Random Magazine

I was at Barnes and Noble, or some other nameless mega-chain big-box soulless struggling retailer, and looking for Wallpaper.  No luck.  So I picked up a random magazine called Dansk that looked like it was weird and printed on thick glossy paper.  The magazine bills itself as the worlds most independent fashion magazine--which is I guess the sort of claim that you make when no one will read you at all.

But what I found inside was--how to describe it?--I guess it was fun.  In the editorial to this quarter's issue, a chatty gay fashionisto (male fashionista?) introduces you to a magazine that he appears to write as an inside joke for his friends.  It's as if Dave Eggers were covering the fashion beat, but only so he could attend outrageous parties.  Anyway, I thought I would include the editorial of my new friend Uffe Buchard.  Besides his great name, I think he actually makes a cogent argument that a lot of fashion is just faddish and boring.  (Although he editorial gravitas it is undercut by a model on the next paige with sea-green crimped hair.)

*      *      *

Mr Boss Speaks

So, what's new?  Who's the new model?  The new designer?  Any hot new photographers?  Is mustard the new colour?  I hate it, but it's the new thing, you know.  Can we shut up for a second and pause please?  Sorry, but this constant obsession with The New can get a bit much, even for those of us who've been fully and willingly submerged in fashion for years.  It's not the fact that fashion's entire being is centered on the new that has suddenly stabbed me in the back -- on the contrary, that's the element of fashion which continues to make the industry irrestible.  It's just that this constant and uncritical pursuit of the new is so damn wrong for this moment in time.  Or perhaps we've just grown wiser?  Might that be the case...?  Perhaps this new sentiment has to do with experince -- and something as awful, boring, and lacking in adventure as the word 'sensible.'  Is it even possible for sensible to be a buzzword?

Because, let's face it, how many new so-called "amaaaazing" models (they're Meisel's new darlings, you know) have we not been force-fed?  And it's usually not a pleasant experience.  Besides, what can one ask of a 15-year old Russian virgin when one doesn't exactly hold a degree in teen education?  How many times haven't we praised a new designer on the sole basis of one measly so-so amazing collection, knowing full well that the difficulty lies in creating a style you can build upon and make coherent, season after season?  How many times have we said no to experienced photographers because the fresh new names more alluring and promised us the world?  ONly it just so happens they can't seem to work from a brief... And hey, weren't they meant to actually send you the images as well?  And what about mustard yellow?  Come on.  That colour has never looked good on anyone.

Has it suddenly become hip to be honest and critical, to take responsibility and to be well-behaved?  Has being a grown-up perhaps become modern?  The imminent future will show whether this new awareness is but another fad.  But something tells me that these things are actually happening on a larger scale.  The lifestyle we currently aspire towards is completely different than the one we sought after two years ago.  My editorial team and I are suddenly more interested in an ascetic sort of life, where everything isn't about more, more, more but rather about the undiluted essence of life.  A life where Puritanism is a new religion.  A life that's about living a more pure and honest version of life.  We forsake bullshit, extreme youth worshipping, and uncritical celebration of newness for a life governed by modesty in all its shapes and forms.

As a mega-consumer and communicator of The New in fashion you want to ask the following relevant question: how can you be so engulfed and interested in all that's new and yet feel distanced from it at the same time?  Can the two even coexist?  Fashion is driven by waves of new, and thus it has probably already--and probably unconsciously and within its usual superficial interpretation of things--made up its mind.  Look at the older and more rounded models on the runways.  Look at grown-up collections such as Celeine, Chloe, and Stella McCartney.  Pay attention to the way they subtract rather than add and how mountains of irrelevant newness have been replaced by quality and style.  There's a sense of peace in fashion now.  A new direction which has already taken root in our minds and in a new and exciting chapter of fashion, all in the name of modesty.