At least a third of those I attended during the last Fashion Week in September were unqualified disasters. There was a show, for instance, of the duds of Venxiana by Kate Stern that featured gaudy knit sweaters, which looked like they’d been crocheted by the blind, and distressed jeans that appeared to have been sent straight from a costume reject pile for the movie Westworld. Conversely, the best show I saw, displaying the work of young designer Laura Poretzky, who works under the label name Abaete, received almost no coverage—no matter that after the show all those in attendance were left commenting not only on how beautiful, simple and wearable its Brazilian-themed clothes were, but also how suitable they were for a range of women’s body types. The colors were saturated, but the media was not.
Everyone who came to the Abaete show knew it was a hit, but everyone was waiting for others to say it first. It’s no accident that Hans Christian Andersen chose clothes as the subject for his fable about an easily deluded emperor. The fashion press is completely corrupt.
Why? Money, of course.
Fashion houses buy the advertising that keeps Conde-Nast, Hearst and the New York Times profitable. Buy enough whole-pages, and no one in the mainstream press will ever use the words “ugly” or “flop” about your clothes.
When Tina Brown took over The New Yorker, she was asked who she most admired among its writers. Her first answer was Holly Brubach, the magazine’s brilliant but occasionally scabrous fashion critic. Yet Brubach didn’t stay with the magazine long. (One wonders: Did Brown have a meeting with her new ad-sales staff that prompted this?)
So we’re suspending our dating columns for a few weeks while the fall fashion shows are on. And as we at New York Press don’t get many (any?) designer advertisers, we promise to give you the real low-down on the shows—the truth, both good and bad, as it really is. Stay tuned.
