Last week we heard the term celeb-sartorial complex for the first time and we shuddered. Someone had finally coined the phrase that summed up the death of fashion as an industry dedicated to clothing. But like a perverted phoenix this death has given birth to the zombie aberration that is celebrity fashion. Fashion lives on in celebrity land but we can’t say that it is truly alive as it once was. And the word was hyphenated. We knew it wasn’t a good sign. But unlike Michael Vollbracht we aren’t willing to accept defeat yet.
Though we admit we sort of wish we had Volbracht’s balls. Everything he says to Robin Givhan is spot on and sadly true
Fashion, despite its major critics being neither young nor waifish (much as we love Cathy, Robin, Teri, Bridget, and Suzy not one of them is clavicle slim and they are all over 40) cannot seem to cope with dressing older women. Nor can we seem to get beyond the badly behaved young woman as fashion icon. It boggles the mind though we admit to a certain grudging admiration of the Olsen twin’s business acumen. Way to use that false idol status for good. And we don’t mean that sarcastically, we believe in adding value to the economy.
But Vollbracht had a serious critique for us too.
And then there’s the media talk about the politics of fashion and the meaning of fashion. That’s a distraction, a tangent. All women want “is something they can wear and look pretty and look young,” Vollbracht says.
Ouch. But then we have to agree, we are distracting from the major issue in fashion which is how does the damn garment fit? Is it well designed? Is it tailored? In other words, talk about the damn construction.
But with fashion as spectacle how many of us ever really get up close and personal? Clothing is knocked off before it hits the stores, simulacra has removed us from the physical experience of clothing even as the media experience of fashion has broadened the reach of fashion beyond measure.
As we have said before paradoxically we become both more and less sophisticated consumers of fashion. We know more of design and yet less. We recognize countless variations and styles, forced down our throat by media (yes even by Coutorture) within hours of the event and yet how many of us have touched, smelled, breathed, and worn an original? Emotional resonance our ass!
But just as no one cooks anymore few of us are trained well enough in fashion to say much more than wow this is cute! And thus those of us with half a brain have decided to decode the semiotics of fashion, tricking ourselves into believing that we are making fashion better for it. But are we? We suspect if the Volbrachts of the industry are giving up than perhaps not.
With enough market appointments we imagine anyone can learn to spot the good stuff but it is soooo much easier to just whip out glib comments, wry observations, and poke fun at celebrities. And thus the hard bit of fashion, creating, promoting, and wearing great clothing is left in the dust of hyperreality celeb-sartorial complex mania and even the intellectual among us are just as guilty as the dumbest celebrity cheerleaders.
And that is a sobering thought.
What a sad loss. I am truly appalled and saddened when I see successful women in their 20s and 30s regard the Olsen Twins or Nicky Hilton as fashion icons. It wouldn’t surprise me if the only reason Carolina Herrera and Oscar de la Renta are alive and kicking is due to their licensing… i.e., lending their name to perfumes, etc.
it’s interesting that he states that women want to look young, then bemoans the obsession with olsen-twin like celebrities. reverence for youth precedes lindsay lohan et al.
and looking “edgy” – what does that mean? a look is no longer edgy once it is codified as such. and what is this look anyway? oversize glasses, an asymmetrical top and leggings? please!
it’s nothing new…in the 18th century it was those of the royal court and the merchants in France(and elsewhere) deciding what everyone would eventually wear…America’s royal court is non-existant since this is a democracy… hype gets you the celebrity…what they wear is what is made in versions for shoppers.
trying to “decode” the semiotics of fashion is also commonly known as mental masturbation.
wank wank wank wank wank