Too little is too much

You wonder why I've taken a break? Where have I been and why did I go? I just needed to get some air. It's gotten so thin up here in the cheap seats. Watching the action from such a remove with the specks parading coolly down the runway as though they were game changing ideas has given me vertigo. What is the point and what is the message? The answers don't appear on the runway and they haven't appeared in the press, either. If anything the game of bait and switch has reached a level of complexity rarely seen in the last 45 years. For some of us, we can do that math, subtracting accurately without the help of a smart phone calculator, and come to the moments when order shifted to chaos. Granted it was a slow moving tsunami, but one that nevertheless mowed down and washed away so much that was beautiful, coherent and yes, even forward thinking. Modernity isn't something that happened post 9/11.

Beyonce was not the first superstar with processed hair (extensions). Reed Krakoff was not the first one note designer going for 3 notes. Anna Wintour was not the first visionary at Conde Nast, nor the first influence peddling adventuress. Oscar de la Renta was certainly not the first Latin lover to dress a society matron. Andre Leon Talley was not the first editor to become a caricature in search of a gig that would restore him to his glory days as a bonafide editor, once more. John Galliano is not the first genius to go down in flames at the height of his powers, though he may be the richest. Dior, (Y)SL, Balenciaga, Ungaro, Balmain, Blass, Rabanne, Anne Klein and Ferre were not the first powerhouse design establishments to suck wind. Anna dello Russo was not the first fashion victim who will live and die by the dress hanger. Some editors/fashion critics of the New York Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune are not the first oracles to be sniffing toxic fumes sending out mixed messages that mean nothing to even the most educated of ears. I can't tell you how many times I've spoken to people in the press (yes, I know some interesting people who write for real newspapers and magazines) who ask me if I get what's going on or if I'm as confused as they are. I've come to believe that confusion is merely a state of knowing but an unwillingness to believe. Sort of like realizing Santa is really your parents doing the best they can.

What once flew high is now skimming and skidding along the ground. Sitting in Gregory's on Seventh Ave. between 39th and 40th minding my own business, I watched the river that is New York's fashion industry meander by. It was busy and at the same time strangely empty. Tourists taking pictures of the tailor hard at work on his sewing machine were cheek to jowl with young fashion workers busily making a display of their presence and profession or just posing as fashionables like those who crowd the tents at collection time. This blond woman in a dress so short that she spent every second tugging at it to attempt to cover her almost completely exposed lower half. Her example was the perfect illustration of too little being way, way too much. The spectacle has replaced the spectacular. Chaos, the new order of the day. Still, I am fascinated by the ebb and flow of culture and the highs and lows of fashion. That said, I'm back in my seat way up near the roof and straining to see all that there is to see. Welcome back to my world.

Monkey Business

I, like so many other New Yorkers, am stressed out. With the hurricane, the election and our early- bird blizzard, things have just gotten to be a little too out of control. Anxiety is the new normal and upheaval is the order of the day. One doesn't have to be flooded out of their home, without electricity or heat or water for going on 2 weeks, unable to find gas or public transport to get from what was once your home to your job to feel a sense on unease. All those mornings I didn't want to get out of bed are nothing to the feelings I've had of late. Things just don't feel right.

Fortunately, the election went the way I'd hoped. That's all I'll say about politics. Except, I'm still struck by the look on Anne Romney's face as Mitt conceded. In her red Oscar or Fiandaca or whatever it was she wore, with those boulder sized rock crystal beads around her neck, she looked as though she'd been woken from some nightmare only to find that the dream was real and all of it while standing in front of millions of people. So much for smug, self satisfaction.

 Smug self satisfaction is the operative phrase. Fashion today, or more to the point, the fashion business, has drowned in its own puddle of standing water. Reading the news of Balenciaga, the exit of Nicholas Ghesquierre and the machinations of LVMH to somehow show up PPR, Nicholas' supposed dissatisfaction with the lack of "support" given by Mr. Pinault, his unhappiness at the "freedom" and "license" so freely given to Hedi Slimane for his re-tread of (Y)SL, all of this "business" is stultifyingly dull and has nothing to do with fashion. Fashion, that poor unsuspecting victim, not to mention all of us who have followed her, as though she were a siren song or the pied piper, have come to a place in the forest empty of trees, water, sky or light. It's a scorched earth we stand on.

Slimane's (Y)SL means little or nothing to me. Other than editors and the conglomerate that owns and supports it and a few die-hard sheep it has no validity. Balenciaga has been the same in my eyes for years. Sure, the accessories, shoes and bits and pieces made money and noise.

lock-step editors

The gush of hyperbole from editors like Suzy Menkes at the International Herald Tribune and others at the Times, WSJ and a host of blogs/bloggers made Ghesquierre out to be the most influential design force of the past 10 years. The item he sent the world scurrying to copy was a pair of cargo pants. Gee. ( I know I over simplify, but I'm trying to make a point here. Work with me on this...) From his beginning where he "designed"a much photographed vest that was a COMPLETE copy of one by the master of collage, Koos van den Akker, put an sour taste in my mouth. Koos was my last boss before I struck out on my own. There is only one Koos, and fortunately the world is about to learn a great deal more about him thanks to an up-coming book and documentary film.

Nicholas who pointedly avoided the Balenciaga archive made one unfortunate misstep by that decision. The ethos of Balenciaga's approach to design was that the fabric, no matter its property: hard or soft, must move with the body. Never should it be in combat with the body. Despite all the creative experiments that Nicholas achieved with his fabrics, many of them man made state of the art manipulations of disparate materials they rarely worked with the body. Hard, harder and rock hardest is one way to describe them.They were the stuff of a trend poisoned editor's dream. Aggressive, self-consciously studied clothing rested on the shoulders of models like provocative sandwich boards, one moment drwing attention and the next repelling it. The rare times I came upon women in the street wearing the label it was too often re-issued designs from the original archive. They were often coats that made your heart stop. So, no tears from this corner. If LVMH now wants to give him his own label, he should remember that is in name and contract only. One need only to look at Galliano and his eponymous label to see that it is only yours as long as you have a job. The moment you're no longer essential, the name stays and you go.

There's a lot more to be said on this. I don't want to go on and on and risk boring you.  The newspapers and blogosphere are jammed with innocuous stories and pathetic bits passed off as news. It's not. Tory Burch's legal problems with her husband Chris of C.Wonder fame (and the guy whose money set her up and continues to head her business' board) is all just a mammoth luxury problem. Anna Wintour and DVF climbing in between the battling parties is unseemly. Kate Moss' supposed nervous breakdown while shooting CK ads in panties sans bra with Marky Mark is simply fantasy. The prescribed Valium to help cope wasn't as effective as coke. Simple math.

Model pregnancies, break-ups and break downs isn't news. Reed Krakoff looking at the camera in a NYT's story about being the consultant to the architects in charge of building the new tower in the Hudson Yards that will house the new Coach headquarters as though he were president of MOMA instead of a handbag company and another that couldn't make a dress that storm victims would take even if it were offered for free. He can design a great bag, but that's the beginning and end of story. He knows how to buy pedigreed art, furniture and homes like the best of them. But that's not rocket science when you have that kind of money. It buys you a cozy seat on the board of the most important body of American Fashion designers, too. In the end, this is all just monkey business. The big ape getting throttled by the rabid chimp with the hairy low hanging balls. Its all just a jungle, and we're just the suckers off to the sides watching helplessly like forlorn bunnies forgotten on the sofa.

*all images shot by me at Montreal's Musee' de Beaux Arts