Oliver Craner

[sus]

One day I will be your Hugh Kenner but I haven't absorbed your long poems to the point of doing that yet. That's not to say I haven't read them, I have. But you have to live with them a while.

Have you read the Kenner/Davenport letters? Fill up two volumes, they do

 

[luka]

Have you read the Kenner/Davenport letters? Fill up two volumes, they do

I've read lots of Kenner and Guy but not the correspondence, yet.

 

[craner]

I've read lots of Kenner and Guy but not the correspondence, yet.

He wasn’t asking you, he was asking me!

 

[craner]

Have you read the Kenner/Davenport letters? Fill up two volumes, they do

No, I haven’t.

 

[luka]

He wasn’t asking you, he was asking me!

😠😡

 

[sus]

They're wonderful, Questioning Minds, I can get a PDF to anyone who doesn't wanna shell out $60 for the hardcover

 

[sus]

Not as wonderful as your writing, of course, Oliver.

 

[craner]

Not as wonderful as your writing, of course, Oliver.

I hope you’re not being facetious.

 

[craner]

I can spot that kind of thing a mile off.

 

[version]

Sure.

 

[shiels]

Really great.

Fashion magazines and the industry as a whole are lower than tabloids in a way, pollutants, and more embarrassing for their elitism . These are really some of the worst people in the world

But the semiotic weirdness and ruthless superficial flux of the fashion world is fascinating, and you’ve gleaned a lot from it. How hyper commercial fantasies reveal something truthful about us all at certain points in time

It made me think a lot of the physical magazine, its gloss weight and feel and the sway it all holds put together in that format. Then comparing that to the dematerialised insta dominion

I remember feeling protective over my sister when I was young, feeling that these mags were so manipulative and also pissing myself at how daft it all is, how can anyone read this shit? But there is an undeniable power to the fashion mag. You feel it in your groin flicking through endless grotesque ads, sexy and bleak, exciting and then a slight queasiness and then boredom and disgust. The major repulsion is how seriously they take themselves, no humour, but it is all very seductive, the ephemeral, irreverent perversion to it all.

My eyes glaze over when I see names, capital letters, dates, italics etc I can’t bring myself to care who did what when, and I find it hard to parse the info, but these are my fav bits

This bit made me think of satire reinforcing the status quo, and maybe hyperstition? American Psycho, Wolf Of Wall Street

But if her aim had been to diminish or even destroy Wintour’s reputation then her failure was, in the end, total. Weisbeger started a process that created a mass media icon out of a powerful magazine editor. The fact that you could reduce Wintour’s profile to a cartoon helmet bob and Chanel sunglasses, or a scenery-chewing Meryl Streep caricature, didn’t undermine her reputation or standing at all: in the event, it elevated it.

As cultural artifacts, magazines — particularly fashion magazines — are often ignored, dismissed or simply forgotten, but that is a mistake. Unlike a book or a painting, magazines are not designed for posterity: their life is in the immediate world, responsive to rapidly shifting trends, alive to the intricacies and intrigues of the moment. They reflect the world as it is — or thinks it should be, or dreams it will be — at the time of their production and consumption. Their impact has a limited life-span and is driven by the competing demands of culture and commerce. For this reason magazines age very well: old editions reveal details that are otherwise lost or written out of history. In particular, prestigious fashion titles like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar now provide an unparalleled visual history of the twentieth century, bordering the world of fine art and architecture and directly presenting the clothes, interiors, locations, photographic styles and beauty ideals of each year of each decade to the month. In an interview with the Guardian in 2006, Wintour proclaimed, “if you look at any great fashion photograph out of context, it will tell you as much about what is going on in the world as a headline in the New York Times” (10). She then lamely illustrated this by adding, “the clothes this season are very militant and urban, and have a sense of going into battle,” to the amusement of the interviewer. But she did have a point: Vogue presents the aspirations, desires and visual ideals of affluent global societies, and whether anyone likes it or not, this is as relevant as the war and poverty of failed states.

the line that sticks

not only could you not see the dress, but the dress was often being, in the words of Guerre, abused.

 

[version]

The major repulsion is how seriously they take themselves, no humour, but it is all very seductive, the ephemeral, irreverent perversion to it all.

This is how I often feel about back up dancers. The main performer can be having fun, but they're always deadly serious in the background. It's really strange to watch.

 

[luka]

Shiels is a Puritan like me. Craner doesn't have this response to fashion magazines

You feel it in your groin flicking through endless grotesque ads, sexy and bleak, exciting and then a slight queasiness and then boredom and disgust

 

[luka]

I have some ~thoughts~ to share but I'm also very hungover and waiting on a takeaway

Having seen the takeaway menus I understand why this is taking so long now

 

[craner]

Wicked response @shiels

Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. Luke is right, thought, I am not a puritan: a lot of the things I am writing about, particularly in the 'The Appearance of Things' section, I love.

This is partly a critique of Wintour, but also a love letter. (Actually, it's really a love letter to Franca Sozzani and Liz Tilberis, but I don't want to confuse those who haven't read it yet.)

One of the things I've said for years is that fashion imagery has been more visually impressive and vital than any contemporary art for a long time. In the words of Allan Kaprow, non-art is more art than Art art.

 

[shiels]

Shiels is a Puritan like me. Craner doesn't have this response to fashion magazines

You feel it in your groin flicking through endless grotesque ads, sexy and bleak, exciting and then a slight queasiness and then boredom and disgust

one dynamic at play that i find fascinating is the getting away with thing. how the young and sexually potent can take naff, dull and absurd and through youth, charismas and sexuality PULL IT OFF. and how all this filters down like that quote in the craner piece, and then how hardness sets the scene in working class communities, sexual and aggressive hierarchies feeding into softer more palatable ones

 

[craner]

one dynamic at play that i find fascinating is the getting away with thing. how the young and sexually potent can take naff, dull and absurd and through youth, charismas and sexuality PULL IT OFF. and how all this filters down like that quote in the craner piece, and then how hardness sets the scene in working class communities, sexual and aggressive hierarchies feeding into softer more palatable ones

If you learnt about the economics of modeling work you'd be even more appalled.

 

[boxedjoy]

OK so I'm very hungover but nonetheless here are some thoughts:

- fashion is an industry built on aspiration. So when the reader or audience of Vogue pays attention to the models, the photographers, the brands, the editors - they're aligning themselves as someone who can afford to care about this stuff. Conspicuous consumption. But this isn't just about having money and being seen to have money: if it was merely that then fashion wouldn't have design, it would just be functional. But fashion is, at any level, about the fantasy of dressing as the person you aspire to be. (NB Fashion vs Style, two different concepts). It's why when I shop I love items like oversized lux scarves and massive full-length coats - I might not have the life and lifestyle of the rich and famous but I can carry myself with the energy of my own self-belief. A white jumper is never an investment piece - it loses its colour and is prone to stains - but imagine being the kind of person who can buy it and wear it and not have to worry that it isn't a futile spend of £30 or whatever.

- the scene in The Devil Wears Prada is literally how everything works in the world. Everything you consume is filtered through market forces - not just what that is but how much of it you do or don't get to see. A camera pointed in one direction is not pointing in the other 359 degrees it could.

- ANTM is, in certain moods at least, my favourite TV show of all time. It's creatively cruel towards it's contestants, who are cruel to each other, and it doesn't pretend to be anything other than deliberately so. But it also isn't afraid to take fashion and the work of modelling seriously: the art of not posing but selling a product - maybe a dress, maybe a make-up range, maybe even a lifestyle brand.

Earlier on I thought I would have more to say and better to ways to say it.

 

[craner]

You know like on the one hand I feel really sad that boxedjoy hates my essay, but on the other I'm pleased I got him to write about oversized lux scarves.

 

[luka]

It's why when I shop I love items like oversized lux scarves. I hate craner's essay. Absolutely hate it. Hate.