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Colin’s Column | Why Fashion Needs Its Fourth Estate

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  • Ahimsa
    Vegan Police
    • Sep 2011
    • 1879

    Colin’s Column | Why Fashion Needs Its Fourth Estate

    From BoF:

    "In his latest column, Colin McDowell examines the sorry state of fashion criticism and why fashion needs its Fourth Estate more than ever."

    "LONDON, United Kingdom — The fashion world is one of expediency in which few utterances of any kind can be taken seriously. Insincerity and empty, hysterical overreactions are almost de rigueur, especially when uttered by press officers and public relations people. No surprise because, like diplomats, they are not paid to always tell the truth, but to fight their corner on behalf of designers.

    And when it comes to fashion writers, the truth is there are precious few who have an opinion and are proud to express it. In fact, there are less than half a dozen. And that’s because the sanctions for speaking truth are severe, because if they are not, the entire self-congratulatory, smoke and mirrors, candy floss edifice of fashion could collapse into an unedifying goo.

    In the past, the slapping down of expert opinion was done by paid PR officers (with varying degrees of aplomb). The designer was considered far too grand to personally deal with such lese-majesty. The main weapon of chastisement was the seat at the next show. And the punishment took one of three courses.

    Either no ticket was sent out to the truth-telling miscreant and no amount of pleading would enable one to be found. Or a ticket was sent, but for a seat that the PR people knew the writer would not find acceptable, either personally or for the prestige of his or her publication. Or, worst of all, a ticket was send for the journalist’s usual front row seat — and this treatment was only ever meted out to high-profile, front-row regulars — but just before the lights were about to go down, there would be a flurry of activity and the journalist ejected from the seat with the maximum of humiliation, only for it to be taken by a C-list television “personality” or, in Milan, a spare contessa or even principessa, looking as if she had just been rescued from a terrible fate at the hands of her hairdresser; a woman who, like most of the audience enjoying this unedifying but admittedly amusing little pantomime, didn’t know or care that hereditary titles had been abolished when the last King of Italy, Umberto II, resigned in 1946, after reigning for just over a month.

    But such front row antics seem like innocent fun compared with the venom released more recently by designers stung by critical remarks. It all began when a series of pouting, petulant and paranoid young men began taking the reins of old, established fashion houses. Did it go to their heads? What’s your guess?

    Sadly, this immature and insecure new breed care nothing for the dignity of the professional commentator and somehow feel it’s their right to counter comment with which they do not agree by writing insulting public letters addressed to journalists. They even make personal attacks in order to vent their spleen.

    But fashion desperately needs its Fourth Estate just as much as government. And attempts to silence it are nothing more than bullying and must be resisted by all in the fashion world, for the good of the fashion world.

    Indeed, this is one of the key reasons why fashion is not in a good place today. Whereas most art forms are kept on their toes by informed commentary, the fashion world has virtually none. No wonder it is currently so unhealthy that the only news that it can proudly muster concerns store openings, profit reports and the continual musical chairs of designer appointments and departures. Never a word about creativity.

    True critics assess literature, theatre, film, music, architecture, painting, sculpture and other creative endeavours that have intellectual content. The rest are more correctly seen as commentators, no matter what grandiose titles they choose for themselves.

    In the ongoing battle of words, it is important to ask which, if any, is doing a job of any serious significance for the ultimate standards of fashion, now or in the future. The commentator? The PR? The vindictive designer who has lost his head by believing what his paid minions tell him?

    Whilst they are pondering, perhaps they might all remember that a true creator always accepts criticism without rancour and, of course, never replies."
    StyleZeitgeist Magazine | Store
  • Faust
    kitsch killer
    • Sep 2006
    • 37852

    #2
    Thank you - was just coming to post this. A much needed article, albeit on a weak side. Still, something better than nothing. Hopefully these types of articles will reach some critical mass.
    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

    StyleZeitgeist Magazine

    Comment

    • 525252
      Senior Member
      • Dec 2010
      • 246

      #3
      I think there's something I don't quite get about critics..

      what is this attributing the horrible state of the fashion world to lack of intelligence? I don't know where to start- self proclaimed grandiosity? this is a stupendously stupid article.

      Comment

      • Faust
        kitsch killer
        • Sep 2006
        • 37852

        #4
        Who is contributing horrible state of the fashion worked due to lack of intelligence?
        Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

        StyleZeitgeist Magazine

        Comment

        • 525252
          Senior Member
          • Dec 2010
          • 246

          #5
          True critics assess literature, theatre, film, music, architecture, painting, sculpture and other creative endeavours that have intellectual content. The rest are more correctly seen as commentators, no matter what grandiose titles they choose for themselves.

          -colin the "true critic"

          Comment

          • Ahimsa
            Vegan Police
            • Sep 2011
            • 1879

            #6
            ^but what of your opinion of the current state of fashion journalism/criticism or even whether or not it is given credence as being considered an intellectual pursuit?

            Faust, I agree he could have expatiated on the topic, however, he has mentioned how many designers take to say in 60 dresses what they could say in 6.
            er, we want more, but I don't think we are his intended audience?
            StyleZeitgeist Magazine | Store

            Comment

            • Faust
              kitsch killer
              • Sep 2006
              • 37852

              #7
              Originally posted by 525252 View Post
              True critics assess literature, theatre, film, music, architecture, painting, sculpture and other creative endeavours that have intellectual content. The rest are more correctly seen as commentators, no matter what grandiose titles they choose for themselves.

              -colin the "true critic"
              He's not lamenting lack of intelligence in fashion journalists; he's saying that there is no commentary assessing "intellectual content" in fashion.
              Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

              StyleZeitgeist Magazine

              Comment

              • 525252
                Senior Member
                • Dec 2010
                • 246

                #8
                christ i just wrote a nice long message and the browser logged me out

                ^but what of your opinion of the current state of fashion journalism/criticism or even whether or not it is given credence as being considered an intellectual pursuit?
                thanks for asking :) my opinion is that there was a time and place where some fashion functioned very much like art, and it was also an appropriate setting where fashion writers/critics could work. Obviously things have changed with internet and the setting is no longer appropriate nor necessary. The conditions we live in today is that there is the global crisis of unsustainable manufacture, supply and waste- exacerbated by increasing consumption and disparity of wealth. In the face of that, who cares about new silhouettes and themes? I am no eco-activist, I am merely observing that fashion, whether luxury or not, is now firmly identified itself in the mass market. There is a time and place for art, but now is a time to creatively address this issue. Anyway, what is the point of critics apart from redirecting consumers from sold-out niche to yet unsold-out niche? The art crowd is facing the same problem, fashion people aren't the only ones suffering in the world.

                faust:
                I'm not going to pick at words because there is too much to pick at. I don't care what he is lamenting, bemoaning, observing or whatever, he simply breaks no ground and its rather boring.

                However he does amazingly manage to ignore the fact that the conditions of art/fashion production have changed immensely and all he does is write a long bitter article longing for the good old days. But yeah, sure, his tiny audience has been engulfed by the mass (that was long ago, colin)

                btw, my opinion on his writing: what a pompous ass

                Comment

                • Faust
                  kitsch killer
                  • Sep 2006
                  • 37852

                  #9
                  The problem is simple - and one I'm surprised he did not point out - fashion media is in advertisers pockets. It's nothing new per se, but what is new is PR companies insisting on greater and greater control of what gets published and how and that compromises journalistic integrity.

                  To say that this article is "stupendously stupid" is not very smart either.
                  Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                  StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                  Comment

                  • 525252
                    Senior Member
                    • Dec 2010
                    • 246

                    #10
                    Originally posted by faust
                    but what is new is PR companies insisting on greater and greater control of what gets published and how and that compromises journalistic integrity.
                    ok, yes, still, the PR companies aren't to blame for "fashion not being in a good place today". And clearly, a fashion critic sanctuary is not the solution.

                    i couldn't get past this:

                    "Sadly, this immature and insecure new breed care nothing for the dignity of the professional commentator and somehow feel it’s their right to counter comment with which they do not agree by writing insulting public letters addressed to journalists. They even make personal attacks in order to vent their spleen."

                    colin's glorified bitch session looks to me both immature and insecure and very much like a personal attack, venting of spleen.

                    Comment

                    • Faust
                      kitsch killer
                      • Sep 2006
                      • 37852

                      #11
                      52, honestly, when you joined the forum I thought you had something smart to say but lately you have just been talking out of your ass.

                      A) Colin is not a fashion journalist/critic. He used to be.
                      B) Bitchiness is nowhere to be found in the passage above - everything he says is fact and his tone is levelheaded.
                      Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                      StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                      Comment

                      • 525252
                        Senior Member
                        • Dec 2010
                        • 246

                        #12
                        haha i don't think you remember but when I first joined, i got patronised to hell by you, I think you even called me a little girl at some stage

                        Comment

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