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The Devil Says Nada: On The Death of Fashion Critique in India
In 2026, genuine fashion critique can’t be heard over the claps and front-row selfies. Can the real critics please stand up?
Twenty years ago, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) made it clear that a blue — sorry, cerulean — sweater is never just a sweater. The Devil Wears Prada caught the butterfly effect in action: runway to rack, designer to discount bin. Worth trillions and powering entire economies, fashion has never been just about the clothes.
Priestly was a critic, and criticism once mattered. Two years after the film released, Cathy Horyn was famously banned from an Armani show after writing a scathing review for The New York Times.
But today, the system has changed and criticism is dead. Unfortunately so, in Bandana Tewari’s view, because fashion remains an incisive lens through which to read sociological change. The former Vogue India editor-at-large echoes Priestly: “We have reduced fashion critique to clothes; defiled it into a bouquet with no thorns.”
Too Close for Comfort
Fashion coverage in India has long been relegated to supplements and tabloids, while fashion magazines have a completely different prism as they are dependent on access and advertisements; reducing the journalist to what Shefalee Vasudev deems “the easiest to influence.” The editor-in-chief of The Voice of Fashion says, “Look at how spoiled fashion journalists are. Tickets, hotel rooms, gifts all laid out. Editors wearing clothes of the designers at shows they are [meant to be critiquing].”
According to Vasudev, this incestuousness cannot nurture criticism. Tewari agrees — one can’t be a brand ally and still expect to have free will. “To be a critic, you have to occupy a difficult position,” Vasudev says. “You have to give yourself permission — out of respect for both your work and theirs — to say what needs to be said.”
So, why is no one saying anything anymore?
Nonita Kalra, launch editor of Elle India and now editor-in-chief at Tata CliQ Luxury, traces the problem to a lack of education and understanding of fashion history. Behind the fantasy lies business, and journalism should treat it that way.
“When fashion week first began in India, there was no ecosystem of trained critics,” she explains. “What emerged instead was straightforward trend-reporting in place of evaluation. Any form of critique was often received as a personal attack. Designers would take great umbrage if you told them, post a show, that a collection was perhaps missing the mark — that, at a certain moment, they had lost their way with their brand.”
Taking Cues
Globally, this is not the case. She points to The New York Times chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman, who openly expressed dissatisfaction with designer Maria Grazia Chiuri’s work at Dior, then celebrated her return to Fendi with equal conviction. The critique was frank, not cruel.
Friedman herself has noted that today’s fashion show audiences are mostly friends of the house, buyers, magazine editors turned cheerleaders, and influencers — some paid by the brand, others hoping to be. Her biggest concern: the steadily shrinking number of true critics in the room.
“We know that here too, don’t we?” Tewari asks. “We have to survive in this industry so a lot of us focus on what is positive. But that’s a pity.”
Is honest criticism still possible in such an environment?
“Of course it is,” Kalra insists. “Having friendships within the industry doesn’t automatically imply bias.”
Vasudev believes designers understand this more than they admit. “Designers respect critics as much as their friends and admirers in media or those who form transactional relationships,” she says. The role of a fashion critic is to provide perspective — to assess relevance, pricing and significance — by maintaining distance.
Behind the glamour lie issues often ignored: faulty production, wage parity, inclusivity, lack of hygiene, maternity leave, bonuses. “The fashion critic’s job is to keep those realities in mind and place it in its epoch, instead of the glut of who wore what,” Vasudev continues.
Brands play both sides. They recruit PR firms who dress critics and shower them with gifts, cultivating applause. But designers remain anxious because they don’t receive feedback.
“In the absence of well-informed critique, both the designer and the industry stop growing.” Kalra says. Vasudev notes it’s absent because of power dynamics, dependencies and fear of being shut out. “The aspiration today is to get a designer on speed dial and a Bollywood star to give a quote on why they’re wearing Manish Malhotra. It’s boring.”
Clicks Over Context
Social media platforms have become the primary space for fashion criticism. What does that say about traditional critique?
“That they need money more than they need critics,” Tewari says. “I can’t blame them — the business is hardly thriving. But to say fashion critics don’t exist without understanding why they cannot exist…we’re stifled.”
The economics of publishing mean that critique is often sacrificed for commerce. Legacy brands dictate the narrative, shaping how magazines cover fashion, and sponsorships create a dependency that limits what writers can say. “I started off as a fashion critic, but now I mostly use my social media to write opinion pieces,” Tewari adds.
PR culture has only amplified this. Brands act as strict custodians of their image. “The only time we hear anything contrary that goes viral would be from an independent voice sitting in an obscure place. They are unafraid because perhaps it’s anonymous,” says Tewari — a nod to the popular Instagram critic Diet Sabya. But social media is a double-edged sword.
Kalra appreciates that social media has created an army of foot soldiers for fashion. Influencers take the conversation around fashion to a larger audience and make it more democratic. But while larger numbers mean greater volume, they do not always mean greater sense. At times, the criticism is personal, superficial, or worse, paid for. “We’re getting commentary, but not genuine criticism,” she says.
“I don’t think of myself as a fashion critic,” says content creator Sufi Motiwala. “I think of myself as a fashion commentator. What felt missing was people talking about how clothes made them feel, how wearable or bearable they were. Fashion coverage felt like information being passed down in a very PR-controlled way.”
With the format shifting from long-form articles to short Reels, critique has been replaced by a love of labels. Vasudev calls it short-cut, and Tewari deems hashtag culture “the crisis of our times. It’s the shorthand of depth.”
Influencers and brand allies dominate, and access remains critical. Many Instagram critics critique photos. “A critic has to see garments up close — touch the fabrics, examine embroideries, understand construction. Photographs are edited; you can’t critique that alone. Research and fieldwork are paramount,” Vasudev says.
“But social media still controls what goes viral,” Motiwala interjects. “And that eventually trickles into traditional publications.”
The only solution is differentiation. “Today, with the internet, there’s really no excuse for ignorance,” Kalra explains. “It also means that bias is easier to spot. Simply put, the standards of scrutiny cannot change because the platforms have.”
“There is a real burden in being part of the digital ecosystem too,” Motiwala says — the burden of engagement, likes and relevancy. “Fashion thrives on the idea of being ‘in’ or ‘out’ and invites, access, fittings can feel validating. But over time, you realise how transactional it all is.”
Vasudev argues that beyond the medium, India needs its own lens for criticism. “Criticism will differ because of our cultural tenets. The Indian model must keep economic realities, production systems, traditional hierarchies, and class and caste very much in mind.”
What's Left to Say
Yet this lens has struggled to emerge. Tewari points to the baggage the industry carries. “Film criticism can be academic, nuanced, well-researched — you’re called intelligent. But work in fashion? It comes with vanity, hypocrisy, showmanship, elitism. I get that criticism myself.”
Motiwala adds, “People are scared to be themselves right now. Social media has become rigid and abrasive. Creators feel pressured to jump through hoops, chase trends, and fit into very narrow brand-friendly boxes.”
The fear of being cancelled forces critique to be reduced to visuals. “Commentary reads differently than it’s heard,” he continues. “My content says what people are already thinking, and that invites backlash. But I joke that I tap into the biggest market in the world: hatred. And honey, it sells.”
In the absence of a new generation willing to take the baton, one can call the time of death for fashion criticism — and perhaps for the industry itself. Fashion has never been a democratic act, yet the urban-rural divide has only widened in an era of craft-washing and hollow applause. It is critics who must call these out: those with context, knowledge, a framework that supports them and above all, a spine.
Who came first, Tewari asks, the chicken or the egg: “Do critics need a platform to rise, or does the platform exist because critics do?”
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