its cattiness.
“There’s no question that David’s brilliant,” enthused FashionTelevision ‘sJeanne Beker.
“In a field where the lines between the art and the business are often blurred, David has never fallen prey to the promotional, but has always maintained a unique perspective in search of the artistry in fashion,” added fashion public-relations consultant Jane Mussett.
“He’s always able to put fashion into the loop of history and make it cyclical,” said Krystyne Griffin, a former couture buyer for Holt Renfrew.
Livingstone’s gift for turning fashion into witty cultural commentary has made him ripe for the picking. The taker is Stevie Cameron, the political columnist turned magazine editor, who snatched Livingstone away from The Globe to join her new Toronto-based publication, which makes its debut in October.
“I have always been a fan of David Livingstone’s,” Cameron said. “And when they [the magazine’s publisher] offered me the job and they said I had to get a fashion-and-beauty editor, I kept phoning them from Jerusalem and from Russia and other places where I was travelling and asking them if they had talked to David yet because to me he’s simply the best.”
After 13 years and more than 1,700 by-lined articles, Livingstone leaves the Globe with the enthusiasm of a man ready to take on a new adventure. “I look forward to the opportunity to be involved in something from the ground floor up, to work with people who want to make this a successful venture and to function, finally, as an editor.”
Livingstone came to fashion journalism in a laundry hamper. He was born in Glace Bay, N.S., in 1948. Both his grandfathers were coal miners. He was studying English at the University of Toronto when he landed his first job in newspapers, selling classified ads.
After graduating in 1970, he got a job as an editor in the publications department at TVOntario. His first writing was background articles in a TVO advertising supplement in The Globe and Mail. “I met a lot of journalists this way,” Livingstone recalled. “And that’s when I first realized that you didn’t have to know about anything to have your name in print,” he added with a smoky growl of a laugh.
Encouraged, in 1977 he quit TVO and started writing about pop culture full time. His first fashion piece was on sunglasses. He researched the subject to death, he said. “I have always liked doing research where fashion is concerned. Mainly because there’s such flimsy material out there, so any investigation you do is fun because it’s like covering new ground. And, of course, research is a way of avoiding writing . . . a painful and hideous process.”
Livingstone’s investigative skills have increasingly distinguished him from other fashion writers. “David doesn’t rely on hearsay,” said Bernadette Morra, fashion editor of The Toronto Star. “He will go as far as he has to go to find out what the facts are and what the actual history of a garment or a designer is. He never takes the easy road.”
Consequently, he is never pat, never superficial. He lends fashion writing the dignity it deserves.
“It is a fine subject, sometimes,” Kennedy Fraser wrote in a letter to him, “and I hope you keep negotiating its shoals and keep writing well about it for as long as you ever want to.”Word count: 859
All material copyright Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. or its licensors. All rights reserved.
Canadian Fashion People: David Livingstone
After 13 years at The Globe and Mail, fashion reporter David Livingstone is moving on.
Kelly, Deirdre. The Globe and Mail; Toronto, Ont. [Toronto, Ont]. 20 June 1996: D.3.
Thursday, June 20, 1996
The Globe and Mail
Toronto — FOR a guy who has spent the better part of his 48 years writing about couture, David Livingstone is no fashion victim. His clothes are workaday: a hockey sweater, a pair of Levi’s, comfortable shoes and a labourer’s jacket bought on his first trip to the Paris collections. But while simple, the uniform represents a studied esthetic. “A sense of style has nothing to do with money,” said the bespectacled scribe, with a drag of his ubiquitous cigarette. “Besides, I love the clothes of the working man. They’re honest.”
Livingstone’s admiration of what passes for truth in fashion — clean lines, natural fabrics and quality workmanship — has put him in good stead as a journalist. He is respected in fashion centres around the world as a writer of integrity and insight.
“You are the rarer kind of journalist [these days] who tries to communicate your ideas and inform your readers,” wrote London designer Vivienne Westwood.
“If everyone could guarantee themselves an interviewer as thorough and as thoughtful as you, no one could ever refuse to give interviews,” declared former New Yorker fashion writer Kennedy Fraser.
In Toronto, where Livingstone honed his craft first as a freelance writer on pop music and style for Maclean’s and Toronto Life Fashion and, since 1983, as fashion reporter for The Globe and Mail, the accolades run thick in a business known for its cattiness.
“There’s no question that David’s brilliant,” enthused FashionTelevision ‘sJeanne Beker.
“In a field where the lines between the art and the business are often blurred, David has never fallen prey to the promotional, but has always maintained a unique perspective in search of the artistry in fashion,” added fashion public-relations consultant Jane Mussett.
“He’s always able to put fashion into the loop of history and make it cyclical,” said Krystyne Griffin, a former couture buyer for Holt Renfrew.
Livingstone’s gift for turning fashion into witty cultural commentary has made him ripe for the picking. The taker is Stevie Cameron, the political columnist turned magazine editor, who snatched Livingstone away from The Globe to join her new Toronto-based publication, which makes its debut in October.
“I have always been a fan of David Livingstone’s,” Cameron said. “And when they [the magazine’s publisher] offered me the job and they said I had to get a fashion-and-beauty editor, I kept phoning them from Jerusalem and from Russia and other places where I was travelling and asking them if they had talked to David yet because to me he’s simply the best.”
After 13 years and more than 1,700 by-lined articles, Livingstone leaves the Globe with the enthusiasm of a man ready to take on a new adventure. “I look forward to the opportunity to be involved in something from the ground floor up, to work with people who want to make this a successful venture and to function, finally, as an editor.”
Livingstone came to fashion journalism in a laundry hamper. He was born in Glace Bay, N.S., in 1948. Both his grandfathers were coal miners. He was studying English at the University of Toronto when he landed his first job in newspapers, selling classified ads.
After graduating in 1970, he got a job as an editor in the publications department at TVOntario. His first writing was background articles in a TVO advertising supplement in The Globe and Mail. “I met a lot of journalists this way,” Livingstone recalled. “And that’s when I first realized that you didn’t have to know about anything to have your name in print,” he added with a smoky growl of a laugh.
Encouraged, in 1977 he quit TVO and started writing about pop culture full time. His first fashion piece was on sunglasses. He researched the subject to death, he said. “I have always liked doing research where fashion is concerned. Mainly because there’s such flimsy material out there, so any investigation you do is fun because it’s like covering new ground. And, of course, research is a way of avoiding writing . . . a painful and hideous process.”
Livingstone’s investigative skills have increasingly distinguished him from other fashion writers. “David doesn’t rely on hearsay,” said Bernadette Morra, fashion editor of The Toronto Star. “He will go as far as he has to go to find out what the facts are and what the actual history of a garment or a designer is. He never takes the easy road.”
Consequently, he is never pat, never superficial. He lends fashion writing the dignity it deserves.
“It is a fine subject, sometimes,” Kennedy Fraser wrote in a letter to him, “and I hope you keep negotiating its shoals and keep writing well about it for as long as you ever want to.”Word count: 859
All material copyright Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. or its licensors. All rights reserved.