A Trillion Little Bloggers Can't Be Wrong
Attention academia: the paper of record has issued a challenge those who would dismiss fashion as mere frivolity.
In yesterday's New York Times, which prominently featured fashion news in no less than 3 sections, including an above-the-fold picture on the front page, Guy Trebay described the process of trend-spotting:
A pattern emerges, and perhaps it is even one that contains unexpected meanings about where the culture is headed. Maybe this seems like a nutty assertion to make in regard to fashion, which many still find it easy, if not intellectually obligatory, to dismiss. But in a culture of surface it's a mistake to ignore the potency of any visual language.
Given that the Times is obligatory reading on university campuses across the country -- few profs settle for the local paper, especially in if they happen to be in red states -- expect to see a new embrace of fashion and a rise in lectures like "Intertextuality and Intimate Apparel in the Interwar Period" or "Denim and Marxism: The Androgynous (S)exploitation of Proletarian GarMENts." And, predictably, a rise in complaints among a certain cadre about why nobody just studies Classics of Western Civilization anymore.
Of course, it wouldn't be an intellectual challenge without a charming degree of condescension. Trebay adds:
One good place to check out the number of playful tools for sartorial self-expression in a post-feminist era is the trillion little blogs on MySpace.com. There are some plural ideas about what constitutes femininity these days....
Well, yes. Your humble trillion-and-first little blogger said so two weeks ago, as have so many others (I particularly love Jack & Hill's recent post on Fashion as Free Speech).
I suppose that a trillion little bloggers can't be wrong. But it's nice of the Times to make it official.
