The Washington Post has promoted its fashion critic Robin Givhan to “senior critic-at-large,” managing editor Krissah Thompson told staffers in a memo Wednesday. The new role will give her free rein to tackle “politics, race, business and the arts.”
Givhan has always pushed the boundaries of her beat, but lately she’s used fashion as a jumping-off point to examine how members of Congress came across during tech hearings this summer, for instance, and covered the Democratic and Republican conventions–one column dismantled Vice President Mike Pence along with his speech.
Givhan will write a weekly column but also “in the moment,” Thompson writes, and do more deep dives like her piece this summer on the fashion industry’s struggle to diversify.
Full memo:
We’re thrilled to announce that Robin Givhan has been promoted to senior critic-at-large, effective immediately.
In this role, Robin will write in her trademark essayistic style about a broad range of subjects, including politics, race, business and the arts. In the coming weeks, Robin will begin writing a weekly column that we will feature in the A-section.
In addition, she will write in the moment as she did recently with her incisive pieces during the political conventions and also spend time diving more deeply as she did this year with analytical Magazine pieces on diversity in the fashion industry and White allyship. Robin will tackle other big issues in reported essays and also profile some of the figures we are all talking about or should be. Her expert eye introduced Washington Post readers to Edward Enninful years before Time magazine featured him on its cover. She has also written penetratingly about Diana Taylor, Gayle King and Sen. Kamala Harris, among others.
Robin is one of the world’s most recognized critics in the realm of fashion, which she has viewed as a business, as a cultural institution and as pure pleasure. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2006, the first time the award was given to a fashion writer. She is also author of “The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History.”
As she moves into this new role, other subjects will benefit from her expert eye and thoughtful criticism. In addition to her groundbreaking fashion criticism, Robin covered Michelle Obama during the first year of the administration. She first joined The Post in 1995 and left in 2010 to become the fashion critic and fashion correspondent for The Daily Beast/Newsweek. She returned to The Post in 2014. She has also worked for Vogue magazine and the Detroit Free Press.
She will report to me and looks forward to collaborating with editors across the newsroom as she expands her portfolio.
Please congratulate Robin on her new role.
Krissah
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
