Style & Fashion Columnist, Features, in New York, NY

Job Description:

The Wall Street Journal is seeking a New York-based style and fashion columnist on its Features & WSJ. Magazine team to deliver charming, well-observed columns and coverage on fashion and style moments in the wider culture; profiles of distinctive and interesting designers, creative directors and industry CEOs; and delectable trend stories and features that are one step ahead of the group chat.  This role covers both men’s and women’s fashion and style.

The ideal candidate is a high-metabolism feature reporter with a sense of whimsy and a zeal for chasing distinctive, visual and character-driven stories that touch the worlds of fashion and style, as well as the good sourcing and unique eye to weigh in on debates tearing across Substack and Instagram.  They will excel at “calling the moment” in confident columns with a national news-oriented audience, whether a tech executive sits front row in Milan, a political leader makes a state-dinner statement or an awards carpet or brand’s repositioning touches off fierce debate. 

While knowledge of the fashion and style industry is key, an explicit background covering only fashion is not required—we’re privileging the right distinctive, highly engaging voice and an ability to interpret visual ideas in a vivid manner across platforms for the Wall Street Journal audience. Some biannual travel to fashion shows and events is expected.

The Journal’s overall Features team blends deep reporting, sharp wit and good taste to create compulsively readable quick-turn stories, timely analysis pieces and enterprise narratives on the subjects of lifestyle, entertainment, culture and ideas. Stories from this team offer a lively lens on the zeitgeist, drawing connections between events and trends in the culture to form original, big-picture theses about the present moment. 

Reporters on the team are also expected to pitch and write long-lead stories—think sprawling profiles or insightful trend features—for WSJ. Magazine.

You will:

• Report, write and fact-check an average one column per week about a trend, person, news event or conversation in the style and fashion world.

• Burst with highly shareable, witty, ambitious story ideas with clearly understood news value and elegant execution.  

• Bring a deeply seasoned knowledge of key power players and a good roster of sources and contacts to help garner story ideas, identify trends, develop features and work toward access-driven, exclusive stories we own.

• Easily modulate between surprising, well-reported feature stories and whimsical, amusing essays or interviews.  Embody the Features and WSJ. Magazine mission to simultaneously inform and entertain.

• Work collaboratively and egolessly with others—both with Features editors as well as with our style and culture teams of reporters, including reporters covering the luxury industry in our Paris and London bureaus.

• Uncover angles and ideas no one else is chasing and develop them into engaging reads.  Amplify traditional profiles, trends or event stories with humanizing detail and great eye for shareable, well-crafted narrative that show potential for long-form features or as Weekend cover stories.

• Embrace audience data, learning or continuing to fuse metrics with great taste and imaginative ideas.

• Ensure the voice, tone and standards of The Wall Street Journal are consistently met;  that stories are accurate, fair, objective and of impeccable quality.  Scrupulously uphold newsroom policies and procedures around ethics and conduct.
  

You have:

• Unputdownable clips and exceptional writing and reporting skills.

• At least 5 years’ experience covering a relevant beat, including essays or columns, reported feature stories, and well-developed enterprise or longer-form features.

• A proven history of finding unexpected takes on the style and fashion world or larger creative-culture worlds, as well as an eye for visually intriguing stories that appeal to a general audience. 

• Great contacts and a dogged, indefatigable sense of how to make stories happen.

• A sense of humor, including a demonstrated ability to find clever, intelligent ways into stories that are being widely covered. 

• A meticulous approach to getting facts and details exactly right, knowing how to avoid errors and bulletproof high-profile, consequential stories with a close attention to detail.

• A sharp sense of how to connect with digital audiences.

• Visual thinking and a vested interest in how your stories will look and present across platforms.

• A collaborative, team-player attitude, an upbeat outlook and an entrepreneurial spirit as we grow and evolve coverage needs.
  

You will report to the Bureau Chief of Fashion & Lifestyle within the Features team.  This is a fulltime position based in our New York, NY office.

To apply, please submit a cover letter describing your experience and interest in this job, a detailed resume and five clips with a sentence or two as to what the stories show about your capabilities by July 2. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and we encourage early submission as the position may be filled before the deadline.

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We’re committed to offering competitive and flexible compensation to attract top talent. This pay range reflects our good faith estimate for the role and may vary based on a candidate’s experience, skills, location, and other relevant factors.

For bonus-eligible roles, targets are determined based on multiple considerations, including market benchmarks and individual contributions.

For benefits-eligible roles, we offer a comprehensive and competitive benefits package covering health, retirement, wellbeing, and more, along with optional benefits to meet the diverse needs of our employees.