Fashion Week in the City

A headline yesterday in the Times read: Sept. 11, as a public occasion, has shrunk to life-size. In other words, the general public - distinct from those most directly affected - are beginning to move on. Case in point: this week is Fashion Week in NYC, and there seems to be no particular hesitancy or sense of incongruity about delving into fashion news and activities - something that may have seemed frivolous or offensive a few years ago.

The force of consumerism in the city is one of the most stark contrasts I experience going back and forth to the country. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that the particular variety of consumerism which is the consumerism of urbanity (and urbaneness) is a far cry from what you might see in the country - a true cultural divide. My neighbor down the road on the dairy farm may have cable TV and browse InStyle at the grocery store. She may be well aware of what Kelly Clarkson is wearing these days and what sort of purse Angelina Jolie carries. But there is no way in heck she's actually going to attempt to buy or wear those items - unlike her big-city rising-professional counterpart.

I feel my alien-ness in this sense when I'm in the city. Maybe it's my nature, a certain tomboy-ness I inherited from my mother; maybe it's the boarding school influence; maybe it was those years in Seattle; maybe country life is actually starting to shape me. (Or, maybe I just can't afford it!) I wouldn't say I'm a slob or a crunchola; or that I don't have a very specific sense of what I like, or an aesthetic interest in appearances. But fashionista, in the NYC urban-girl sense, I am not.

Let me back up: a little over a year ago, my sister re-gifted to me a wedding present - a Calvin Klein linen throw pillow. She said: "Thought you might like the color, but if you don't want it, take it back to Bloomies." So take it back I did (not that I didn't like it, but hey, did I really need a Calvin Klein throw pillow?). I had an inkling that the exchange value would be pretty high for the little 15-inch-square sucker; and I was right. I pocketed the credit on a gift card and put it away for a rainy day.

So last week, the handbag that I left in the country was recovered. But before it was turned in, it was selectively combed through - they took the cash, my cell phone, two out of three credit cards, and my ATM card. My wallet was still in there, but torn. They left the Bloomies gift card.

So yesterday, I thought: That was close. I should use up this credit before I lose it again or it expires. I was in SoHo for work, a few blocks from the downtown Bloomies, so I made a mission out of it. Which turned out to be a truly other-worldy experience. First of all, I was wearing, ahem, clogs (what do you think this is, lady, Berkeley?). Second of all, do you know how much a pair of blue jeans costs these days? Third, apparently, I have the ugliest, most untended skin (blemishes, crow's feet, you name it) for 10 blocks square South of Houston. Fourth, what am I thinking walking around on a rainy day in anything but a fun pair of knee-high Welly boots (pink, polk-a-dot, animal patterns are good) and a short skirt?

Ok, clearly, I doth protest too much. Clearly, I was not one of the popular girls in high school.

The headline of Guy Trebay's Sunday Styles article, kicking off Fashion Week, reads: Admit It. You Love It. It Matters. "Depending on who is doing the talking, fashion is bourgeois, girly, unfeminist, conformist, elitist, frivolous, anti-intellectual and a cultural stepchild barely worth the attention paid to even the most minor arts." He goes on to describe how nay-sayers dismiss fashion as "not an art form or a cultural form but a form of vanity & consumerism." And then of course goes on to make the case for fashion as substantive, as mattering.

Sure, ok, I buy it. Fashion as beauty, fashion as art, fashion as craft, fashion as the extravagance which is often the heart of pleasure. But let's make the distinction here, between clothing design and the fashion industry. Not unlike the distinction between art and the art world, literature and the publishing world, etc. Art is about making, art is about beauty, and innovation, the application of talent and passion and vision. What we wear is no more or less frivolous or useless than what we read, what we behold, what we listen to. Fashion can be experience, can take us away or break open our consciousness just as the other arts can. My personal take is that clothing matters when you, as its wearer, have some kind of authentic relationship with it. When there's a story, or an experience, or something true to you about the thing, its wearing, your attraction and connection with it; as opposed to just filling your closet with what everyone else is wearing, the more expensive the better. (In this conception of fashion, probably way liberal for Mr. Trebay, we could be talking about your Manolos or your Yankees t-shirt or your traditional sari or head wrap or Aloha shirt.)

It's when we get into the realm of commerce that all bets are off. Sales and profit are governed and driven by a completely different set of values. It's in the world of commerce and market competition that fashion (and any art form) can get particularly ugly, can devolve into appropriation and exploitation and vanity vanity vanity. And because fashion, as opposed to say, literature, is so fundamentally intertwined with appearances, bodies, vulgar wealth, it is probably the most susceptible. But then again, not necessarily. Every art industry has its dirt, its surfaces, its vanity.

Anyway, I was quite the rube yesterday at Bloomies. I ended up using the credit for a new wallet, my annual vow to be more organized and responsible with my essentials. It's a nice one, but as I inspected the tag and price, I saw that it was Made In China, and it was a bit less expensive than comparable wallets on the shelf. I asked the young salesgirl if it was real leather. "Oh, yes," she said. "This company is great, they're really good at keeping their prices low," she added enthusiastically. Yes, I thought. I'm sure they are.