Fashion Victim (FV)
Entry in progress—B.P.
Wikipedia: Fashion victim
Fashion Victim is a term claimed to have been coined by Oscar de la Renta that is used to identify a person who is unable to identify commonly recognized boundaries of style.
Fashion victims are victims because they are vulnerable to faddishness and materialism, two of the widely recognized excesses of fashion, and consequently are at the mercy of society’s prejudices or of the commercial interest of the fashion industry, or of both. According to Versace, “When a woman alters her look too much from season to season, she becomes a fashion victim.”
(Oxford English Dictionary)
fashion victim n. usually depreciative a person who slavishly follows trends, esp. in clothing fashion.
1984 Adweek 7 May 39/1 Slick, monied punks show you can wear diamonds without being a Fashion Victim.
13 September 1970, Sunday Times Advertiser (Trenton, NJ), “Cassini Carousel,” pt. 5, pg. 4, col. 8:
Women’s Wear Daily dragged itself out of the summer doldrums for an attack. This time they showed pictures of the prominent and labeled them “Fashion Victims.” Among the ladies who struck out, Joan Kennedy, Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper, Margaret Truman Daniel, Barbra Streisand, Didi Ryan, Liz Burton, Lyn Revson, Princess Ira von Furstenburg, Betsy BLoomingdale, and a few others. Aren’t you glad WWD doesn’t know you exist?
25 September 1970, The Evening Times (Trenton, NJ), “Estevez’ Swimsuits Win ‘Ole’s’” by Peg Zwecker (Chicago Daily News Service), pg. 8, col. 9:
But he (Luis Estevez—ed.) believes “the midi has to go—it’s stupid and women are fashion victims.”
24 March 1972, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH), “Low Hems Raise Curiosity: Result Is Book Probing Women’s Wear Daily” by Anna Anable, pg. 3-E, col. 2:
She became steeped in WWD folklore, which assumes you know BP means “beautiful people,” CP means member of the “cat pack” hence terribly chic and snappy, and FV means “fashion victim,” or one who lets clothes wear her rather than the other way around, plus all the code names for New York restaurants frequented by the BP and CP.
Vanity Fair
SEPTEMBER 2012
Fashion’s Most Angry Fella
When John Fairchild, the tyrannical, mischievous editor in chief of Women’s Wear Daily and founder of W magazine, stepped down from his Fairchild Publications throne, in 1997, it was supposed to be a clean break. Fifteen years later, at the age of 85, the onetime terror of the fashion industry is still stirring the pot. At his chalet in Gstaad, where Fairchild lives with his wife, Jill, Meryl Gordon hears about his tumultuous reign, his legendary feuds, and the latest objects of his ire.
BY MERYL GORDON
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He popularized the phrase “fashion victim” and created the capricious and much-copied “In and Out” list.
WWD
February 27, 2015
John B. Fairchild Dies at 87
By Mort Sheinman
NEW YORK — John B. Fairchild, who transformed Women’s Wear Daily from a trusty but tedious trade publication into a provocative, powerful and whimsical international force — along the way pioneering the coverage that would become standard fixtures of modern-day fashion and celebrity journalism — died Friday morning at age 87 after a long illness.
(...)
Fairchild created nicknames for people and places that became part of the industry’s lexicon:
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It was Fairchild who called a certain segment of society the BP (the Beautiful People) and a segment of that segment the Cat Pack. There was even a Cat Pack Kiss, in which the lips never touched flesh, only air. There were HotPants (short shorts), there were FVs (fashion victims) and then there was the Longuette.