It came to my attention today that someone is going around New York with a stylist’s pull letter apparently signed by me.
Thanks to a showroom rep who had excellent instincts, I was alerted. His words: ‘He was suspicious from the get go. I’m glad I check[ed] this out. I work with a few of your stylists and love them all[—]this guy didn’t fit the bill.’
A pull letter from this magazine will generally be signed by me and:
- it will follow Hart’s Rules or Oxford English conventions. There should be no American spellings or punctuation conventions, so Mr or Ms is written without a period or full point after it;
- it will not be in an ugly typeface. We use a proprietary typeface not available to the general public. If you see a letter where the font for the stylist’s or photographer’s name does not match, then it is very possibly a forgery. Keep an eye out for Arial, because Arial does not exist on our head office computers.
If the stylist is new to you, then please check it with someone at this magazine just as the showroom rep above did, preferably me. The letter does state that if there are any problems—and a stranger who is not established in the business will qualify—then you can get in touch with me.
We have tracked down the person responsible for today’s alert and I am satisfied it was an innocent mistake caused by enthusiasm, and have since received an apology, which I have accepted.