My "silly" Yang Du backpack with a House of Holland x Schott jacket. Photograh from The Cut.
Rebuttal is an ugly word. Well, firstly it has the word “butt” in it
but, mostly in my head, it sounds like a physical and violent affront to
whoever you’re “rebutting”. Leandra
Medine of the Man Repeller has written a “rebuttal” to the now contentious
and widely circulated article that Suzy Menkes wrote for T Magazine, concerning
the circus that goes on outside fashion week - the editors, the bloggers and
any other “riff raff” who are peacocking around outside shows. What it is though is a beautifully written
defense of fashion blogging as a profession, pointing out its shortcomings, its
strengths and how it has changed the industry.
It argues with tact and a measured tone.
It ends with a potent question of how do we earn respect if we cannot
police our (bloggers at large) own ethics?
Therefore being one of the bloggers mentioned
in the original Menkes piece (and not cast in a particularly favourable light,
it has to be said), I thought I’d pick up on that word “respect” that Medine
concludes with and go on to relay a response here. It's certainly not rebutting anything that Menkes says. It does present the other side of the coin though that perhaps I've failed to reveal here on the blog. These are thoughts that I’ve been gathering
up over the last few seasons but didn’t know how to quite articulate. Menkes may have helpfully given me reason to
go all Dear Diary on you. Speaking on
behalf of all bloggers and defending this fairly new and not yet-developed
vocation as a whole is never going to be easy when the waters have gotten so
murky, so it’s best to talk from personal experience. Seven years into the game and I can frankly
say I have a fair bit of that.
It’s an ambivalent position that I
occupy. Yes, I am a blogger. Yes, I dress in a way that can be construed
as peacocking. But I have also worked at
a publication. I now freelance for other
publications. I’ve now been going to
shows for a good four years and more.
Increasingly I’ve felt conflicted about what it is that I do. I’ve cowered in embarrassment when I say I
have a blog. Depending on who I’m
speaking to, I’ve also had to add that “Oh, and I write for other publications”
just to feel like that validates me as someone who isn’t a complete fraud. I’ve also strongly defended my content at
conferences. I’ve hopefully gained some
respect from designers, editors, stylists and journalists. You might ask, why does it matter if I've not earnt any respect from the industry? Aren’t you an independent fashion
blogger who flouts the rules? As we all
know, that isn’t how it works. I don’t work
within my own parameters or to put a pun on it, in my own bubble. I have to work
with the industry to get the content that I’m after and I’m happier for
it. We can talk about the “good and
pure” days of fashion blogging but I remember it as a time when I’d email PRs
or designers and get ignored or when I would have to sneakily take some crappy
pictures in a shop because it was forbidden to do so.
A well-known PR recently said to me, “Oh we don’t
even think of you as a blogger. You’re
an online editor in chief.” Medine hit
it in one when she titled her post “Blog is a dirty word.” When blogging is supposedly a full-time
legitimate profession as my peers like Medine, Bryan Boy and Rumi Neely have
proved, for me, it has never felt enough to say that it’s all that I do. Because the
b word has been tarnished - asking us how much money do we make, suspicions that
every blog post is sponsored, outfits that have been littered with gifts,
accusations that we’re poseurs and not fashion critics, lack of journalistic
standards - things, which, I along with others have been guilty of to some
degree or another. If I was more
positive, I could defend the content on my blog and say that 99.9% of is
absolutely NOT sponsored/commercially related to anything except for my genuine
love of what I’m writing about, but even then once you commit one instance of
gift or trip accepting, how can I get all high and mighty and say that I’m
something of an exception.
I work in London, which is rooted in a
rich fashion history of, as Menkes mentions, underbelly club kid dressing, who apparently did it for themselves.
We give kudos to those that dress bat-shit-cray but only if it comes
from a genuine place. A truly don’t give
a fuck attitude, which industry folk (I’m talking longstanding newspaper
journalists, style title editors and stylists) don’t generally associate with personal
style bloggers. The build-up of
annoyance (Menkes is only echoing thoughts that are felt quite widely within
the industry) of bloggers or people who dress up purely for the shows and
loiter around outside the Lincoln Centre, Somerset House or in the Tuileries
gardens, is now sky high. I cite a
British Vogue article in their recent January issue, where parliamentary sketch
writer Ann Treneman has a go at running around London Fashion Week, and there
are references to “bloggers” as creatures that “real” professionals such as the
Vogue team need to get past and do battle with, in order to get to their “real”
job of covering and seeing the shows. At
least that was my impression of the article.
It didn’t help that alongside the article was a picture of me, wearing
something weird and outlandish. This all brings about something of an identity crisis - what is it that I do and am I actually contributing something positive to the industry? If I am just a "blogger", a word that has become an irritance and a pest to the industry, then how can I carry on at present with all the current connotations that go with that word, and still write about the things that I want to write about?
And so it is that behind the toothy smile,
the peppy colours, and the cacophony of textures, there’s a crippling doubt
that has gradually built up over seasons of doing shows. It’s an overwhelming fear of not being seen
as an intelligent, capable or competent journalist because I’m dressed the way
that I am. It’s dulled my own innate
instincts to reach for the zany and the cray (although what else is there in my
clown-esque wardrobe?). The mainstay of
fashion journalists that go behind the scenes do tend to be dressed discreetly
and I stick out in amongst the scrum trying to get words from Haider Ackermann
or Riccardo Tisci - and sometimes, I do think that it’s to my detriment. After Paris is over, a huge weight is
lifted as I can go about my day, waiting for the bus, whilst wearing clothes that are so much a part of who I am. Being made fun out of by the
bloke, who sells Arsenal merchandise on my road, is nothing compared to walking
into shows, getting photographed and then feeling the prickles of derision from
your peers and colleagues or feeling like you’re overdressed to go and ask Ann
Demeulemeester what her inspiration was.
Whoever said the fashion show circuit was like high school or secondary
school, was bang-on. If I’m walking with
people who are perhaps dressed in that chic n’ demure way, which Menkes cites
at the end of her article (examples such as Emmanuelle Alt and Virginie
Mouzat), and a photographer asks for my picture, I now feel embarrassed to say
yes. We need to keep walking and
trooping along to get to the shows, to demonstrate that we are there for a legitimate
reason, and not to stop, preen and pose for photographers. The proper thing to do would be to politely
say no and walk on with purpose. But I
do say yes. In fact I don’t mind it one
bit unless I'm genuinely in a rush and can't stop (I can never say no to the Japanese photographers - they’re just so sweet about
it asking), and that apparently dents my credibility. Do I lose respect of others because I get my
picture taken? Probably. An editor can get away with it because he/she has a title. Alas I have a blog, no chic
Celine and a sick preference for strange and funny textures. That leaves me in a precarious position.
Then I think about all the outfits I’ve
worn this week at London. A London
Fashion Week designer featured in every instance - Jonathan Saunders, Meadham
Kirchhoff, James Long, J.W. Anderson, Simone Rocha - things I’ve bought with my
own money or someone was gracious enough to lend me knowing that I genuinely
wanted to wear it. They’re badges of
support for the people that we are writing about, exalting and celebrating. They’re the designers making and creating the
feathers for the peacocks to don. Are
the clothes supposed to stay confined within fashion editorials and PR press
days? Who gets to make that judgement
call as to who has “genuine” style or who is dressing up for the cameras? Who even cares when an outward celebration
(and economic contribution, I might add) of fashion at its most creative is on
display? The doubts that I carry,
however strong they may be or however low I might feel during fashion weeks,
aren’t enough to push me into a uniform of a sleek black blazer, a neat button-down shirt and some discreet but still insanely expensive Alaia
shoes. I’m just sorry that convention,
as dictated by the inner sanctum of the industry, weighs heavy on me. I could get all angry about it but what’s the
point if I just grin and bear it, trudge along in my lilac marabou, neon
trainers and pink pastel dresses - clothes that make me giddy most of the time, but inadvertedly drive my spirits down in a fashion week context.
That is my response from the inside,
feeling as ever, like an outsider, and even more so now that there’s a general
paintbrush being painted over every blogger and every person who wanted to
express themselves through personal style, purely because it has become such an
indiscernible mess at shows. I don’t
blame Menkes in the least. In fact, I
have a lot of respect for her for writing an article that pushes this issue to
the forefront. It has made bloggers
like Medine and myself do a spot of self-reflection. My anxieties that I outlined above are even
more heightened than ever before. That
won’t stop the clashing prints and colours, the fugly shoes and the
unflattering outfits. I’m too far gone
for a Breakfast Club-esque make-under.
I’m nearly thirty for god’s sake.
Still, I know I’ll be feeling like an over analytical teenager pondering
what’s the point of it all, after that late Givenchy show on the Sunday night,
writing up reviews, in my rented Paris apartment and eating one too many bags
of mustard-flavoured crisps.
