Written by Walter Grio. Photos by Walter Grio.
Two years ago, today, I created fashiontographer.com to showcase all the photos I took at my first Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York. I had thousands of photos from many different runway shows and they were already sorted by designer — so I thought I could build on that. The site originally started out as a Tumblr page and when I finished my initial version, I applied for accreditation to cover Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Miami. It was really just a “test” for me, but to my surprise, I was approved.
Fast forward to July 2013 — fashiontographer was invited to — and has attended — runway shows in four major Fashion Week cities: New York, London, Milan, and Paris — the Grand Slam of fashion weeks.
As fashiontographer continues to publish more stories, photographs, and other content, fashiontographer.com was completely redesigned — not only to keep up with the latest technology, but also to present the stories and photographs in a much better, more modern, and cleaner way. I’m very excited about the new site and as I look back to where fashiontographer used to be and where it is today, I’m looking forward to what lies ahead.
QUICK FASHIONTOGRAPHER FACTS
- EIGHTEEN people went to their first fashion week because of fashiontographer. You can read some of their first experiences here.
- The first three times I applied for Paris fashion week, I didn’t even hear from them at all. The fourth time, they told me that the site didn’t meet their requirements. The fifth time, they said I needed a “business number”, but they didn’t reply back when I gave them an EIN. The sixth time, they finally said I needed a DUNS number. I immediately applied for one and then finally got approved. Today, fashiontographer has media accreditation to cover fashion week in Paris for Ready to Wear and Haute Couture. And these days, all I have to do is write people’s names on the application. What what?
- The website used to be called fashiontographers.com with an “s” because when I bought fashiontographer.com, I couldn’t quite move it to the new WordPress site as easily as I thought. It had an “s” at the end for a year and a half.
- Before fashiontographer existed in 2010, Elaine Mensah from SVELTE, LLC first invited me to be her photographer so that I could take runway photos for her and Washington Life Magazine. A few days before fashion week started, I found out that I couldn’t go because of my regular job. Luckily for me, Elaine invited me again the following season. You can read that story here.
- Media credential for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York costs almost 2x more than than the ones for Paris.
- fashiontographer’s District of Fashion events in 2012 helped raise more than half the money for the Shoot for Change Scholarship fund at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre.
- Along with Peacock Cafe and Jennifer Harlow, fashiontographer hosted a cocktail reception to celebrate and welcome the dancers from American Ballet Theatre prior to their weeklong performances in Washington, DC.
- I have photographed Anna Wintour watching the same show (Carolina Herrera) in the same seat for the last five seasons straight. It is the only show where I have been able to shoot from the same exact spot. And in 2012, I had a chance to meet her.
- I photographed several models wearing Zuhair Murad’s entire Ready to Wear 2013 collection — in Mr. Murad’s showroom in Paris — with Mr. Murad in the same room. If these photos didn’t exist, I still wouldn’t believe it.
- fashiontographer had 350 Facebook followers in July 2011 and today, it has over 310,000. That’s more than Women’s Wear Daily (WWD), New York Magazine, W Magazine, Refinery29, Style.com, and The Cut.
