Loading ...
« Digitally Inspired Style | Home | Best Blog Reader Comments »
AMAZINGLY Stupid Fashionistas?
By admins | July 7, 2009
TM resort via Picklepud
We’ve written before about the ridiculous notion that fashion design is an easy career path. There’s often this absurd image perpetuated in the media that working in fashion is a simple and mindless task. How many movies have you seen, be it a drama or romantic comedy, where the fashionable creative lead finds her true calling to be a designer three quarters of the way through the movie. After realizing her “passion for fashion”, a brief montage ensues of her touching fabrics, wrapping a tape measure around her neck, sketching in her SoHo loft, running into Bloomingdale’s with her samples, and then poof, she is magically a famous and successful designer. There, of course, is no mention of college or any educational training, no clips of raising capital or finding investors, no trips to sample rooms and negotiating price-points, no hunting for sales reps or walking trade shows, and God forbid no tech-packing! Be it television or movies, becoming a fashion designer is always portrayed as a fun and easy afterthought that can make an adorable girl immediately successful by a simple trip to the fabric store!
Celebrities too, do nothing but exacerbate this stereotype. These days it seems that every celebutaunte and their brother are launching a fashion line. To the media these celebrities endlessly promote their latest movie or album and then as an aside casually mention that they are launching a fashion label. In the same vain as: I’m getting a manicure, picking up the dry cleaning, taking my dog for a walk, and um, oh yeah, launching my own clothing line. The message is loud and clear, fashion design is such a stupidly easy achievement that anyone with half a brain could do it in their spare time. Those of us in the fashion industry realize of course that these celebrities are not designing their own lines but actually contractually licensing the rights to their name unto apparel manufactures, who in turn hire teams of designers to get the job done. The result of the celebutard fashion label is the publicly dumbing down of our profession.
Besides attacking fashion as a career, advertising and entertainment have additionally skewed the fashion lover as a brainless consumer who is easily manipulated. We recently came across this article regarding the insulting ad campaign for Coach’s new line Poppy. The line, like many going after younger women on a moderate budget, crosses the line from fun to flighty. Real women can love fashion yet still be intelligent, educated, well rounded human-beings. To love a pair of fabulous shoes or find joy in perfectly styling an outfit, does not equate to the lowering of an IQ. Contrary to pop culture images, from Alicia Silverstone in Clueless to the inane eye-rolling and heavy sighing of The Hills girls, fashionistas are not all one dimensional airheads! The fashion icon as bimbo, from Marilyn Monroe to Jessica Simpson, is an insult to all of us, whether or not you work in the fashion industry. We would love to see the media stop promoting this image, but we’d also like to see everyone stop buying into it. Let’s stop rewarding brands who embrace this image, but more so, lets stop ourselves from subconsciously acting on it. We are encouraging a whole generation of young women, whose vocabulary is reduced to “amazing”, “hot”, “super cute”,and who don’t think twice about resorting to Paris Hiltonesque baby talk, to emulate this stereotype. Fashion is many things, from a fun shopping diversion to a multi-billion dollar manufacturing industry, but it does NOT require you to check your brain at the door to enjoy it!
Here is more related scoop;
Topics: fashion, rant | 26 Comments » 
Email This Post
July 7th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Here here! Too often people just write off anyone who enjoys fashion as being frivolous and superficial, but it’s not! It’s just as creative an art form as any and anyone who has even just a little bit of knowledge about fashion would know that.
July 8th, 2009 at 3:55 am
I would clap you, but you wouldn’t hear me as I am in the UK.
Excellent article. Taking an interest in your appearance doesn’t mean you have to be stupid or vapid.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:02 am
I was working in retail when I moved from New Orleans to Bloomington, after Hurricane Katrina. I can’t tell you how often I felt as though I was vapid & shallow by the grad students I met, because I was now a manager at Urban Outfitters, instead of being a student.
You can and SHOULD be smart, savvy, intelligent, witty– and still love fashion. It’s just another part of the package.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
very insightful article-just as actresses don’t need to check their brains at the door -plenty of Harvard, Yale, Michigan grads out there in movieland, neither do designers!
July 9th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
[...] 39th and Broadway – AMAZINGLY Stupid Fashionistas? [...]
July 9th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
[...] 39th and Broadway – AMAZINGLY Stupid Fashionistas? [...]
July 9th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
PERFECT. I couldn’t have said it any better!!!
July 9th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
[...] by 39th and Broadway – AMAZINGLY Stupid [...]
July 9th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
I am one of those women in love with fashion, particularly personal style.. and I definitely don’t consider myself a Barbie bimbo.
I’m the opposite of what people stereotype as a fashionista — I’m in control of my money, smart and even in the IT industry as a geek LOL!
Great post
July 9th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
I love this article. I wrote a similar one not to long ago and I am so happy to know that people share my aggravation of the image that is being portrayed. This is a tough as nails business and only the savvy survive. Furthermore celebutard-could be the best way to describe it.
Thank you.
July 9th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
[...] 39th and Broadway – AMAZINGLY Stupid Fashionistas? [...]
July 10th, 2009 at 7:01 am
[...] 39th and Broadway – AMAZINGLY Stupid Fashionistas? ? A Few Goody GumDrops – Look Tres Chic with Tres Sleek! ? [...]
July 11th, 2009 at 10:01 am
[...] 39th and Broadway – AMAZINGLY Stupid Fashionistas? [...]
July 11th, 2009 at 10:03 am
[...] by 39th and Broadway – AMAZINGLY Stupid [...]
July 11th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
[...] 39th and Broadway – AMAZINGLY Stupid Fashionistas? [...]
July 11th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Great article! Well thought out and well written and I soooo agree with you.
July 12th, 2009 at 1:16 am
i hear you! so true and so well written.
trinsch/senseofashion.com
July 13th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
[...] Chic – Win a Scarf from The Vintage Scarf!Edited by 39th and Broadway – AMAZINGLY Stupid Fashionistas? Share and [...]
July 14th, 2009 at 10:43 am
[...] 39th and Broadway – AMAZINGLY Stupid Fashionistas? [...]
July 14th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
My name is Poppy and this whole campaign freaks me out! I am bombarded with adds asking ” Are You Poppy?” seems too overboard. And to the point of the article, too many girls think that just because they are good at shopping and stylish that being a fashion designer is a breeze. Foolish.
July 15th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
I may be slow at getting around to reading your posts, but yours is one of my fav blogs. I have really learned alot here and always enjoy your view on the fashion industry from the inside. :-)
July 16th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Thanks everyone for the feedback. It’s so nice to know we are the only ones that are sick and tired of this stereotype.
And Eyeliah, thanks sweetie, we are big fans of yours as well!
July 19th, 2009 at 2:53 am
lovely article! i completely agree. at times i’m almost ashamed to admit that fashion is one of my greatest passions and hobbies because i know the assumptions that go along with it. there is no reason for me to be ashamed, as an intellectual person i know that fashion has acted as a conduit for almost every movement throughout history. it is not something petty but actually one of the more interesting social sciences and art forms all rolled into one!
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:16 pm
This comment is a tad late but your post is SO true!
I cannot tell you how many well educated, independent women I have met that are designers or work in other areas of the industry. Other people are often shocked to find that they work in fashion, as if they are “wasting” their intelligence!
The best thing to do is continue to fight this annoying stereotype through our own behavior (i.e. not acting like Paris Hilton, etc. clones, which I don’t think any smart woman has a problem with), thus proving to the uninformed how WRONG they are!
Olive
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Excellent post, so glad I am not the only one who sees it that way. Thank you!
July 31st, 2009 at 4:19 am
brilliant, i must say! wanting to look good is not an act of stupidity. On the contrary its a display of the heightened sense of self confidence possessed by the individual. They are proudly confident of being immaculately dressed and that is a good thing! those who think otherwise and stereotype fashionistas are the jealous envious people who wish they had a fashionable bone in their bodies!