Commentary - Fashionista

Commentary

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Business

Where Have All the Fashion Critics Gone?

In the 1970s, the New Yorker’s fashion critic, Kennedy Fraser, wrote about clothes nearly every week. Yes, she reported on the collections. And industry personalities. But she also wrote about fashion’s role in the greater culture, whether discussing hemline lengths or blue jeans. In a New York Times review of A Fashionable Mind, Fraser’s collection of those essays published in 1981, writer Maureen Howard puts it pretty succinctly: “The book is about clothes - the wearing, buying, making, selling, discarding of clothes - and so, of course, it is about us and our society.” Fraser is undoubtedly a rare writer: one who has the ability to take an arguably shallow topic and give it the kind of depth even a serious New Yorker reader could appreciate. But lately, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the fashion critic in general, and how that role has changed, and sometimes disappeared altogether—for no good reason.

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Careers

Anonymous Retail Rant: Don't Leave Your (Used) Feminine Items in the Dressing Rooms, and Other Rules to Shop By

After a year of working as a sales associate at a well-known, fast fashion chain in downtown New York, I've had my fair share of good and bad customers. A good, appreciative, understanding customer can make even the most stressful, cramped, miserable days of retail (which, let's face it, are many and close between) feel like a stroll through a well aerated, uncrowded, naturally lit park. Well, almost. I've had ladies shriek with delight when I've handed them the store's last pair of suspender tights that Rihanna wore. Or the flag-print hotpants Rihanna wore. Or anything Rihanna wore. Many customers have specifically requested my name following our interaction, so as to tell my higher-ups how helpful they found me (though sadly, I do not work on commission). One customer literally jumped up and down hugging me when I returned from an arduous journey to the stock room and back with last season's faded pink skinny jeans that were no longer on the sales floor. “I hope you're here next time I come,” she squealed, “I'm going to ask for you!” To which I replied, “For my sake, let's hope I'm not.” So what, you ask, has caused this level of embitterment?

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Style

Did You Read That Times Piece on Dressing for 'the Club'? We Thought It Was a Little Off the Mark

In today's Times Style section, there is a piece titled "Dress Codes in New York Clubs: Will This Get Me In?" The author attempts to reveal the sartorial secrets for getting in to New York City's most exclusive nightclubs. Apparently, to get into all the hip NYC spots like The Mulberry Project and Provacateur, all you have to do is wear tight jeans, 5-inch heels and forgo stripes. Here are the most hilarious quotes author and his interviewees' (NYC club owners) advice for what will "get you in":

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Business

Mugler: Then and Now

Paris--When the lights dimmed on the second floor of the Garage de Turenne yesterday evening in Paris, a male figure emerged on the video wide screen completely covered in a deep blue shining rubber materials. He began to scratch and peel the rubber off of his skin, first from the lower body then towards his face, a moment that signaled the start of the debut Mugler show under the creative direction of Nicola Formichetti. “It’s going to be genius!” “Fabulous” “So talented” were some of the pre-show chatters I heard around the area where I was seating. “On va voir,” (We shall see) was Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele’s response when I asked her if she thinks this new Mugler can be revived at this moment. Then a model emerged onto the raised platform in front of the screen wearing a black suit with a high elbow rubber gloves. Thus began a collection with the title–Anatomy of Change: Mode Sans Frontières. (Borrowed from the organization Médecins sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders.) What followed was the intersection of an homage to past Mugler style and an effort to update that familiar look with materials like rubber, neoprene, stretch nylon, and reflective pieces. Was it, as the program notes stated, “saying something about how fashion exists now”?