Vanessa Victoria Friedman (born December 4, 1967) is Fashion Director and Chief Fashion Critic at The New York Times. Previously, Friedman has worked at numerous other publications including the Financial Times, the New Yorker, American Vogue, and Vanity Fair. Immediately preceding her appointment at the Financial Times, Friedman was the features and fashion features editor of InStyle, when the title was launched in the United Kingdom in 2000. Prior to this, she was an arts contributor for The Economist and the European editor-at-large for US Elle.