Fashion Journalist Teri Agins Releases New Book: Slams Kardashian Kollection For Being 'Cheap' And 'Tacky'

Teri Agins is one of the best-sourced journalists in fashion. In her 25-year career at The Wall Street Journal, she broke some of the biggest stories in the industry: the dispute between designer Gordon Henderson and his backer, former Theory CEO Ricky Sasaki, in 1990; Calvin Klein's near-bankruptcy in 1991; and that LVMH was paying Marc Jacobs less than $1 million a year as recently as 2004. In her new book, she calls the Kardashian Kollection "cheap" and tacky."

On Oct. 9, Agins released her second book, Hijacking the Runway: How Celebrities Are Stealing the Spotlight from Fashion Designers. According to Fashionista, this is a fascinating chronicle on the confluence of fashion and celebrity, red-carpet stories, the rise of hundred-million-dollar celebrity fragrances and the later rise of billion-dollar celebrity fashion brands, like Jessica Simpson's.

It also contains one of Agins's juiciest stories yet: a series of conversations between a desperate Kanye West and designer Ralph Rucci, when the former was putting together his first — and ultimately disastrous — eponymous collection for Paris Fashion Week in October 2011. You'll have to read the book to find out the juicy details.

Agins also addresses the Kardashian sisters in her book, slamming them for their "cheap" and "tacky" Kardashian Kollection. According to Radar Online, after giving Kim, Khloé and Kourtney's line of jeans, dresses, tops and shoes an initial grade of C- while visiting a New York Sears department store in 2012.

Agins revisited the brand's display in a Yonkers, New York, shop a year later.

"It was only a couple weeks into September, and the new fall merchandise in the Kardashian Kollection looked untouched," Agins says in her new book. "On practically every rack, there were signs that said '50% OFF.'"

It didn't take long for Agins to understand why the reality sisters' fans weren't flocking to Sears.

"I rifled through the racks and pulled out a leopard V-neck dress with skinny straps that was a mini in the front and dipped down to floor length in the back," she writes. "The print looked rubber-stamped on, and the fabric was full of static and thinner than a negligee; it had the quality of a cheap Halloween costume."

The $32.99 dress was knocked down to $9.99. After trying on a $72.99 black jacket with leopard trim, Agins was disgusted.

"Even if it had been for a Halloween costume, I would have rejected it as too tacky," she said.

Agins clearly speaks her mind, and if this is an indication of what the rest of her book will be like, it'll definitely be a good read. In a recent interview, Fashionista spoke to Agins about her career and her advice for aspiring fashion journalists.

Here's what she had to say:

"I started at the Journal July 9, 1984. I covered small business. Norm Pearlstine hired me, he was a managing editor then. They were expanding the staff at that time, they were hiring a lot of women, a lot of people who were doing things that were normally not [done], because I wasn't a business reporter or anything. Before that I covered airlines for about three years, which was really good because we had all of those bankruptcies. And then I covered the courthouse when [Rudy] Giuliani was prosecutor in 1987. We only covered white-collar crime.

"A lot of that was just fetching documents for other reporters, but the point is, if you want to be a good journalist, you need to know how to use a courthouse, know how to read a docket sheet, know how to talk to judges and read through a lawsuit and see what you need to see. These are really good skills."

She then discussed how she got into fashion.

"And then, in [1986] Norm decided to cover fashion in a big way. The first big story I did was in 1990 about this designer named Gordon Henderson, who was fighting with his financial backer, this guy named Ricky Sasaki. Ricky was this Japanese financier who was interested in fashion. And he wanted to turn Gordon into another Donna Karan. Gordon was, you know, like a lot of designers, a creative guy, very kind of impulsive, wouldn't take direction, so they just fought all the time. So I did a Page 1 story about the tension between the designer and his backer."

The story did so well that Agins won an award for it.

"I found out his salary, I got some really inside stuff on them, and that story kind of put me on the map. It wasn't like he was a big-time designer, but it was a nice kind of inside look. So I always tell young journalists, when you're trying to do a story, go for a story that's doable. Yeah, it would have been nice to do that story on Karl Lagerfeld, or Oscar [de la Renta], or Calvin Klein and Barry Schwartz. But you know that story's ungettable. But this story with Gordon was gettable, because he had just enough notoriety."

Agins went on to speak about her many experiences in her career as a journalist, highlighting her biggest stories as some of the best moments in her life.

"As a reporter, you live for these moments," she said.

Click here to read the full interview.