{"id":2717,"date":"2009-10-26T01:58:26","date_gmt":"2009-10-26T05:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=2717"},"modified":"2016-11-26T21:19:21","modified_gmt":"2016-11-27T02:19:21","slug":"post-rerun-a-defense-of-fashion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/post-rerun-a-defense-of-fashion\/","title":{"rendered":"Post Rerun: A Defense of Fashion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gorgeous blogger <a href=\"http:\/\/tavi-thenewgirlintown.blogspot.com\/2009\/10\/thank-you.html\" target=\"_blank\">Tavi<\/a> of Style Rookie recently posted a link to Washington Post fashion editor Robin Givhan&#8217;s column about the uproar <em>du jour<\/em> over <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/10\/15\/AR2009101504422.html?wprss=rss_print\/style\" target=\"_blank\">thin models<\/a>. The column, thankfully, didn&#8217;t use the expression &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/the-coveted.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/15\/i-am-real\/\" target=\"_blank\">real women<\/a>&#8221; (as in &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0296166\/\" target=\"_blank\">real women have curves<\/a>&#8221; and, presumably, non-curvy women must be imaginary) but the topic did remind me that I find the expression meaningless and overused. From now on, it is <a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2008\/07\/banning-trite\/\" target=\"_blank\">banned<\/a>. As always, people who use words banned by me by virtue of my authority as Easily Annoyed Person will be <a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2007\/10\/thursday-book-club-isabella-she-wolf\/\" target=\"_blank\">Despensered<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2721\" style=\"width: 195px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2007\/10\/thursday-book-club-isabella-she-wolf\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2721\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2721\" title=\"hughdespenser\" src=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/hughdespenser.jpg\" alt=\"This is Despensering. \" width=\"185\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/hughdespenser.jpg 185w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/hughdespenser-173x300.jpg 173w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 185px) 100vw, 185px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2721\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This is Despensering.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I would also like to ban further manufactured outrage over <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/worldnews\/article-1219046\/Ralph-Lauren-digitally-retouches-slender-model-make-look-THINNER.html?ITO=1490\" target=\"_blank\">the craptastic Photoshop work in a Ralph Lauren ad.<\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2720\" style=\"width: 309px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/2009\/10\/06\/the-criticism-that-r.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2720\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2720 \" title=\"original\" src=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/original.jpg\" alt=\"Click to read the story about this photo. \" width=\"299\" height=\"524\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/original.jpg 299w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/original-171x300.jpg 171w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 299px) 100vw, 299px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2720\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Click to read the story about this photo.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think the above disaster says anything about our society as a whole. All it says to me is that a couple of people probably lost their jobs for creating and then approving bad art.\u00a0 Anyone who saw this and thought, &#8220;I should look like that&#8221; instead of &#8220;Wow, someone really fucked up at Ralph Lauren!&#8221; is not in his or her right mind anyway, my friends. Such a person would already be crazy in the brain. In my experience, people who are crazy in the brain can turn anything into a problem. As Freud never said, &#8220;If it&#8217;s not one ad, it&#8217;s your mother.&#8221; So stop with the wailing and gnashing of teeth already.<\/p>\n<p>Getting back to Robin Givhan, the portion of the column that Tavi highlighted wasn&#8217;t specifically about weight:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s always a bit discombobulating when people raise their voices in anger because they&#8217;ve gotten wind that designers are making and selling $25,000 dresses. After all, it&#8217;s not as if the existence of a dress that costs as much as a car negates the availability of cute $25 frocks at Target. And it isn&#8217;t as though edicts have been issued that all women must now dress like one of the superheroes on Balenciaga&#8217;s runway.<\/p>\n<p>For personal and sometimes tortured reasons &#8212; <em>I can&#8217;t have it so no one else can!<\/em> &#8212; observers declare that they just don&#8217;t understand the attraction of these strange and expensive clothes. That would be a fair argument if those same complainers lashed out at people who spend thousands of dollars on Redskins season tickets, vintage wines, first-edition books or midlife-crisis cars. But those industries don&#8217;t stir nearly as much ire from people who are uninterested in them.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone has a passion that is lost on others.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I was delighted by these words because they reminded me of my own 2007 post, &#8220;Why Does Buyer&#8217;s Guilt Focus on Fashion?&#8221; And, since I didn&#8217;t have a post prepared for today, I thought, &#8220;Hey, I could just repeat my post from 2007.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2007\/10\/why-does-buyers-guilt-focus-on-fashion\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>CLICK HERE TO READ MY POST FROM 2007.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p> <\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gorgeous blogger Tavi of Style Rookie recently posted a link to Washington Post fashion editor Robin Givhan&#8217;s column about the uproar du jour over thin models. The column, thankfully, didn&#8217;t use the expression &#8220;real women&#8221; (as in &#8220;real women have curves&#8221; and, presumably, non-curvy women must be imaginary) but the topic did remind me that&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/post-rerun-a-defense-of-fashion\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[132,12,46,5,144],"tags":[281,282,256],"class_list":{"0":"post-2717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-banned","8":"category-blogs-and-bloggers","9":"category-feminism","10":"category-insanity","11":"category-rants","12":"tag-glamour-magazine","13":"tag-robin-givhan","14":"tag-style-rookie","15":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2717"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34766,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717\/revisions\/34766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}