Early in his career, Michael Gross wrote about rock music for magazines. From 1973, his work appeared primarily in "Crawdaddy!", the "New Musical Express", "Zoo World", "Rock", "Club", "Circus" and "Swank". In addition to writing features for "Circus" magazine's sister publication, "Circus Raves", during the mid 1970s, he served as editor-in-chief of "Rock" in 1976 and 1977. Gross was the editor of the "Fire Island News", a weekly newspaper in a New York summer colony, in 1978. He then began covering fashion photography for "Photo District News" and subsequently wrote the column "Fashion Statements" for "Manhattan, Inc.", a short-lived business magazine. In 1985, he went to work for "The New York Times", writing about fashion in feature stories and a weekly column, "Notes on Fashion". In 1988, he became a contributing editor of "New York" magazine, covering fashion and the world of the rich and famous.