A Take on Fashion: Mario Abad
New York City-based Mario Abad is PaperMagazine’s fashion editor. With a voice is as distinct ashis eye, he writes about fashion news, covers up-and-coming designers and more. In addition to his work at Paper,Abad has started to garner a fanbase on Instagram for his insightful, humourous and honest takes when it comes to the unique attributes of the fashion world. “The girls,” as he says (basically referring to everyone in the business) are beginning to take note.
To what extent do you think fashion is about proposing and selling dreams?
Marketing in general is about selling dreams. In fashion, it covers everything from runwayshows to orchestrated celebrity placements to red carpet appearances to campaigns to ready-to-wear to entrypoint fragrances and small leather goods. (These are often the first taste of the dream.) Fashion needs the smoke and mirrors of the marketing machineto create and uphold the fantasy.
How might this have a positive effect on people?
I think most of us have some sort of idealised version of ourselves thatwe want to embody, and a lot of the time, the “dream” of fashion plays a big part in helping to achieve this goal. I think it’s healthy to have something to aspire to when it comes to your “look,” and we’re lucky that there are so many tribes in fashion tohelp formulate your idea of yourself and how you want to present yourself to the world.
What is one trend or item of clothing that will define the coming year?
I mean… minis in general have to be the definitive look this year. Lookat Miu Miu’s schoolgirl set, which is everywhere. Every mass brand and DIY shopper is trying to replicate it. It helps that fashion girls like Dua Lipa have already made the trend super hot on Instagram.
What would be your fashion dream-come-true?
I’d love to see more of the new guard — the younger, more opinionated,more diverse people in the business right now — take over from establishment people at the top of magazine mastheads, executive roles and creative directorships.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.