When it’s not very fashionable to be out smarted by a blogger.
With the rise of new media it’s been well understood for a while that the way old media conducted business is no longer the way any business conducts its affairs. Where they used to gloat and curry all the editorial favors they now obsessively pay attention to what new media is doing. One arena where this new contemplation of affairs is not readily been absorbed is that of the fashion arena- specifically who gets to sit front row at the fashion collections.
In a report that came out over the weekend by the NY Times and which was widely parodied by Gawker it seems that the fashion world is visibly upset as to get who gets to sit where and what this implies about their own tenor in society (fading fast we say…)
Reports the NYT’s;
NOT everyone thought it was adorable in September when a 13-year-old wunderkind blogger named Tavi was given a front-row seat at the fashion shows of Marc Jacobs, Rodarte and others.
We wonder why? Continues the report;
Rather, it was what the arrival of Ms. Gevinson, as a blogger, represented that ruffled feathers among the fashion elite. Anne Slowey, who has spent decades climbing the editorial ladder to a senior position at Elle, dismissed the teenager’s column as “a bit gimmicky” in an interview with New York magazine.
Interesting. Our gut instinct is it wont be long before Ms. Gevinson will be saying the same thing about Ms Slowey and the cohort that she confers with (they’re usually the ones slinking past uber doormen and making out with desperate boys who convince them that they finally own them and the world…). Continues the report:
As a relatively new phenomenon in the crowded arena of journalists whose specialty it is to report the news of the catwalks, fashion bloggers have ascended from the nosebleed seats to the front row with such alacrity that a long-held social code among editors, one that prizes position and experience above outward displays of ambition or enjoyment, has practically been obliterated.
Does the NYT’s aim to suggest that journalists are useful and valued? Surely they haven’t been reading what they and other neophytes print. Talking of which Gawker made us laugh with the following observation;
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.*
Yes we completely agree, let’s beat the knuckles of all fashion bloggers, teach people like Adrien Field and Kristian LaLiberte that wearing red sunglasses has nothing to do with fashion and as long as your honorable majesties Anna Wintour and Hamish Bowles feel you have served penance for your wicked ways we will let you back into the tents, all the way in the back row of course. Blah!
