Fashion Blows!

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I should start by saying that I don’t hold the New Yorker sacred.  I like EB White.  I like James Thurber, I like Capote, and all the others, but washing my hands in New Yorker offices’ bathroom isn’t a lifelong dream.  I enjoy the magazine–I like its reliability in offering something interesting and shaped.  I like the seriousness in which it takes itself–the myth of the laboriously crafted casual style, the idea that every writer has been whipped and made to justify every comma.  The idea that in this magazine, every word must tell.

And then, in today’s mail, I get a piece of dreck so confusing, so poorly executed, so outright bad, that I can’t believe it wishes (proudly, apparently) to be a bi-product of New Yorkerdom.  As a strangely aligned supplment to the Food Issue, comes some slick Cosmo looking mag called Fashion Rocks. Jennifer Lopez in on the cover, in full lips parted/hair in the wind/full frontal eye-lock.

Every page I turned made me groan.  This is a full, “who are the ad wizards that came up with this one” moment.

To limit my rant, I offer a list of offenses:

1. What is Fashion Rocks? Is it the name of some new magazine Conde’ Nasty is trying to insinuate into the monied New Yorker audience? A television show hosted by Jeremy Piven? A horse? A benefit concert? A Vh1 awards show? A stupid editorial theme? I have no idea.
2. Every thing about this magazine wants to be Cosmo gone Vanity Fair gone Vogue gone Seventeen gone US Weekly.  It ends up worse than all of these.
3. The editors letter talks about a horse named London Fashion Rocks, and that is pretty much it.  The editor, one Jonathan Van Meter, writes as if horses and dogs named Billie Holiday are inherently interesting, and that we need no reason to know why this thing has arrived in our mail–that we might have actually paid for such a supplement–there is not mention of what the hell is being supplemented!
4. A Hilfiger ad has men in suits fishing.  It is so naked in the cool that it wants to be that it makes me sad to look at it.
5. There are pages of shitty collages updating us on society and celebrity types.  Doesn’t Vogue already have dibs on that sort of thing?
6. One of the shitty collages, dubbed “Karma Chameleons” has a pic of Scarlett Johnasson “in vintage.”  Here is an example of how horrible horrible horrible the writing for this unwanted mess of paper is “Scarlett Johansson unleashed her inner songbird at the Coachella music festival (and even plans to release an album!).” When did good old NYer start unironically using exclams?
7. Every thing in this mag is supposed to make me covet–to want to be part of a club scene or rockband, but the execution is so poor that it just makes me angry that such a celebration is occurring.  It all looks shoddy and overhypped.  I don’t want to be like any of it.  It all feels dated, and super unhip.
8. To show the craziness of the club world, one pic is labeled “scary masked reveler.” Wow, so descriptive.  I feel like I am there.
9. Another moment of editorial brilliance–an entire spread of pairing a hot model with a rock band.  It will be hilarious! Or really boring. The title? “She’s with the band.” I could groan for so many reasons.
10. One moment of pleasure–The Kings of Leon look so douchy it is astounding.
11. One moment of pain–the highlighted quote (the words so important they were underlined and red) “I want to know where they get their jeans because I’ve never found any as tight as those.” Why not ask their stylist? The same one who dressed you, model lady.
12. Did you know that sometimes “rockers” sing without a shirt on? The caption? “No jacket desired.” Puke and puke.
13. Another hit, “people want to look at a rock band as much as they want to look at a model.” This editorial is proving negator skelletor on both accounts.
14. Aren’t models pretend playing guitars adorable?
15. Did you know David Bowie was important to fashion and music?
16. Stevie Nicks has a trademark style?
17. This one made my mind spurt a little blood, but we’re all doing okay–guess what P. Diddy’s new fragrance is called? It gives me the shivers. Unforgivable Woman.   Yikes.  Another day, another rant.
18. The Hives—hmmm,  didnt they have a hit song about 4 years ago?  They’re Swedes.  They wear suits. OK Go.  Hmm, didn’t they have a hit song years ago? That’s right. Treadmills.  They wear suits.
19. Did you know that The Rolling Stones are important to fashion and music?
20. Panic at the Disco, you know, for the kids.
21. This one is a doozie.  A field of flowers, a chevy in the background, and Fergie in tights and a blouse gazing soulfully into the distance.  Then, one of the most amazing paragraphs I’ve read in advertising, “Life isn’t always so glamourous on tour: Fergie knows how important it can be to stop and take a deep breath.  On one of her days off while on her first-ever solo tour, she took time to strike a pose with the Equinox Fuel Cell.  With zero greenhouse gas emissions and only water vapor as an emission, it’s what we call a breath of fresh automotive thinking.”
22.  I gotta hold the phone here:  A: I thought they quit doing adverts like this in the 1950s.  B: Fergie? C: The picture is so fucked up.
23. I can’t even make it through the entire magazine, but in short:
    Every celebrity mentioned is either overexposed, tired, or simply not very important. Everything in the magazine is shockingly stale and tired–could they have just found an old Glamour from 2004 and revamped it?  It seems like one must work very hard to make a magazine this bad.

Are the people at the NYer toasting themselves on finally identifying with America’s youth? With America’s gossip audience? With America’s 12-year-olds who have parents that have NYer subscriptions and don’t know any better?

In all-what is this? What the fuck happened?  It bothers me in the same way that the Bush administration is troublesome–it is lazy about hiding its intentions.  It says, yes, we think you are stupid enough to fall for this, so please, go ahead, and fall for this.

Puke, puke, and puke.

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