pic nicked from here
Life as a pattern-seeking egomaniac can lead to paranoia. And I’m willing to entertain the idea that I’m paranoid. I’ll entertain any idea. For an evening or so. After that, they should go home. The ideas I live with already take up enough space, eat all my food and don’t pay the rent.
So, while entertaining the idea that I’m paranoid, even preparing it a cup of tea and putting on some soft music, I must confess that I’ve been seduced by another.
For when I see that upon the website of one of Toronto’s shoddier free weeklies, NOW Magazine –a newspaper that will espouse feminism then try to sell you a foreign sex slave in its back pages– there has appeared an article entitled From the Desk of the Grumpy Garmento, in which the author, whom I’ve met and found to be a a pleasant fellow, has decided to take a “curmudgeonlier route” than is normal in the discussions about Fashion Week, even I, dear reader, raise an eyebrow and wonder: So ‘The Grumpy Something’ looks at fashion week from a curmedgeony angle; Wherever do they come up with these crazy ideas?
It is an eternal testament to my good nature that I take this sort of thing not as a bite upon my style but, rather, as a tip of the cap. A simple homage, if you will.
But what a pale homage! When toasting the great, you should raise your glass high. Sadly, the author of the post, The Grumpy Something or Other, spilled his drink before it even reached his shoulder. Although I’m unsure what passes for a curmudgeon in the world of fashion, I certainly hope this Garemento is not it.
After listing the items that he hopes to never see reported on again, enjoining the shocked reader to “Get over it” he informs us that no one need ever mention again that fashion week’s organizers are evil.
“They are not. Robin Kay and company do a good job with minimal government support, disinterested media and designers who think someone should be paying THEM to put on a runway show.”
Now, if someone could just explain to me why I should, through government, pay ANY OF THESE PEOPLE a single cent to put on a fashion show, I’d be happy.
During any time but especially during a recession that will cost many their jobs and strain our resources, even “minimally” government sponsored events and/or programs must be looked at anew. Programs and events that are of highly questionable value will have to go. Lest we forget — minimum support is none.
We simply cannot afford to silence critical discussion of the organizers of these events or the dubious value of the events. A reporter that claims it’s time for that conversation to end, who claims that Robin Kay and others do a good job while admitting that Fashion Week is too late to lead to any sales, cannot be taken seriously. But he’s right about the disinterested media.
His time, for example might be better spent wondering why a corporate event –it is LG Fashion Week, not Toronto Fashion Week– has so many “volunteers.” He might find that interesting. I do.
If you work for free for a corporation, you are not a volunteer, you are a scab. This is the wisdom of our forefathers. Getting paid for work is a hard-won right and not something to be tossed aside to look at bright lights and pretty dresses.
Call me old fashioned, grumpy or a curmudgeon but I believe there is a difference between the non-profit and the unprofitable. Not getting paid to bring food to the old and infirm is volunteering. Not getting paid to seat the A-List at a fashion show is bullshit. The people who organize something like that are evil.
But let’s talk evil. Not just the fat placidity that is Fashion Week. Let’s keep some perspective and talk about actual fucking evil.
LG, Fashion Week’s main sponsor violates even Chinese labour laws by forcing 100 hours per month of mandatory overtime in their sweatshops. Their products are made out of “conflict materials.” Their money finances a war in the Congo where rape is used as a tactic by armed gangs against civilians. Forced labour, torture, child soldiers, extortion murder and rape: That’s part of what LG does.
When they’re not throwing a fashion show.
Some people might be bored by the organizers of Fashion Week being called evil. Some people might think that the conversation is over. But I’m not some people. I’m Ryan Oakley, The Grumpy Owl, and I’m still waiting for that conversation to begin.
3 comments
jankypanky
April 7, 2009 at 5:37 pm (UTC -5)
curmudgeon- I knew that sounded too good to be a made up word!
Andrew
April 7, 2009 at 9:16 pm (UTC -5)
Grumpy Owl,
I did not realize you had called dibs on the word grumpy. A mutual friend of ours suggested I buy grumpygarmento.com but it’s not my brand, just a passing handle, so feel free to scoop it up.
I did not write this column to defend anyone, simply to suggest that those critical of any event properly understand the true nature of it. Fashion Week is run by a private company with non-profit status. You, nor I, nor Anonymous, nor anyone contribute a penny to it unless we choose to.
My issue is with the thousands of cry babies who attend, volunteer for and sponsor fashion week. No one is forced to be there but everyone whines while toting away their gift bags full of free disposable razors.
Thanks for opening up this dialogue though. Next time I see you wearing brown around town I promise not to keep the observation to myself.
Ryan Oakley
April 8, 2009 at 10:05 pm (UTC -5)
It’s not a matter of calling dibs. Anything that calls itself grumpy should be. Your post was a bit tepid to be considered “grumpy” by anyone.
Should it be considered “grumpy” by I, who so nobly service the cause of the perversely irritated? I just considered it half-stepping.
So please, call yourself whatever you like. Just understand that, when you do, some of us might have set the bar a bit higher than you can reach.
For starters, if you have an issue with the thousands of cry babies who attend, volunteer and sponsor fashion week, it would have been nice to put that in your post. You could have done that by, I dunno, mentioning it. You did not.
Had you done something like that, I would have happily decided that you deserved your claim of grumpiness.
As it was, I detected no such issue. I cannot read your motivations, I can only read your words. And what did they say?
3 out of 5 of the things you’d rather never see reported on again were criticisms of fashion week. The other two were first — reporting on alternatives to fashion week and, second, a simple defence of mainstream media privilege.
But you’re not defending anyone. And all those thousands of people who criticise fashion week, by word of mouth, online and in print, none of them “properly understand the true nature of it.”
Instead of grumpy, I encourage you to call yourself something I call myself: Arrogant.
I also believe you’re simply incorrect when you say that no one gives a penny to fashion week who doesn’t decide to. Aside from being tax exempt, thus gaining an unfair advantage and taking money away from private-for-profit alternatives, the FDCC also lists Ontario amongst their fashion week sponsors.
Between 2003 and 2007 they collected almost $150,000 in tax money. It’s not huge but it is a lot of pennies. I wonder how many of those have been returned as result of businesses growing or jobs created by fashion week.
Aside from this, it takes place in a public space: Nathan Phillips Square. I find it very odd that city hall, who banned the homeless from sleeping in that very park with the words, “Public space is public space. Nobody has the right to take public space and make it private space.” (Howard Moscoe) would then allow the FDCC to set up a tent, cover it in ads and charge people to get in.
A tent for a homeless person is illegal but one for electronics advertising, thinly veiled as fashion, is fine.
Although the FDCC must cover the costs of its event –because it is not revenue neutral– I don’t believe they pay rent. Even an advert on the TTC costs money. And fashion week is simply a massive ad, most of it directed at Yorkville.
Non-profit fashion? What an absurd concept.
Besides all this, let us not forget City Hall’s principled stand about public space.
If the FDCC were giving out sandwiches to the homeless instead of razors to the rich, I’d have no problem with their non-profit status. But, if they were doing that, they probably wouldn’t be allowed in the park.
They’re not doing that or anything like it. They are a social elite advertising LG — complete with models holding cellphones.
I doubt that very few people who are not part of fashion would approve of any of their public money being donated to this event. Fashion Week’s value to anyone –even its participants– is dubious at best.
Let these fat fuckers pay for themselves and pay the same taxes as anyone else.