Sarajane Hoare is a Britishfashion journalist, director, and stylist who, since the 1980s has worked for British Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Harper's Bazaar. She is highly regarded in her field and has been instrumental in developing the career of many fashion professionals such as photographer Herb Ritts, shoe designer Tamara Mellon, and journalist Kate Phelan.
Hoare has worked as a fashion director for The Observer, British Vogue, and Glamour; and as an editor-at-large for Harper's Bazaar and contributing editor to Vanity Fair. In 2010 she was invited to join Town & Country as a guest fashion director for the 2011 Spring issue. Hoare is particularly known for her use of safari themes and imagery, which also forms a key part of her personal style. She is credited with discovering the fashion photographer Herb Ritts, with whom she worked for seventeen years. Another fashion photographer, Mario Testino, cited Hoare and other editors as instrumental in making his career. Kate Phelan started out working as an intern for Hoare at Vogue in 1987, before securing full-time employment there. In 1991 Hoare took on the young Tamara Mellon as an assistant, commenting later that Mellon's eye for a quality shoe had been obvious even then. Mellon later compared working for Hoare to The Devil Wears Prada, although noted that they became friends and credited her with helping her develop herself professionally. As editor and representative of Vanity Fair, Hoare was approached by the Fashion Museum, Bath and asked to select the defining look of 2004 for their Dress of the Year collection. She chose a long evening gown by Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent in a Chinese dragon-printed silk, which had been worn on the red carpet by Nicole Kidman to that year's Tony Awards. Hoare published her first book, Talking Fashion, in 2002, a monograph on the fashion industry. She described it as her response to the judgemental reactions and male chauvinism that she received when she told people what she did for a living.
