In the Washington Post, Robin Givhan reflects on how ridiculous and indulged fashion designers can be. Givhan writes:
Once a designer manages to lasso a financial backer with deep pockets -- certainly no easy feat -- the guys in the suits mostly keep quiet...Investors tend to be enamored of the glamorous aura that surrounds fashion. They equate eccentricity with genius. They mistake bad design with esoteric intellectualism. And they confuse a likable and charming personality with someone who actually knows what he's doing.
Unfortunately, for consumers, this means we are confronted with clothes we would never wear (see Alexandre Herchcovitch's garbage bag dress at right) in sizes too small for the average woman. The designers fuck with our minds, using size 0 models who bear more resemblance to clothes hangers, than to prospective customers.
It is a puzzle how so many of these designers are permitted to stay in business, when it is apparent that they have little regard for the women who are supposed to wear their clothes.
If the contestants on "Project Runway" had each been given a garbage bag, surely, they would have made something more attractive than the embellished sac on the right? How did such an ugly dress pass through whatever reviews take place, to find its way onto the Fashion Week runway? I hope it was a case of design exhaustion, rather than dress enthusiasm. The latter suggests delusion, while the former, merely sloppiness.
Oh well, in only six months, we'll have a chance to relive these fashion adventures. We'll learn if the CFDA guidelines have encouraged the use of healthier and heavier models, and we'll see if the green garbage bags for fall/winter have been replaced by white garbage bags for spring/summer. Progress.
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