what do you guys think of this 13 year old fashion prodigy?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I don’t know anything at all about fashion or the attitudes/mores of teen girls who care about such things, but I did indeed find her writing quite engaging.

I read the entire most recent post, the hand-written one, and found her style/execution surprisingly grammatically well-executed!

Her anecdotes were not out of the grasp of this 41 year-old beer guzzling father of 3 (admittedly more interested in creative endeavour than others may be), and there was a natural flow to how the post unfolded/evolved that seemed effortless, and honest.

A teenager who can spell!

22

I know you’re a real fashion plate and all (tell us that riveting anecdote about the party you attended with Kate Moss and Gaultier again!), but this is one area we’re going to have to agree to disagree. I suppose to someone as well known in the fashion world as you, all this seems very passe, but personally I think she has real insight and talent.

Now, tell us again, when are you debuting your new line? I can’t wait to see what you’ve done this time! That’s our BigT, setting Paris fashionistas on fire!!

23

Do you have to be a movie director to criticize a movie? Do you have to be a rock star to criticize an album?

You seem to hold this young hackess in high esteem. Could you explain how her whole shtick is any more original or “fresh” than what Daniel Clowes, David Lynch or, hell, Brian Setzer were doing 20 years ago?

24

Of course not. And when your 15 year old niece talks about what she got out of The Wall, do you laugh at her and tell her to come back with something original?

25

I’m pretty sure the OP is kidding because nobody could say “It’s the eptiome of je ne sais quois” with a straight face. And Tavi seems OK, but she’s no Hitler.

26

Actually, a lot of young hip people have been dying their hair grey lately. I think Gaga was the one to bring it to the mainstream. Now, I’m not defending it, but there ya go. I don’t think the intent is for it to look like an old person, but more as a sort of chic, super platinum blonde look.

Gaga on Vanity Fair w grey hair

A Youtube personality with grey hair

27

God I miss lissener

28

I’m sure she uses her off-hours from writing about “unimportant” fashion to saving cancer-stricken, orphaned whales in Somalia, like you do.

29

I wonder who her pushy parents are?

30

She’s a teenager, for crying out loud. I don’t know what the rest of you were doing at 13, but what Tavi has accomplished is pretty remarkable regardless of what you think about her actual fashion sense.

I listened to her interview on Wait Wait and she seemed pretty sensible and down to earth.

Also, it seems to be fashionable to turn one’s nose up at fashion at the Dope, so I’m not surprised at the general attitude here

31

Oh, what a load of bullshit. Like she has to have lived through a certain time period in order to find beauty, to appreciate it stylistically and on an aesthetic level. She’s not making any such commentary on American society or what it should be culturally, but she is looking back on a style she appreciates and notes some of the similarities in her present surroundings. To discount her on the basis of not “understanding what the 1950’s were all about” is pretentious nonsense.
ETA: On top of that, I don’t think anything she’s written could be construed as seeing herself as some sort of prodigy. She’s chosen the moniker “style rookie”, obviously she’s not attempting to put out the idea that she knows better than anyone. She’s just expressing what she’s passionate about. Pretty eloquently, for her age.

32

Nah, he probably thinks she’s a hipster.

33

I hope the Bieber doesn’t knock her up.

34

:rolleyes:

I don’t understand how you can so grievously misinterpret my post.

First of all, I didn’t say anything that you’re claiming I said, that she can’t “find beauty” or “appreciate (fashion) on an aesthetic level.” Or that – and this is just totally fucking absurd – she must “understand the '50s” in order to participate in the fashion world.

But she’s writing about cultural artifacts that have been absent from the zeitgeist for a long, long time. She wasn’t even born when Daniel Clowes began publishing Ghost World, and she was, what, like two when he finished the series? The only reason she likes it is because it’s fashionable among the middle-class, white, stylish Americans that dictate the content of magazines like The New Yorker and Harper’s Bazaar.

And did you see that she’s co-writing a book about Sassy magazine? You could be forgiven for not understanding why that’s absurd, but for somebody her age to be claiming that Sassy “changed her life,” when it went out of print well before she was born, is laughable.

35

That’s what I don’t get though. You are essentially saying that she isn’t justified in appreciating something because it was before her time, which is what you denied saying at the beginning, and then reinforced at the end. You could say the same thing about anyone who studies, say, Greek literature, and find equal justification for dismissing their opinions because it was “out of print before [they were] born”. So you’re denying that she has to have lived through the 50’s to show appreciation of the style of the 50’s, while at the same time saying that because she didn’t live through when Sassy was published, to believe that it had an impact on her is “laughable”. So in your eyes, if she were 20 years older, would saying that Sassy “changed her life” be any more, or less, laughable? If less, why?

You’re assuming that she’s valuing something because she buys into a culture in which it’s valued, period. Not that she has any personal appreciation of the things she’s reviewing, of the culture they’re representing, but because she’s been force-fed that appreciation from reading The New Yorker, etc. But the same could be said about anybody, and not specifically her, on some level.

Sure, these things existed far before her time and maybe she doesn’t understand from personal experience the cultural relevance. But it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have cultural relevance to her in the time she finds herself in now, which is what it sounds like she’s exploring.

36

I think Tavi’s great! Precocious, intelligent, strong, level headed and mature way beyond her years. Frankly, I thought she seemed like a game-changer in the making and I was really looking forward to the career she seemed to be heading toward in fashion. I haven’t been keeping up with her blog but I seem to remember that she had more or less outgrown the fashion thing and no longer found it interesting in the way she had before. Has she gravitated back to it now or is everyone perhaps referencing outdated information? My hope is that she’s gravitated back to it.

37

Fashion prodigy? :dubious:

38

Ever hear of back issues?

39

I heard her “Wait Wait” bit and she does seem pretty grounded, but it’s fashion we’re talking about here. Good on her for taking the initiative and writing about something she loves - and writing well - but “teenaged girl obsessed with fashion” is not exactly a world-changer.

I wish her well but otherwise, meh.

40

So I take it that you’ve never actually read Sassy, or know who it was written by, or written for, or what content could be found therein? There’s a reason it had such a short shelf-life: it was strictly a '90s thing, mapping the rise of underground and independent (“indie”) art movements of that era. Female art critics in their thirties talking about how it changed their life, set them on the path to becoming who they are, informed their tastes, did whatever, all of that’s fine. They were rightly influenced by the magazine.

But Tavi, no fucking way. That boat sailed, like, twenty goddamn years ago. There are alternative magazines now (Vice, N+1, etc) that are doing the same thing, only doing it in a contemporary, relevant way. These magazines were founded, are produced, written for, and dreamed up by the very same people who were influenced by Sassy growing up. And Sassy was assuredly written by people who had been influenced by previous magazines, or scenes, or strong, charismatic street people. That’s how it goes. That’s how it works.

Sassy was a revelation for many people, no doubt. But it stopped being revelational for a thousand different reasons nearly a decade before Tavi was born. Because we subsumed that whole thing into our culture a long time ago, adapted to it, digested it, and re-iterated it many different ways. It’s no longer new, no longer important. It’s a given. It’s duh, obviously.

But, you might say, maybe Tavi found something new and inspirational, something universal, in the old back-catalog of a long-defunct, irrelevant magazine. It taught her something important, possibly.

Except that’s not the case. She’s very clearly couching her outlook in nostalgic language, she’s involving herself with the vanguards of that era, with the people who grew up reading Sassy. She’s the little sister, looking up to her younger brother, taking her fashion cues, her music cues, her whatever, from him.

And that’s the beginning and end of what she’s doing. Like Argent Towers said, she’s not doing anything fresh and original. She’s parroting the very people who are holding her up as some kind of “fashion prodigy,” and those people are loving everything she’s telling them. The only thing she’s doing is flattering the establishment.

The teens who are actually producing fresh and original content, the people who, in the very near future, will begin dictating the direction of our culture, are practically numberless. And they’re flying under the radar because the people who run magazines like The New Yorker are just so divorced from what’s going on that they might as well be deaf and blind.

Tavi’s not fresh, she’s not original, and she’s certainly not a fashion prodigy. The only thing that she really is, is a good mimic.