Shop Talk
So, I’m going to go against my own kind for a minute.
Maybe I’m jealous of the glory. Maybe I’m jealous of the clothes. Maybe I’m just too close to 30.
But seriously, kids, the fashion bloggers these days. They’re everywhere.
Rumi Neely, aka Fashion Toast, did a shoot for Forever 21’s website this month. In May, Coach launched a mini collection of handbags designed by Karla Deras of Karla’s Closet, Krystal Simpson of What is Reality Anyway, Kelly Framel of the Glamourai and Emily Schuman of Cupcakes and Cashmere (not a one priced at less than $300). Just this week, 14-year-old Tavi Gevinson, aka Style Rookie, was named a stylist for BlackBook’s September issue.
And that’s just a snippet of the last three months. Within the fashion industry, bloggers have been increasingly in demand during the last two years.
These girls have modeled for American Apparel and designed shoes for Urban Outfitters and at least one brave boy has had a Marc Jacobs bag named in his honor. They’re photographed at fashion weeks and profiled in fashion magazines and have practically ousted the model set when it comes to defining cool. And, for many of the big names in blogging, they’ve done it all before they’ve left their tender teen years behind them.
Never mind how, exactly, these kids score these outfits (my allowance and my babysitting gigs and my 16-year-old’s position at Gap Kids combined could never have gotten so far). And never mind that blogger-helmed “designs” tend to look more like retreads than anything else. I could even get mostly behind bloggers’ styling efforts largely resembling their personal styles – after all, those in the industry tend to start in a DIY kind of way.
I’m just having a hard time buying the singularity of the looks themselves. From popular blogger to popular blogger, the style is sort of color-by-numbers, a one-note Miu-Miu-meets-Alexander-Wang-meets-the-Olsen-twins thing with baggy T-shirts, oversize jackets, shapeless skirts and sweaters, skin-tight layers, knee socks and looped belts, artful rips, and teetering designer shoes (or, on off days, brogues). It’s all very youthful, yes. It all contains elements from current runways and editorials, sure. It’s covetable enough to hold attention, I suppose.
But is it really all that creative at this point? Is it that hard to regurgitate the last few Balmain collections in a so-called street-savvy manner? Can a 14-year-old enthusiast actually be a fashion expert?
Maybe.
But maybe I’m getting too jaded. Maybe the thing here isn’t the individuality as much as the possibility for it.
After all, as Tavi wrote in a recent blog entry, “No matter how many times I try to stick with the ‘life is beautiful! Everyone is nice once you get to know them!’ mindset, I end up more with the ‘life sucks, you’re standing on my neck’ one, because I go to school (or anywhere, but mostly school) and get all sad because there is sexism and racism and general depressing … middle schoolyness. For a while I’ve let myself use this as a reason to wear a very basic combination of things, every day. But really I should use these hostile environments as reasons as to why I should create my own world through my outfits, because a certain outfit totally puts you in a different place, and it’s easier to ignore certain kinds of people when I’m in my own world, yes?
“…If I read this in many years I will shake my head at all the teenagerness, then be sort of pleased.”