Title

Robert Bryan interview, 2023 April 6

Contributor Names

Bryan, Robert (Interviewee)

Calahan, April (Interviewer)

Date

2023-04-06

Description

In this interview, April Calahan interviews Robert Bryan about how he came into his career in the fashion industry, his time as a buyer for Abraham & Straus, American men's fashion in the 1960s and 1970s, and his time as a fashion editor and stylist for several publications, including Menswear (AKA M: The Civilized Man), and the New York Times Magazine. Bryan also describes his role as stylist, the value of mentorship, and his relationship with fashion. Finally, he discusses his steps towards retirement including his work with the CFDA, and work with film.

Bryan was born in Orlando, Florida in the late 1940s and soon after his family moved to Virginia. His passion for fashion began during his adolescence when he discovered the 1930s through Hollywood movies. He studied Art History at the University of Virginia and went to law school at the George Washington University before settling to New York in 1968. He worked at the Abraham and Strauss Department store in Brooklyn until 1973 when he started his career with Fairchild Publications. He was the fashion editor of Men's Wear Magazine from 1973 to 1983 and "M" The Civilized Man from 1983 to 1993, and Men's fashion director for "W" Magazine in 1993. He then joined he New York Times in 1995 until 2006. He contributed articles to the CFDA Third volume of American Fashion in 2008.

Type

Moving Image

Oral histories

Subject

Men's clothing

Fashion

Image consultants

M: The Civilized Man

New York Times Magazine

New York (N.Y.)

Related Materials

Finding Aid

Rights

In Copyright

This video was produced by the Fashion Institute of Technology ("FIT") and is the property of FIT. FIT expressly prohibits the copying, displaying, or uploading to a website of any portion of this video, except for the purposes of fair use as defined in the copyright laws, without express written permission from FIT. This video has been made available online by the Fashion Institute of Technology Gladys Marcus Library strictly for research and educational purposes. If you are the copyright holder for content in this video and have any objections to this work being made available online, please notify us immediately at [email protected].

Identifier

FIT Repository ID: aod_oh_000002

SPARC reference code: US.NNFIT.SC.FITA.3.20.4.9.10.39

Format

Born-digital video .mp4 file recorded via video call