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One day [NOT TODAY], I'm going to stop reading blogs I hate and getting upset about them and then posting sort-of rejoinders here.

And I hardly read New York's 'The Cut,' because this girl I went to high school with writes for them sometimes and I don't trust her. I don't trust most fashion journalists. I love Guy Trebay; he's from my Pop's generation of Village Voice staff, and he isn't narrow or mean. He might be a hippie......I loved Liz Tilberis a lot. I used to like The Sartorialist, but he's gotten boring and narrow, never mean, but certainly packing limitations (and also success). The worst thing I find about most fashion journalism is its smallness, its party line. There seem to me to be infinite solutions for dressing, globally, through eons and eons, etc.---and it's the infinity that's interesting and meet.

So this post on The Cut by Amy Odell (who did not attend any of my three high schools) really bothered me, not only because of its damning industry narrowness, but also because it contains examples of that tackytacky watching-Jersey-Shore-ironically "meme" (kinna hurra). Here is a picture of Amy Odell. I don't want to get too snipey with it, but the glimpse is telling. Isn't she like any other girl who showers regularly and talks about shopping? Yes, seems to be. Boxford, Massachusetts, the finer suburbs of Cincinnati. You know? And Odell is shocked (shocked) to find that folks might actually think Jersey Shore's Snooki is es-stylish...gosh...this is a lot for me because Snooki is a genius (so are J-Woww and Pauly D and Vinny's mother). And doing stuff, watching stuff, buying stuff 'ironically' is essentially the worst thing ever. I've gotten wrapped up in Jersey Shore because it's a good show, because it's about dancers, glamorous dancers, men and women peacocking and dancing, really dancing, fighting the beat, vibing, vibing, creeping, cooking food, working at the t-shirt stand on the boardwalk. Yes it's narrow—gym and tan and laundry all the time—but the cast don't purport to be observer-reporters of fashion in total; they're just doing them, just them.

Narrowness and openness are elements of style in equal parts, to oversimplify it: one can be relatively or extremely (depending on preference of the individual) narrow about one's own appearance (an overabundance of openness toward self-style is like not knowing the self, which is no bueno past a certain age [kids ought to shop around]) and open about everybody else's (because nothing is more stylish than a good, loving attitude). Granted, I don't think everybody everywhere is stylish all the time. Clearly I'm not open to the way Amy Odell looks, because she looks like 'floating, common fashion staff' and that's flimsy to me. The only limit I hold, the only limit to my openness about other people dressing, is nativity, whether it be absolutely geographical or a bit more conceptual, I like people to be themselves from the "places" they are from, unabashedly. I like clothes to discuss identity (more than attendance to industry directives), and I find a kind of Manhattan (or L.A.)-bound uniform, rootless in a bad way, and bland. It's never the individual garments, a pair of skinny jeans or a nice blazer or a particular watch, it's their combination (I have seen Korean girls pull off conservative luxe brilliantly, because there is a pinch of avant-garde in each item and you usually can't tell the brands, and the French too can do this sort of look, but without washing or ironing too much....I suppose it fails in America because when one ought to be wearing wonderful freckled, preppy American sportswear but instead gets derailed attempting to be [sweet Jesus] 'edgy' with dumb brass and gold studs on everything it tanks....it's like actresses....it's down to actresses and how they're always on the covers of things). I'm bad at philosophy.

Back to Odell's actual post--
It's titled "Snooki Plugs Ugg, Bebe, Other Scary Labels."
What is Amy Odell afraid of? What does she want us to fear? Fear is the enemy of art (and bowels). Doesn't she know that?

I don't get so carried away with Ugg ugliness. I never wore them in their hey; I thought they were overpriced. This fall/winter I've bought a whole stable of knock-off Uggs available for purchase down the street from us at Bobby's for $5. So has Pillow. I wear them to take out the garbage and run errands and a couple of times to work (though I felt pretty guilty afterward for being so collegiate). They're slippers, which I love, and soft and warm and nowadays fantastically ubiquitous (I don't think they mean anything). They are simple, like espadrilles or muck-lucks. I just don't think they're ugly, because they are so simple and easy. Real comfort is rarely ugly to me. As I said before, they are pretty collegiate and Snooki is a student. So, by saying that she wears leggings and Uggs "to run errands," Snooki is identifying herself as a regular American co-ed (and, as I said, I wear leggings and Uggs to run errands too. I guess I'm still happy being collegiate on the weekends, though I also throw on an old, giant men's tweed overcoat [art-collegiate]).

Back in the day, in 2003 and 4, when I was a y'ung clurrber, I would buy new 'outfits' at the Bebe in Copley Plaza every weekend (also hitting up Armani Exchange and Polo and the salon-for-waxing and Calypso and BCBG...and maybe Armani Cafe [ha]). Bebe makes a specific sort of garment: short, cut-to-there, black lace, some denim, definitely sequins--clurrbwear. Why hate? It's a look, a readily available look, a sort of mall-store pop star look, Mariah and Jenny Lo for under $150. For me, it was a phase (like wearing torn up undershirts with red lace bras), but I looked good, and I get (and dig) that for some it's a forever-look.

My abundant love of Ed Hardy we can discuss another time....

The thing is
Snooki is mad stylish.

The Cut (and anybody else of a mind to condescend to Guidos) blows.