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Even though I've never heard of this guy, the article addresses many points, through the designer's words, that ring true and that we have discussed and had wars over here. I also think that it's a good indicator of what I mean in the part of the manifesto about divorcing fashion from consumer culture.
FROM NYT
How Do You Like Me Now?
By ERIC WILSON
THIS week, Eric Gaskins, whose sensual gowns have appeared on the covers of Cosmopolitan and Vanity Fair and the gilded racks of Bergdorf Goodman, will close his doors, another small business to succumb to a recession that has been merciless in choosing its prey.
Here is a designer — a good designer — who has played by the rules of the rag trade for 22 years, enjoying small moments of critical success as they came and keeping his head down when they did not. He never complained, at least not publicly, when the spotlight moved on to designers who were less than half his age. Even in failure, he was gracious, taking pains to finish orders for dresses from his dearest customers before he shut down his business.
But he is not going quietly.
Those who have known him for long can attest that he is such a nice guy that he is about the last person they would have suspected was behind a scathing blog that skewers the industry’s most sacred cows. Until Mr. Gaskins chose to reveal himself, now that he is closing his business, as the author of The Emperor’s Old Clothes (emperorsoldclothes.blogspot.com), only a handful of friends knew he had such a biting side. But as Fluff Chance, his pseudonymous creation, Mr. Gaskins is fearless in his critiques of colleagues and their creations. Just a few examples:
On Marc Jacobs: “He is becoming an American expatriate version of John Galliano in his appearance and I fear in his imagination.”
On Marco Zanini’s one season at Halston: “That is the closest thing to necrophilia I’ve seen in fashion since Halston tried to make a go of it with the previous five designers they blew through.”
On Peter Som: “The poster boy for displaced and discarded designers.”
Isn’t it always the nice guys?
While cattiness was his signature lure, it was Fluff Chance’s broader observations on the industry, and his mysterious insider status, that resonated with readers. His musings indicated that he had been around for some time: He once mentioned a decades-old tale about hanging out with Christian Lacroix, for example, as well as a recent street-corner encounter with Francisco Costa, the Calvin Klein designer.
In posts about media favoritism toward designers with pretty faces and the right connections, about the celebrity invasion of fashion and about the serial nomination of industry pets for coveted prizes, he vocalized frustrations that are shared by any number of designers who work hard and sell a lot of clothes but have never been as successful at getting publicity as those meteoric stars who just seem to step out of college and into the pages of Vogue.
“It was viciously funny,” said Steven Cox, a designer of the Duckie Brown label who has posted comments on the site and, with his partner, Daniel Silver, had been obsessed with finding out who was behind the blog, unaware it was written by another designer. “What he wrote was so true,” he said. “It was almost like the things I wanted to say, but just couldn’t say.”
Regular visitors of another fashion blog, Fashionista.com, had also been curious, since he frequently posted stinging remarks as Fluff Chance there, with links to his own blog. “He kind of came out of nowhere and commented on every single post,” said Britt Aboutaleb, the associate editor of the site. “No one really knew who he was, and when you have such a passionate angle, people want to know why.”
It was a dark view of the business being told through The Emperor’s Old Clothes, one that wasn’t being shown on reality shows or in the usually fawning online coverage of Fashion Week — and certainly not one put forth by Mr. Gaskins when he bumped into other designers at industry parties. In recent months, as Fluff Chance began to write about the emotional impact of ending his collection, the blog became a bird’s-eye view of the psychological impact of the recession on a small designer’s business. Curiosity about who was behind the blog increased in proportion to its tone of utter nihilism:
“We are all guests at the wake for what once was a living, breathing business,” he wrote in May. “Every store in this town is a converted chapel where the grieving friends and families come to view the dearly departed.”
His online alter ego was beginning to get the kind of attention that had eluded Mr. Gaskins as a designer. A Hollywood stylist e-mailed him asking if he could help her get tickets to the Michael Jackson funeral. And that, he said, just about summed up everything that is wrong with fashion today. As Fluff Chance, he was an unknown quantity who intrigued and provoked people. As Mr. Gaskins, he was largely ignored.
Would anyone have paid attention if he had signed his real name? Or thought any less of him as a designer after all those years of struggle and sacrifice?
“I’m one of those people who, maybe due to not enough ego or too much insecurity, always wanted to be liked,” Mr. Gaskins, who is 51, said during a farewell interview in his showroom, a bright fifth-floor space at 264 West 40th Street that he had renovated only last year.
Fashion was different when Mr. Gaskins started out in the 1980s. Designers did not live in ivory towers, and so it was possible for Mr. Gaskins, as a student at Kenyon College, to find his way to an apprenticeship with Hubert de Givenchy in Paris. He would watch “monsieur” in fittings with Bunny Mellon, who brought apples from her Virginia orchard, which were politely accepted and later deposited on Mr. Gaskins’s desk, with a “Here, you have these, they will remind you of home.” In New York, he met Bill Blass and Geoffrey Beene and tricked Oscar de la Renta into giving him an interview by claiming on the phone to be Liza Minnelli’s then-husband, Mark Gero.
After a few years of assistant work for Jack Mulqueen and Koos van den Akker in New York, Mr. Gaskins started making men’s shorts under his own name and then linen sundresses sold at beach resorts. Within a few seasons, he was selling sharply tailored taupe and gray cocktail dresses at Barneys New York and Bergdorf Goodman and dozens of upscale stores around the country. He had $1 million in orders, even though he rarely presented a collection on a runway.
FROM NYT
Here is a designer — a good designer — who has played by the rules of the rag trade for 22 years, enjoying small moments of critical success as they came and keeping his head down when they did not. He never complained, at least not publicly, when the spotlight moved on to designers who were less than half his age. Even in failure, he was gracious, taking pains to finish orders for dresses from his dearest customers before he shut down his business.
But he is not going quietly.
Those who have known him for long can attest that he is such a nice guy that he is about the last person they would have suspected was behind a scathing blog that skewers the industry’s most sacred cows. Until Mr. Gaskins chose to reveal himself, now that he is closing his business, as the author of The Emperor’s Old Clothes (emperorsoldclothes.blogspot.com), only a handful of friends knew he had such a biting side. But as Fluff Chance, his pseudonymous creation, Mr. Gaskins is fearless in his critiques of colleagues and their creations. Just a few examples:
On Marc Jacobs: “He is becoming an American expatriate version of John Galliano in his appearance and I fear in his imagination.”
On Marco Zanini’s one season at Halston: “That is the closest thing to necrophilia I’ve seen in fashion since Halston tried to make a go of it with the previous five designers they blew through.”
On Peter Som: “The poster boy for displaced and discarded designers.”
Isn’t it always the nice guys?
While cattiness was his signature lure, it was Fluff Chance’s broader observations on the industry, and his mysterious insider status, that resonated with readers. His musings indicated that he had been around for some time: He once mentioned a decades-old tale about hanging out with Christian Lacroix, for example, as well as a recent street-corner encounter with Francisco Costa, the Calvin Klein designer.
In posts about media favoritism toward designers with pretty faces and the right connections, about the celebrity invasion of fashion and about the serial nomination of industry pets for coveted prizes, he vocalized frustrations that are shared by any number of designers who work hard and sell a lot of clothes but have never been as successful at getting publicity as those meteoric stars who just seem to step out of college and into the pages of Vogue.
“It was viciously funny,” said Steven Cox, a designer of the Duckie Brown label who has posted comments on the site and, with his partner, Daniel Silver, had been obsessed with finding out who was behind the blog, unaware it was written by another designer. “What he wrote was so true,” he said. “It was almost like the things I wanted to say, but just couldn’t say.”
Regular visitors of another fashion blog, Fashionista.com, had also been curious, since he frequently posted stinging remarks as Fluff Chance there, with links to his own blog. “He kind of came out of nowhere and commented on every single post,” said Britt Aboutaleb, the associate editor of the site. “No one really knew who he was, and when you have such a passionate angle, people want to know why.”
It was a dark view of the business being told through The Emperor’s Old Clothes, one that wasn’t being shown on reality shows or in the usually fawning online coverage of Fashion Week — and certainly not one put forth by Mr. Gaskins when he bumped into other designers at industry parties. In recent months, as Fluff Chance began to write about the emotional impact of ending his collection, the blog became a bird’s-eye view of the psychological impact of the recession on a small designer’s business. Curiosity about who was behind the blog increased in proportion to its tone of utter nihilism:
“We are all guests at the wake for what once was a living, breathing business,” he wrote in May. “Every store in this town is a converted chapel where the grieving friends and families come to view the dearly departed.”
His online alter ego was beginning to get the kind of attention that had eluded Mr. Gaskins as a designer. A Hollywood stylist e-mailed him asking if he could help her get tickets to the Michael Jackson funeral. And that, he said, just about summed up everything that is wrong with fashion today. As Fluff Chance, he was an unknown quantity who intrigued and provoked people. As Mr. Gaskins, he was largely ignored.
Would anyone have paid attention if he had signed his real name? Or thought any less of him as a designer after all those years of struggle and sacrifice?
“I’m one of those people who, maybe due to not enough ego or too much insecurity, always wanted to be liked,” Mr. Gaskins, who is 51, said during a farewell interview in his showroom, a bright fifth-floor space at 264 West 40th Street that he had renovated only last year.
Fashion was different when Mr. Gaskins started out in the 1980s. Designers did not live in ivory towers, and so it was possible for Mr. Gaskins, as a student at Kenyon College, to find his way to an apprenticeship with Hubert de Givenchy in Paris. He would watch “monsieur” in fittings with Bunny Mellon, who brought apples from her Virginia orchard, which were politely accepted and later deposited on Mr. Gaskins’s desk, with a “Here, you have these, they will remind you of home.” In New York, he met Bill Blass and Geoffrey Beene and tricked Oscar de la Renta into giving him an interview by claiming on the phone to be Liza Minnelli’s then-husband, Mark Gero.
After a few years of assistant work for Jack Mulqueen and Koos van den Akker in New York, Mr. Gaskins started making men’s shorts under his own name and then linen sundresses sold at beach resorts. Within a few seasons, he was selling sharply tailored taupe and gray cocktail dresses at Barneys New York and Bergdorf Goodman and dozens of upscale stores around the country. He had $1 million in orders, even though he rarely presented a collection on a runway.
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