The Rawness

The modern writing I currently admire the most is Vice magazine.  Like any New Yorker, I have an annoying urge to be the elitist prick who’s the first to declare anything as being “over” the moment it starts to gain popularity and recognition, yet as much as I’d like to bash Vice as being cliched or a parody of itself, I simply can’t.  Because their obnoxious prose never gets old to me.  Every time I pick up an issue to check if it’s lost its edge yet, it’s still awesome. 

Sometimes I read Gawker.com and think I hate snark.  Then I read Vice and realize, no, I only hate snark that tries to hard, snark as a substitute for insight or wit rather than as a way to enhance good insight and wit.  When you’ve got the acerbic insight, acidic wit and street smarts to back it up, snark can be awesome.  Kind of like how we as a society claim to hate cockiness and narcissism, yet forgive it in the truly talented at the drop of a hat.  I read the prose in their record reviews and get insanely jealous that I can’t write like that.  Not ashamed to admit it. 

I love this piece on fashion they had by Christopher Bollen called “I Love Fashion,” especially the following insights (emphasis added by me):

Fashion has often been noted for sucking the meaning out of subversive signifiers and peddling them as popular wares, thereby destroying their once-volatile expression—when even avant-garde designers like Viktor & Rolf use safety pins in their Fall 2008 collection, they are appropriating punk without keeping true to its trash rebellion, its spectacular refusal (even with “no” written across the models’ faces). Of course, one part of fashion is business. Let’s admit this now. Fashion has to dress the world’s population and likewise pay for all of the mills, designers, retailers, clerks, magazines, and advertisers invested in it. But subversion is fashion too. Mainstream and subculture work as strategic dance partners here. The point of subculture is always to fight against the hegemony, and when their signs become appropriated or outdated, the resistant have to find new, unexpected, jarring visual methods of revolt. If this game of invent-and-take weren’t built into the system, most women today would still be wearing house dresses, and a leather jacket would still mean trouble. You can’t dress up in the revolutions of your parents.

Not all creative radicals work outside of the system. There are plenty of groundbreaking designers who indeed advertise, make money, and sell on the third floor of Barney’s who are still following a vision of art and exploration. Even elitists need to recognize that real change (that word these days!) succeeds best when it meets the world with some sort of handshake. Is fashion art? Really, the more interesting questions is “Has art become fashion?” So far that is still the ugly unaskable. Fine art makes a critical stink about being compared to fashion because it knows how close that gets to admitting what really controls its revolutions—the market. Is it more dubious to create with the full acknowledgement that, yes, this will be tagged with a price, it is part of an economy that does dictate it to a degree, or to pretend that you are still employing liberatory gestures outside the order while you and your gallery are getting fat from the byproduct? I almost admire the honesty of the fashion world. It makes no bones about recognizing how much the market plays a role in its developments. Art could use a more honest mirror in its dressing room.

Ultimately the downside of fashion is the fetishizing of the ever-shifting object. But the upside is that it still can be an individual play of decisions. If we have to walk around in these balls of fabric, those willing to roll the dice can use them, screw with them, turn them into billboards or bellwethers. Even to hate fashion is still to realize its power, and anything that has power can be used, appropriated, or rechanneled. We do not want our lives to become lifestyles, as luxury brands are quick to create. But the best way not to become slaves to fashion is to embrace its potential. Slaves don’t hug their masters. Refusal isn’t revolution. Try that one on.

Sometimes I have to wonder, what is it exactly young people want to revolt against so badly here in America? Too many apps available on their Iphones? I mean outside of just some vague concept of “the establishment,” which really comes down to a proxy for whatever unresolved parent issues from our teenage years we’re to petty to let go of. I know it’s not perfect here, and there are things that are worth fighting to change (too many taxes is my bugaboo), but I’ve spent some time abroad in some real shitholes, and I have to admit, we’ve got it pretty good.

Why do so many people have to convince themselves something is anticapitalist, nonconformist or part of an imaginary “revolution” before they give themselves license to enjoy it?

No.

Just…no.

Here’s an affirmative action program I can get behind: can we please get some scholarship programs in fashion schools and hiring quotas at design houses for straight men? Because this is getting ridiculous now. People who show up like this to work should be cockpunched and fired on the spot.

Here’s a sample of what you’ll see after the link:

UPDATE:

Radar Magazine has weighed in. As does the UK Telegraph, which also provided the following video:

New York women are among the most fashionable women on the face of the earth. They are also among the least stylish. Confused? If so, you aren’t alone. You’re just among the many people who confuse stylish with fashionable.

To have a personal style is to have a statement you want to make with your clothing. You use your body as a palette and try to make your outfit into a work of art. Thought goes into a personal style. There are three “yous,” you as you see yourself, you as others see you, and you as you want others to see you. The aim of an impeccable personal style should be to bring these three yous as close together as possible. Questions to ask include: does this outfit match the personality I’m trying to convey? Do I have the attitude and mindset to pull it off? Is it showing the right amount of originality, yet is it not so out there as to become a freakshow? A good personal style takes into account the right amount of risk vs. safety for any occasion. A good personal style also takes into account what works for your body, especially your weight, skin tone, height and muscle tone.

Which brings us to fashion. There is a reason why the term “dedicated follower of fashion” exists. Because being fashionable is strictly about following. It doesn’t matter if the trend is ugly, if it doesn’t go with your personality, if it’s not flattering to your body shape, if the color that is in season does not go with you at all….all that’s irrelevant when you’re trying to be fashionable. Fashion is about checking your mind in at the door and slavishly keeping up with what other people are wearing. You’ll rock the ugliest, hard to match handbag if it has the right name splashed on it. You will rock Audrey Hepburn skinny jeans despite having a pear shape. You will put on the latest revealing low cut jeans despite having huge muffin tops. You will wear ballet slippers to work even though as an adult working in an office it makes you look like a child no one should take seriously (then you cry sexism).

For example, look at the dress at the top of the post.