Wall Street Journal Crowns Dallas as High Fashion Hub, Cites to Obvious Clichés

by Leah Frazier on Jun 5, 2015 in News

It’s been said before and we’ll say it again. Dallas is and will continue to always be, a mecca for the ever-evolving fashion industry. Besides its top-tiered rankings for economic growth and U.S. business development, Dallas’s power in luxury spending remains ultra steady. Despite glowing statistics and international prestige (because the numbers don’t lie), Dallas is still subject to monotonous clichés, misconceptions, and mockery. Yawn. We’re so over it.

 

 

Recently, in a very well-written article, the Wall Street Journal profiled Dallas as a luxury fashion hub – citing the city as a “hot market for young designers.” While accurately portraying Dallas consumers as pivotal to designer sales, the author couldn’t help but to reference archaic clichés about Dallas style. Thus, clearly tipping off perceptions birthed from an outsider.

“Their mix of revered and emerging fashion labels is at odds with Dallas’s reputation for style, which remains mired in the 1980s when J.R. Ewing was the most love-hated character on television,” Wall Street Journal’s Christina Binkley reports. “The ‘Dallas’ TV show and the glitzy spotlight it shone on the city ended in 1991, leaving its reputation for fashion frozen in time.”

 

 

Despite the inaccurate stigma surrounding style choices of the resident Dallasite, Binkley ditched the big hair and big boots theory to accredit global adoration for Dallas from European designers, and those at Paris Fashion Week who responded that “Dallas is amazing!”

From being the noted home of Neiman Marcus, to Karl Lagerfeld’s appearance in 2013, Dallas has always been under the watchful eye of luxury fashion designers, regardless if the rest of the world dozes and refuses to take note. Our local coverage cites even more admiration from esteemed designers such as Zac Posen and Cynthia Rowley, alluding to an obsession with Dallas style that is purely unmatched.

 

 

As a testament to the nod, the Wall Street Journal reports that Dallas, according to a forecast issued by the McKinsey Group, is listed at No. 12 for the top 20 global markets in luxury fashion sales by 2025 – just under Paris (No. 1), New York (No. 5), and Los Angeles (No. 8.)

Even with this glowing forecast, a video embedded within Binkley’s article confirms that Dallas is still misunderstood. During the segment, WSJ anchor Tanya Rivero claims that Dallas needs to “prove to everyone that [it] is as cutting edge as everyone else on the globe.” But those of us immersed in the scene know differently.

Our city, its culture, the dynamics, and its impact is tremendous, and frankly there is absolutely nothing to prove. Despite the obvious clichés in its article, the Wall Street Journal shone the spotlight on Dallas to which we’re grateful. Given the recent and continuous high rankings for luxury fashion and spending, in addition to exclusive designer showings received year after year, the proof remains in the pudding that Dallas hails high for all things fashion — ya’ll.