Elio Iannacci

Elio Iannacci is an arts and culture reporter at The Globe and Mail whose entertainment coverage centres on fashion, celebrity and pop culture, with a focus on how style, performance and identity intersect. He has reported on arts and culture for the masthead since 2011, building a long-standing portfolio that connects runway shows, screen performances and music to broader cultural shifts. Across his work he combines an eye for designer detail with an interest in how artists and brands shape stories about taste, queerness and fame.

Fashion, luxury brands and personal style

Iannacci’s fashion writing treats designer collections and clothing trends as narrative material rather than surface decoration. In his feature on skinny jeans returning to prominence, he frames Prada’s move away from wide-leg denim and relaxed “dad” trousers as a deliberate break with recent comfort-driven fashion, describing fitted cuts, structured fabrics and a choreographed runway set to Vivaldi to show how a single collection redirects the silhouette conversation. His coverage highlights designers’ intentions and the mood of a show, using concrete details to explain why a specific cut or fabric matters for everyday dressing.

He applies the same approach to luxury brands and creative directors. In his profile of Ferragamo’s creative director, he focuses on the idea of “quiet luxury,” presenting the designer as “prince” of a restrained aesthetic and exploring how the label builds new audiences in Canada and beyond.

The piece balances brand strategy, design language and business ambition, showing an interest in how labels position themselves in a crowded market while maintaining a clear sense of the clothes themselves.

Iannacci also writes service and trend features that anchor fashion in everyday practice. In his guidance on reselling clothing, accessories and sneakers, he walks through how secondary markets operate in Canada, paying attention to platforms, price-setting and what makes certain items hold or gain value. His work in this area keeps the tone practical while still framing resale behaviour as part of a larger story about sustainability, taste and the life cycle of garments.

Awards shows, film culture and red-carpet coverage

On the film and television side of his entertainment beat, Iannacci covers awards-season culture with a combined interest in cinema and style. In his Oscars 2026 coverage he appears alongside the film editor as a style and culture journalist, answering reader questions about the winners, cut-off speeches and standout red-carpet looks.

These pieces treat the ceremony as both a storytelling milestone for the industry and a live showcase of how actors and designers collaborate on image.

His role in reader Q&A formats indicates comfort with explaining decisions behind nominations, wins and wardrobe choices to a general audience. He breaks down talking points from the broadcast and from the carpet, focusing on memorable on-stage moments while also noting the clothes and styling that define a given year.

The coverage emphasises context rather than gossip: how a speech lands in the broader awards narrative, or how a particular look fits into evolving red-carpet norms.

This awards-season work extends his fashion sensibility into film coverage, positioning him as a reporter who sees performances, podium appearances and premieres as opportunities to analyse both craft and presentation. He writes as an entertainment specialist who recognises that cultural impact comes from what is worn and how it is performed as much as from who wins.

Music, queer culture and iconic performers

Beyond fashion and film, Iannacci’s work frequently engages with music figures and queer culture. In his “Disco Dynasty” feature, he writes about disco’s legacy and its connection to diva performance, drawing on his background as an interdisciplinary scholar of queer-diva collaboration in popular music.

The story positions disco as a lineage rather than a nostalgia backdrop, linking performers, audiences and politics through the lens of dance-floor sound.

His profile of Dominique Fils-Aimé continues this focus on musical identity, presenting the singer’s work as a meeting of soul and self-discovery. The piece centres on how her songwriting and performance reflect personal and political journeys, signalling his interest in artists who treat music as a vehicle for introspection and social commentary. Across these stories he favours close engagement with the artist’s language and influences rather than broad genre generalisations.

Professional bios describing his career note that he has written notable profiles of performers and screen legends such as Sophia Loren, Barbra Streisand, Lady Gaga, Joni Mitchell and Beyoncé. Those credits, combined with his ongoing arts reporting, underline a speciality in long-form profiles of iconic women whose work sits at the intersection of popular music, film and fashion. Taken together, his music and profile writing shows a consistent interest in how stardom, performance and gender are constructed and maintained over time.

Cross-outlet arts and culture features

Iannacci’s work for other publications reinforces the same core interests he pursues at The Globe and Mail.

Professional summaries describe him as an award-winning journalist and writer who has contributed to more than 80 publications worldwide, including major national and international outlets focused on news, fashion and entertainment. These cross-outlet contributions range from arts criticism to lifestyle features, suggesting a portfolio built around culture rather than hard news.

His leisure writing showcases arts venues and galleries, highlighting specific spaces and artists and treating city culture as a network of scenes and curators. The tone in these pieces is descriptive and grounded in particular locations and shows, matching his broader tendency to root cultural commentary in named people, works and spaces rather than abstractions.

Across fashion, film, music and city life, his coverage remains consistent: a focus on creative figures and brands, the stories they tell through style and performance, and the cultural currents that make those stories matter.