The ongoing petition (1,500 signatures say the show demeans women) to get Joan Rivers “Hookers or Starlets” segment dropped from Fashion Police, her show on E, recalled a conversation/debate we had at GlobalGrind about fashion vs. style.
I was challenged by one of our writers who wasn’t riding with the recent news that London trumped New York as the Capitol of Fashion.
PHOTOS: London Outshines New York As Fashion’s Capitol
I informed the writer, great guy with great style, that the UK had NYC beat in that regard for years. His take was that the marriage of Kate Middleton and McQueen’s Savage Beauty exhibit at the MET was why the census was leaning in London’s favor. Point: writer. We tried to get to a common ground so we could distinguish fashion and style. I lost sleep that night.
London, in my opinion always beats NYC because folks there are always daring. Ideas flow from London to New York to Paris. New Yorkers may have OK style but New York does not have great fashion, I’ve always thought. As proof one has the leggings as jeans trend that’s still raging; and two years ago when women were going to dinner in unitards and onesies. Guess where that started? London. Lady Gaga went to London, saw someone, a stylist or Madonna in 2007 perhaps, and ran with leotards.
In our conference room, high above Fashion Avenue, I argued that when one is speaking of fashion one must take into account eras.
For example: it is fashionable now for young men to dress with their pants below the waist. This motion of freedom has been happening for nearly two decades alongside changes in architecture, music and the visual arts. The crop of glass and steel structures popping up in New York arrived at the same time Daquan decided that his tighty whitey Calvin Klein drawers should be seen by the public. We’ll call this The Age of Transparency. 63 years of the Victorian Era saw the similar changes when it was fashionable and trendy to wear corsets, a knee-length chemise and layers of flounced petticoats under gowns while admiring iron cast arches supporting roofs of buildings. We’ll call that The Age of Opacity.
Style is about appearances, obviously. You wear things that will complement your features. Fashion is the opposite. You wear things regardless of how they look, because they are fashionable. A stylish person, therefore takes care, whereas fashionable person does not. Is Daquan fashionable or stylish? Are the women ridiculed by Joan Rivers hookers or starlets? Only the wearer knows the answer to that question, innit?
