WWD Turns 100 today

The fashion bible, Women’s Wear Daily celebrates 100 years as a fashion trade publication today.

In June 1910, the trade publication began as an insert page for the Daily Trade Record, a paper which informed men on women’s fashion. After a month as a supplement page, Women’s Wear developed into an independent paper founded by Edmund Fairchild. In the first year of publishing, WWD charged $3 for yearly subscriptions and 1 cent for single copies. (Today $3 bucks buys you a single copy and a yearly subscription is over $100 dollars.) In January 1927 the paper changed its name to Women’s Wear Daily and the name stuck. In 1994, WWD debuted its current cover page look with WWD followed by the day of the week.

Written in June 1910, the ‘Excuse for Being’ aka the mission statement, outlined the goals of the paper:

‘It will be the aim of the publishers to present tto its subscribers a succint epitomization of the most important happenings and events occurring in the women’s wear industry. The scope of the publication will be to cover the factors between the mill and the merchant. There is probably no other line of human endeavor in which there is so much change as in the product that womankind wears. This brings about an enourmous amount of traveling, and the result is that important men in all departments of women’s wear are scattered everywhere over the earth’s surface and lose track of events and happenings, which it will be our purpose to try and chronicle as briefly as possible, so that these men can pick up and at a minimum of time and expense keep posted. A knowledge of what has transpired is most important, and Women’s Wear will aim to do this.‘

Today the trade focuses on all things fashion industry related by creating buzz and news around high end and low end designers and retailers, fashion writers, stylists, textile companies, models and celebrities, etc, but the intention of informing men on women’s apparel has been dropped; thank god for modern times.

Happy 100th Birthday WWD!

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