I refused to go see Man of Steel partly because the trailer looked humorless and heavy handed. I don’t like my superhero movies to take flying men in tights too seriously. But I mostly stayed home because Amy Adams is not Lois Lane. Lois Lane is a brunette. I’m sorry. There are things with which I will not part. Toronto Standard‘s Alan Jones wrote a not-very-positive review in which he called out the director by name (in the title, no less)–“Zack Snyder Is The Worst.” Imagine, if you can, Mr. Snyder being so hurt by this review he took to Twitter to start an Internet feud with my colleague. It’s difficult to picture, isn’t it? Film critics have the freedom, some might say duty, to call out a bad movie and save us our thirteen bucks (plus the cost of popcorn and gummi bears).
Fashion criticism should be no different. Unfortunately, unlike in Hollywood where everyone is ensconced in gated communities and private pools, the fashion industry is chummy and close-knit– especially in a city like Toronto. Designers, journalists, and PR people squeeze elbow-to-elbow at parties and runway shows. Everyone knows everyone and, for the most part, people are friendly. The downside is it can be difficult for journalists to write anything critical–why would you want to hurt your friends’ feelings? Unfortunately, the fashion journalist who writes a negative review has to brace themself for the possibility of an e-mail filled with guilt mongering, anger, and intimidation. This is the unseen flipside of the fashonista’s air kiss.
I previously thought this was a problem particular to Toronto’s fashion industry. There’s a sense that, because it’s still growing, reporters should nurture our local designers rather than clip them before they have a chance to bloom. But now I learn that this attitude goes all the way up to the top of the fashion establishment and, by that, I mean haute couture week in Paris.
If you’re a Canadian who followed fashion in the 1990’s you’d recognize Tim Blank’s clipped British accent from the CBC show Fashion File. Blanks, along with Jeanne Beker, introduced a generation to the world of catwalks and couture. With both their programs off the air, I don’t know what the young ones are going to do. Blanks now writes reviews for Style.com and this week reported from the couture shows in Paris. He’s been in the business long enough to be able to give his reviews an enjoyable amount of anecdotes and contextual background.
His review of Jean Paul Gaultier’s fall 2013 couture collection is not a positive one, but it’s not needlessly mean-spirited either. Blanks describes the show, a mixture of 80’s power dressing and jungle cat prints, as a celebration of “Woman as Predator.” He attempts to find historical precedents in David Bowie and Yves Saint Laurent. He calls Gaultier’s casting of French reality TV star Nabilla Benattia “a bit down-market” but added “the show had a sheeny brashness that she suited.” Finishing off, he writes, “Gaultier was once considered the one true heir to the throne of French fashion. But that was once upon a time, and that time has, sad to say, well and truly passed.”
The statement rang true for me. No one could argue the designer is anywhere close to the height of his influence. Gaultier designed the famous coned bra that enhanced his notoriety along with Madonna’s more than twenty years ago. The next generation (Raf Simons, Alexander Wang) rejects the flamboyant theatricality of Gaultier, Lacroix, and Galliano in favour of structured simplicity. Although I like the bold eighties look of the collection (the models are like Patrick Nagel illustrations come to life), it was pretty garish and costumey. Tim Blanks has seen a lot, so he wrote it the way he saw it.
Evidently, skin is as thin in Paris as it is in Toronto. Gaultier took to Twitter to pen an open letter to Blanks. “Once upon a time you liked my shows ‘but that time has truly passed’ and I respect it,” he wrote. (The run-on sentences lead me to believe the designer wrote the note himself.) Despite claiming that he respected Blanks’ right to his opinion, he calls him out for calling a woman “down-market” and questions his understanding of fashion history–“In future, rather be bored at my shows, you can use the time to do something else, for example brush up on your fashion history, so you’ll know that ‘mille feuille de mousseline’ didn’t echo Saint Laurent, it was inspired by a Nina Ricci dress from 1967 in homage to Gerard Pipard who recently passed away.”
Ignoring the fact that Blanks is allowed to theorize a specific influence on a design even if the designer says another one, the letter makes you want to take Gaultier’s hand and say, “I don’t think it’s the 1967 Nina Ricci dress that’s really upsetting you.”
The designer returns to the source of his disappointment at the end–“If you’re feeling nostalgic for the time I was considered the one true heir to the throne of French fashion please buy a ticket for my exhibition now in Stockholm and soon in Brooklyn and London.” You got to admire the chutzpah of inserting a plug in the middle of a Twitter feud.
As fashion fights go, the Blanks-Gaultier feud has nothing on Hedi Slimane’s open letter to New York Times reporter Cathy Horyn, in which he called her a schoolyard bully and banned her from his shows. In contrast, with its focus on ‘mille feuille de mousseline’ and past designers, Gaultier’s note is a touch old fashioned. But you’d need several corset-shaped bottles of sweet perfume to drown out the stench of passive aggression–because the designer pretends the claim that offended him actually didn’t, he can’t bring himself to refute it.
Nobody likes criticism. It’s not fun when people say you could do better, especially when they’re right. But it’s the best opportunity for improving oneself, if you don’t allow your ego get in the way. Designers should not be responding to reviews they don’t like with personal comebacks on Twitter. The show, along with the slew of interviews they can grant afterwards, was their chance to make a statement. Journalists then have their opportunity. Only those insecure in their abilities want to shut down debate.
What I can’t understand is how Gaultier, who’s been in the business for more than thirty years, could be so thin-skinned. I’m certain critics have said worse things about his designs in the past (although, without Twitter, perhaps he had no venue to voice his disappointment.) But I realize that the upside of criticism doesn’t apply here. Blanks’ review wasn’t about Gaultier needing to do a better job next time. It hit a nerve because it claimed that it was too late, that the era of Gaultier was over. If the designer can’t retain relevance with a tour de force collection, he’s definitely not going to do it with a tweet.
____
Max Mosher writes about style for Toronto Standard. You can follow him on Twitter at @max_mosher_.
For more, follow us on Twitter @TorontoStandard or subscribe to our newsletter.
