fashion at the Public Library

"It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances." - Oscar Wilde

My sister and I attended a lecture held yesterday evening at the New York Public Library, part of the new Fall season of a series called LIVE! at the NYPL, curated by Paul Holdengräber, who is intent, as he says in the introduction to every program, on "making the lions roar." I've been to a few of these so far -- Zadie Smith and Kurt Andersen (see May 2006 archives), Salman Rushdie and Amartya Sen, David Remnick and Paul himself -- and I have not been disappointed.

Yesterday's talk, however, was about fashion.

I'm not ashamed. I like clothes. I really like people-watching. And I love understanding real, personal style. So I went to see Tim Gunn, Martha Nelson and Andre Léon Talley gather to celebrate Timothy Greenfield-Sanders' new celebrity Look Book, and discuss where the fashion industry is headed in our age of social networking, YouTube and bloggers.
The panelists were optimistic about the future because they believe fashion has become accessible to more than just industry insiders. They spoke about the "phenomenon" of Project Runway, and the "democratization" of the art form, but noted that fashion is now virtually indistinguishable from entertainment. Can you think of the last magazine you saw without a famous actress on on the cover? I can't.

They continued to make observations about the past, present and future of fashion. A young man asked about how the modern fashion world compared to that of the 70s and 80s, when Studio 54, Warhol, Halston and other infamous personalities were lurking around the city at night in a haze of glamour, drugs and elitism. Andre Léon Talley [of Vogue] answered that he thought fashion was rather more substantive now -- exhausting, almost -- because there isn't as much of a "Scene" surrounding the bi-annual tent shows. "You don't go to a show at 1pm and then linger for hours drinking coffee and lounging around until another show at 10pm," he said. "There's no time for that. There's too much to see. It's very exciting."

And the future? Martha Nelson, the Founding editor of In Style magazine, made remarks about what the internet would do to, and for, the fashion world. "You don't need $250,000 to produce a show in the tents anymore," she said. "You can produce your own show on YouTube...the people who are going to survive in this industry are the ones who embrace the rise technology and new creative avenues." I really loved this. I think it's true for most creative industries -- true for artists who ought to have a website, writers who ought to have clippings online and even for performing artists. I wish that Martha could have spoken more about this aspect of the future of art and media, but there was no time. Andre Léon Talley is one long stream-of-eccentric-consciousness, and spent a lot of time talking. And being hilarious.