Jacob Gallagher (writer)

Jacob Gallagher is a fashion writer and journalist, born in Maryland, US. He is currently the men's fashion columnist for The Wall Street Journal, writing for the "Off Duty" portion of the magazine. He is also the co-author of The Men's Fashion Book, a Phaidon hardcover cataloging the "500 most influential brands, photographers, icons, retailers, and others who have shaped men’s style". Before his tenure at The Wall Street Journal, he worked as a freelance writer for GQ, Esquire, Complex, Four Pins, and Vice.

Early life
Gallagher was raised in Bethesda, Maryland. He is Jewish. His father worked as a museum exhibition designer. One notable project brought him to work on a museum in New Mexico, which lead to him buying a house there and Gallagher spending holidays in New Mexico over his childhood.

Gallagher cites his father and his formal attire as an inspiration for his interest in fashion. However, in opposition to his father and his future career path, as a skateboarder, during his teens he could normally be found in ripped jeans and hoodies. He grew up "reading Thrasher (magazine) everyday" throughout middle school and high school. Gallagher's father was supportive when he eventually gained his interest in fashion, being the one who encouraged Gallagher to start writing and pursue a career in fashion journalism.

Gallagher studied Film Studies at Pennsylvania State University for two years before transferring to The New School in New York.

Early career
Gallagher began his career working at the fashion store Epaulet while completing his degree. During this time, he also started a fashion blog. It was through his work in retail that he met Sean Hotchkiss, a then writer for GQ. After several visits to the store and getting to know Gallagher, Hotchkiss invited him to contribute a column to GQ, which was then heavily focused on "sartorial" and traditional menswear. Gallagher's first column aimed to demystify "esoteric" fashion terms and jargon, which led to the creation of the series "Dropping Knowledge." This series ran from April 2012 to December 2013. Following his initial success, Gallagher began writing for other publications as a freelance writer, eventually securing a position at The Wall Street Journal.

The Wall Street Journal
Gallagher has been writing his twice-weekly column the Journal for nearly a decade. His writing has been described as "smartly cover[ing] the beat of shopping, style, and the endless swell of trends in the wide world of menswear" by Andrew Craig on behalf of the Ralph Lauren brand. He role often consists of communicating with readers or people in the fashion community online to see what they are wearing or to learn about their fashion habits: “I might talk to readers who are just out of high school who are into the crochet-clothing trend one week, and folks that are older and trying to figure out more traditional style pathways another.”

Although Gallagher has a personal interest in fashion outside of his career, his work as a fashion writer follows the interests of the Journal, as opposed to his column functioning as an Op-ed. Knowing the reader of the The Wall Street Journal, he has commented that he writes for a hypothetical reader who may not solely search out Gallagher's section in the magazine, but is also reading about politics, cooking, sports before "com[ing] to a page about fashion." With this in mind, Gallagher's work aims not to cater to exclusively fashion fanatics, but to make any Journal reader "the best dressed guy in his friend group." Gallagher's approach has been described as "anthropological, looking at trends through the lens of a broader cultural idea."

Gallagher's reporting often branches from fashion into business and politics when relevant. He was interviewed by the New York Stock Exchange to provide insight into the IPO of Birkenstock. His reporting has also taken him to cover the rise of the cowboy hat in Republican fashion surrounding the Trump 2024 Campaign, and the boom in t-shirts depicting Trump raising his fist after the failed attempted assassination just days after its occurrence.

The Men's Fashion Book
The Men's Fashion Book was published in 2021 with Phaidon. Gallagher describes the process through which the book was developed:"'I got in touch with Phaidon and through my wife’s mother who owns an antique store just about an hour outside of [New York City]. One thing led to another, and I met with them. I think they had this idea for The Men’s Fashion Book. The Fashion Book has been part of their catalog for many, many years; I think bordering on two decades now. The book comes from a perspective that kind of assumes that womenswear is the driving force of fashion, and they’ve updated it a few times incorporating more male names in there. But they really wanted to do a book that was primarily focused on men’s fashion. In the past several years the conversation within fashion has really been guided by menswear in a lot of ways... I went home and started putting together a list of names and that list, at one point, was up towards 800 names. We went back and forth and got it down to somewhere [around] 300, and then we beefed it back up to the 500 names that it is today.'"For writer Andrew Craig, the book acts as the "spiritual successor to the publisher’s iconic The Fashion Book which is tailored toward womenswear." When speaking on the book, Gallagher hopes for it to function as a jumping-off point for readers, for it to "lead people to dig up more for themselves."

Although the book is encyclopaedic in nature, the style and approach of the book has been praised by critics: "the method used by Gallagher starts from the relationship between the individual and the fashion object within a social context".

Personal life
Gallagher lives in New York City. He is married. In his free time he enjoys playing tennis. Gallagher regularly appears on the Fashion People podcast with Puck magazine writer Lauren Sherman.