Leah Dolan
Leah Dolan treats fashion and beauty as stories about power, culture and change, using catwalks, celebrity wardrobes and body trends as her reporting lens. She writes and produces news and features for CNN Style, specializing in fashion and trend coverage that connects runway spectacle to the social forces behind it. Her work consistently frames clothes, bodies and brands within broader narratives about history, craft, fame and mortality.
Look of the Week and celebrity style as cultural reporting
Dolan spearheads “Look of the Week,” a recurring series that selects one standout outfit from the past seven days and unpacks why it matters beyond the red carpet. Recent installments include a close reading of Emma D’Arcy’s scene-stealing silky duster coat at a London premiere, focusing on the drama of a regal ballgown silhouette translated into trousers.
In another column, she defends Tom Holland’s tailoring against comparisons with his more heavily scrutinized partner, arguing that his suits merit attention in their own right.
Her “Look of the Week” coverage frequently uses celebrity dressing as a way into contemporary debates about gender, fame and digital scrutiny. A piece on Anne Hathaway’s maternity style interrogates the problem of online trolling and shows how pregnancy fashion exposes gaps in supposedly progressive attitudes. Other entries, such as her assessment of Erling Haaland as a new kind of glamorous soccer player, bring sports figures into fashion’s orbit to show how star images are constructed through clothing.
Across the series, the tone is explanatory and contextual rather than purely descriptive, with each look serving as a case study in how style operates as social signaling.
London designers want you to know the hands that made these clothes
Beyond individual outfits, Dolan covers fashion weeks as live experiments in how the industry stages fantasy while grappling with real-world pressures. Her report “London designers want you to know the hands that made these clothes” follows a season in which brands went to conspicuous lengths to foreground the human engine behind fashion week, emphasizing craft and labor over automation.
She describes designers naming makers, highlighting artisanal techniques and using shows to remind audiences that garments are the product of specific, skilled work rather than abstract luxury.
In a dispatch from Men’s Fashion Week in Paris, she details how a brutal heat wave disrupted the carefully constructed dream of high-end runway presentations. The piece tracks dangerously high temperatures and shows how environmental conditions stripped away some of the industry’s escapist sheen, making the physical costs of staging fashion visible. She also profiles designers such as Willy Chavarria, focusing on themes of positivity, community and how something as simple as a handbag helps define the self-image of a “baddie.”
Across these reports, Dolan distinguishes herself by insisting that the spectacle of fashion week be read alongside climate, labor and community, not apart from them.
Burberry, heritage and the problem with nostalgia
Dolan often turns from runway news to deeper examinations of how legacy brands build and maintain their identities. In coverage exploring how a 170-year-old label can feel modern, she examines the distinction between leaning on nostalgia and building on heritage, arguing that the latter requires active engagement with contemporary culture rather than passive repetition of archive imagery. A related piece on Burberry asserts that the house is not just trading on sentimentality but positioning itself as a heritage brand, with all the responsibilities and constraints that implies.
Her interest in heritage extends beyond specific houses to the structures that shape fashion history. In “How a humble strip of walkway changed fashion forever,” she uses an exhibition about the evolution of catwalk shows to trace how runway design moved from discreet studio presentations to the immersive, high-production spectacles associated with names like Karl Lagerfeld. A feature revisiting the film “Marie Antoinette” two decades on looks behind the velvet curtain at how Sofia Coppola’s aesthetic choices and the imagery of a teen queen continue to influence contemporary style.
These stories show Dolan’s habit of treating fashion as a historical narrative in motion, where films, exhibitions and royal myths all feed into what brands and audiences consider “heritage.”
GLP-1, cadaver fat and the beauty economy
Dolan’s beat also encompasses the beauty industry, particularly where it intersects with medicine, ethics and new markets. In her feature “GLP-1s are shrinking bodies. Cadaver fat is plugging the gap,” she reports on a company using fat from cadavers to restore volume lost through weight-loss drugs, framing the story around how opinions about death shape reactions to such interventions. The piece treats beauty not as a series of product launches but as a system in which pharmaceutical trends, aesthetic desires and attitudes toward mortality all collide.
Another article, “Beauty for dogs, pull-up pubic hair and appearance inflation: 3 prolific beauty writers sum up 2025,” surveys a year of beauty trends through the eyes of specialist writers, highlighting phenomena such as grooming products for pets and the escalating expectations placed on human appearance. Her author bio notes that her writing explores the social forces driving the beauty industry, pop culture history and art, and these beauty features reflect that remit by centering cultural drivers rather than surface-level tips.
Before joining CNN, Dolan built experience as a freelance journalist for fashion and culture publications including British Vogue, Vice, i-D and The Face, which informs her ability to connect runway and beauty coverage to wider conversations in style media.
4 more fashion journalists.
Adam Cheung
Adam Cheung is a style writer at British GQ with a specialist focus on sneakers, streetwear and menswear product coverage. He treats sneakers and streetwear as culture and design objects, writing about individual models, new silhouettes and the details that make them stand out. His work spans men’s style, watches and grooming, keeping attention on how people can wear and buy into emerging trends. He produces service-led shopping edits on shoes, bags and accessories, built around clear recommendations and concise reasoning. He covers brands and market trends with an emphasis on wearable takeaways for everyday style and occasion dressing. His British GQ features are republished across international GQ editions, and he runs Typed Hype, an Instazine dedicated to sneaker culture, extending his coverage across mainstream menswear, niche releases and culture-facing commentary.
Alexandra Fullerton
Alexandra Fullerton is a freelance stylist and fashion writer for The Telegraph, known for turning professional styling methods into simple, practical rules for dressing. She covers outfit formulas, wardrobe edits, seasonal dressing, tights, festive knitwear, high-street fashion, smart shopping and investment pieces. Her advice focuses on what to keep, what to buy and how to wear it in real life, rather than fashion news or abstract trends. She draws on a long career as a fashion director and editor at Stylist and Glamour, styling shoots and working with actors, musicians and presenters. She also styles commercial campaigns and individual clients. Fullerton writes fashion books, including guides to everyday dressing and Chanel bags, and runs the My3Words shopping concept based on her three-word method.
Alexandria Dale
Alexandria Dale specialises in turning celebrity style and emerging trends into affordable high street shopping guides. She is Digital Fashion Writer at Cosmopolitan UK, covering fashion news, trend analysis and product-led features. Her beat includes seasonal colours, fabrics, transitional dressing, polished looks on a budget, sustainable fashion and new brands. She finds high street alternatives to luxury pieces and identifies trends worth investing in, with a focus on fit, fabric, versatility and repeat wear. Her guides often centre on one trend or wardrobe staple, with specific buys under a clear price cap. Recent work includes Victoria Beckham-inspired burgundy leather midi skirts, Primark wide-leg trousers, M&S argyle jumpers and Primark home delivery. She has six years of fashion journalism experience across digital and print titles, including Glamour and Ok!, and reports with practical styling advice and product detail.
Alice Reynolds
Alice Reynolds is a writer and production journalist on The Independent’s IndyBest shopping desk who tests accessible supermarket and high-street products in real life. She focuses on fashion, beauty, food and fitness, reviewing supermarket food and drink, protein bars and creatine supplements, and high-street clothing and beauty launches. Her beat spans supermarket staples such as dark chocolate, pizzas, Easter eggs and Greek yoghurt, plus workout snacks and performance supplements, and value-led fashion like viral jackets, wrap skirts and beauty advent calendars. She runs comparative “best of” round-ups that weigh flavour, texture, thickness, quality, price and usefulness, using hands-on trials and taste tests. Her reporting is plain, practical and grounded in repeated supermarket and high-street testing, informed by interests in food, fitness and lifestyle shopping and earlier experience across travel and news formats.