I Hereby Declare The Fashion Bloggers' "Front Row" Status Trend Piece Over
Remember the days when the world of fashion used to be a scary place run by thin people in big sunglasses screechier, bitchier, thinner, and just better than you? Those days: gone. Fashion's now being run by bloggers. It's official/awful.
So! When you open this week's New York Times Sunday Styles, what kind of original wonderful 00's retrospective will they have for you?
"Bloggers Crash Fashion's Front Row," New York Times - 12/27/2009*
Hm. That sounds/looks familiar.
"Young Bloggers Have Ear of Fashion Heavyweights," New York Times, 09/13/2009
Yeah, but that's gotta be some...kind of...coincidence. Right?
[Click to enlarge, please.]
"Style bloggers take centre stage," Financial Times - 11/13/2009*
"Fashion Bloggers, Where They Belong: In The Front Row," Mediaite - September 29th, 2009
"Milan Fashion Week: Bloggers Go Front Row" - Scallywag & Vagabond, September 28, 2009
"Front Row Fashion Bloggers at Dolce & Gabbana," Cortorture - September 28, 2009
"Tavi Gevinson, 13-Year-Old Fashion Blogger Scores Front-Row Seats at New York Fashion Week" - Zimbio, September 21, 2009
"Bloggers Take Over the Front Row," InStyle - September 10, 2009
"Style blogger Susie Lau is headed for fashion's front row," The Observer - February 8, 2009
So, how long have people been using this stupid fucking tired dead horse linguistic chicken bone? Let's put it like this: Greg Lindsay, writing for MediaBistro, beat all of them to it.
"Bloggers In Tents: Fashion Warms to New Media," MediaBistro - February 6, 2007
Here's the takeaway:
1. The New York Times is laying off the wrong people. I already miss Allen Salkin far more than I ever thought I would.
2. Fashion bloggers are running fashion. Market editors should all fear for their lives.
3. Old age and treachery are of no use in the world of fashion writing. The most influential of these bloggers is a thirteen year-old girl who is feared and respected by the most powerful people in that business.
4. Neither are intelligence, creativity, or writing ability. Fashion writers and the people writing about fashion all fall behind a 13 year-old girl.
5. Fashion has now reached new levels of awareness-lacking self-parody.
Fashion people, I shouldn't have to do this for you. But when somebody shows up to a party wearing the same thing as someone else, it's, like, a crime punishable by summary execution, right? Well, guess what: you're all wearing the same trend piece. Let me fix this:
It's time to take those fashon bloggers, and the writers writing about the fashion bloggers, and kick them the fuck out of the front row, the second-to-front row, the tents, and then, make fashion and fashion writing interesting and readable and a total plutocracy or dictatorship or what have you. This kind of writing makes fat-hating Cintra Wilson look like a potential MacArthur Genius Grant recipient. Sometimes, when you give power to the people, it turns out that the people—as is the case here—suck. So you gotta take it back. Anna Wintour, just hire the 13 year-old kid and get rid of the rest. Kelly Cutrone, you should carry around brass knuckles and every time you see a laptop at a fashion week tent, you should not hesitate to smash them into said laptops.* Do you understand what I'm saying, here? Unless everyone writing about fashion actually sucks that bad—and that can't be possible, can it?—this has to be a conspiracy. Maybe's it's Mugatu and his return behind this.
IT'S THE SAME HEADLINE.
IT'S THE SAME BAD WRITING.
I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS.
[*The reason this will never, ever happen is because a majority of fashion writing is predicated on selling the products they're writing about, supported by advertisers selling the same products. Bloggers help get the word out about these products, thereby, more publicity for advertisers, with less hassle, because they're not dealing with major publication divas. So really, fashion bloggers are here to stay, whether anybody likes it or not. The trend pieces about them, however, might be getting a tad bit stale. At the very least, fashion's sense of wonder with them as new toys will likely get that way, too.]