Fashion Industry Mourns Last Season of Polaroid
September 11, 2008
Originally published in WSJ Heard on the Runway blog
Filed under: Culture / Fashion / Fashion Video / New York Fashion Week / Video
Tags: , , ,

There are few things that the fashion industry agrees on. One of them is Polaroid film.

Polaroid is used daily across the industry, among publicists, model agencies, casting directors and designers, to capture and file instant images. But Polaroid announced in January that the company would stop producing its instant film.

Since January, Polaroid die-hards have stockpiled film, despite prices that are nearly three times what they were a year ago. Photographer Jeremy Kost says he recently paid $1250 for a case of film. Paul Rowland, president of Supreme Models, says that although his accountants have warned him that skyrocketing prices are not cost-effective, he insists on paying -- no matter how high prices rise. "I don't know what I'm going to do," he says. "It's a problem."

For many, parting with Polaroid is an emotional topic.

Casting director Jennifer Starr has over three closets full of Polaroid pictures. "I went to throw them away and I was like, I can't. I just can't. I've saved everything," she says. "It's part of my past. It's part of fashion's past."

People's Revolution founder Kelly Cutrone describes herself as "in total denial" and joked that she'd have to go to Polaroid-detox. "There are things becoming extinct around us, not just animals, but parts of our culture," she says. "Everyone just seems to be super adaptable, but over the course of progress there's a loss of certain things that are great."

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