February 20, 2017

"Yes, nothing says female empowerment like a bunch of androgynous models dressed like homeless people."

"This displays the same cognitive dissonance as all the 'feminist' fashion shows featuring models in burqas and niqabs. It's like listening to a joke whose punchline never comes."

That's the second-highest-rated comment on a WaPo piece by Robin Givhan titled "After the Women’s March, designers try to bring their new woke energy to the runway." (The highest-rated comment is a complaint against the use of "slang" (presumably, "woke").

Another good comment is:
Hilarious - the "fashion" industry emphasizes treating women daily as objects to be ogled with ever skimpier clothing and NOW they are concerned about women's rights? Where was this concern when they were objectifying women all these years?

53 comments:

Christopher said...

I figured the punchline was "That's not funny".

tcrosse said...

Peddling schmattas by investing them with a higher purpose. Otherwise, not much more noble than a pushcart on Canal Street.

Karen of Texas said...

"New woke"? What fresh hell is this?

I think my "newly awakened" grammar Nazi is going to prevent me from doing anything other than focusing on that usage. Gah. New woke. That's terrible.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Nothing says modesty like a neutral color hijab to cover the hair -

- along with sequined, rhinestone accented pant-suit and full-face makeup.

Bob Ellison said...

Karen of Texas, "woke" nowadays means "politically aware" in some weird SJW way. It's an adjective, not a verb.

Laslo Spatula said...

Humlaut LeBlanc Fashion Icon of Fabulous...

I believe in the Empowerment of Women: it is SO sexy! I design my clothing for women who are Empowered, and very, very skinny...

When I see a woman with the buttocks of a young boy I can't help but be inspired! It is such the shame that Anorexia has got such a bad name, really: can not a woman take charge of what she doesn't eat? I do not understand the America, sometimes...

I especially like the women who are so comfortable in their Empowerment that they acknowledge their need for a Fabulous Gay Man to dress them...

I like to think my Designs teach skinny women to accept themselves as they are, if they have the money to buy my clothing to do so...

And I do not have a problem with Men wearing my women's clothing -- I think it makes a Great Statement, as long as they are skinny, too! I like a man's ass that is like a woman's ass that is like a young boy's ass: that is part of the Symmetry I infuse in my work...

My newest line is inspired by the impoverished Appalachians: they can be sooo thin from the meth and the lack of food. Starving people are Inspirational -- I found that out with my Line inspired by my trip to Auschwitz...

I am Humlaut LeBlanc, and I Believe in Fabulous…

I am Laslo.

LordSomber said...

"I totally agree with you. But how do you feel about male models?"

Bob Ellison said...

My dog is so woke that she chewed open the cat-treat bag and then spilled the contents in front of the cat for him to enjoy.

Bay Area Guy said...

Flat-chested female models, with sullen zombie-like demeanors, ignorantly promoting generalized, Leftist politics?

You want more Trump? This is how you get more Trump:)

rhhardin said...

It's not objectifying, quite the opposite.

Women become attractive and interesting without becoming an object.

I don't know that the homeless look goes the attractive route, however. Tastes may vary.

traditionalguy said...

No men will bond with a woman dressed like that. It dishonors men and women to make that style clothes. The only freedom It shows is self hatred freedom. Do the designers include a cyanide capsule at no extra cost?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Karen of Texas said...

"New woke"? What fresh hell is this?

As Bob says, woke is a specific leftist term for being aware of a set of social-justice issues.

New woke is still horrible writing, because ending one word with a 'w' and starting the next with another 'w' causes them to run together.

( I also hate the hit you over the head propagandism of woke. The implication being that if you disagree with them on social justice issues, it is due to your unawareness, your ignorance. It is a form of Shut up, she explained. I have a similar dislike of the group of atheists who tried to relabel atheists as brights

sparrow said...

Outside of the fashion elite: are there any real women who wear things like this? It's strikes me as a bubble within a bubble.

clint said...

"Karen of Texas said...
"New woke"? What fresh hell is this?"

It's "awakened" but only to the supposed reality that liberal/progressive/SJW dogma is true and real and everything else is the delusional dreams of people who are asleep to reality.

So "awakened" with a huge dollop of self-congratulatory superiority.

Karen of Texas said...

Thanks, Bob. That's good to know. Not that I will ever use it. It just sounds ridiculous to me. All the Sister Marys I ever had as English teachers must be rolling in their graves.

rhhardin said...

Armstrong and Getty: "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Sweden."

Karen of Texas said...

This is one of the reasons I come to this blog.

Thank you all ye who have provided "woke" enlightenment.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Feminism is something you say you support because doing so shows you are part of the correct crowd. What you do is pretty much irrelevant. Thus, you have Beyonce dancing in a skimpy outfit in front of a prop that says "Feminism."

Also, isn't complaining about skimpy clothes "slut shaming?"

In other words, the left has no coherent ideology. It has devolved into competing identity groups who compete for power withing the coalition.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

I have a similar dislike of the group of atheists who tried to relabel atheists as brights

That is actually one of the reasons I stopped being an atheist and eventually became a Christian. My first thought when I saw that was along the lines of, "Shit! If atheists are that socially stupid while thinking they are soooooo superior, what else are they wrong about?"

zipity said...



And calling size Zero models who ate a grape fat....

damikesc said...

Hell, high fashion is far worse for women than men. Look at men's magazines. We want women with curves --- sure, the women men tend to objectify are also rough to emulate physically, but a size zero isn't usually the ideal for dudes.

Fashion wants women who aren't, externally, that discernible from pre-teen boys.

Thank you all ye who have provided "woke" enlightenment.

I'd opine that "woke" and "enlightenment" are contradictory concepts. :)

JAORE said...

Isn't life so much more FUN when absolutely everything is infused with politics?

damikesc said...

Isn't life so much more FUN when absolutely everything is infused with politics?

No joke. It's why I eschew sports journalism and televised sports now. I'm sick and tired of it.

Karen of Texas said...

Exactly so, damikesc. ;)

mockturtle said...

Watching a segment of our population systematically destroy itself is quite enjoyable, in a perverse way.

TerriW said...

When I first started learning Latin, it was like a breath of fresh air with its sheer unmovable-object no-nonsense syntactic structure -- as opposed to all of English's loosey-goosey verbal-ly "oh, you want to be a different part of speech? Follow your bliss; you go, verb!" analytic-ness.

But then I got to the perfect passive system and I was all, "Et tu, Henle?"

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Oh, dear God, those clothes are ugly. So very, very ugly. Every time I click through to a fashion article, I brace myself, but never enough. I think they've hit bottom, but they never do. Would that it were turtles all the way down; turtles are generally very attractive.

Portlandmermaid said...

So the new activism is looking solemn while wearing expensive clothing? Better dig out my good shoes.

Mary Beth said...

I'd be interested in a post about "woke" vs "based". They're not opposites per se, but I think they end up working that way.

n.n said...

New toke vs free base? That is the question. Welcome to the twilight zone... penumbra.

mockturtle said...

turtles are generally very attractive.
Why, thank you, MDT!

William said...

I rely on this blog to stay abreast of developments in the fashion world. The daily press of ordinary events leaves me sadly uninformed about this aspect of our civilization. I scrolled through the pictures. Some items looked like real clothes such as you would see real people wearing. But other items seemed extremely outlandish and ugly. Why would anyone wear such a garment? High fashion is a subject I don't understand........Maybe it's like haute cuisine where they cook some unpalatable internal organ of a goat to show off their sauce making skills. Or atonal music for those whose music appreciation goes far beyond melody or rhythm. Anyway, it's a mystery.......I like t-shirts on models, but the look is so much more appealing with pokies.

Bob Ellison said...

William said, "Maybe it's like haute cuisine where they cook some unpalatable internal organ of a goat to show off their sauce making skills."

That made me literally laugh out loud. Literally.

I've had good goat, though. There used to be this place in Rochester.

mockturtle said...

I wonder if these people ever stop to consider that genuine power is not achieved by merely proclaiming it.

buwaya said...

I would think that a woman who is genuinely powerful would dress like the Empress Theodora and surround herself (these being necessary accessories) with dignified eunuch functionaries and a squad of spear-bearing palace guards.

Of course, in modern times the palace guard would be wearing dark glasses and black suits, but the image should still work.

mockturtle said...

Buwaya, O-ren Ishii wore a simple kimono in this scene:
Kill Bill I, O-ren Ishii

HoodlumDoodlum said...

So tiresome! I thought we all agreed: anything a woman does is empowering.

Dressing in a hijab? Empowering. Dressing like a hooker? Empowering.
Working a 9-5 job, even w/kids? Empowering. Staying home to raise your kids? Empowering.
Having frequent, anonymous sex/hooking up? Empowering. Saving oneself for marriage? Empowering.
Divorcing your partner for a trivial/any reason (including temporary unhappiness)? Empowering. Staying together/"making it work" despite problems? Empowering.

As far as I can tell the only thing a woman might do that's NOT empowering would be voting for a conservative and/or holding conservative political beliefs. Everything else, though, is empowering.

It's not that this particular fashion trend, or this or that article, etc, ISN'T an example of women's empowerment, but it's tautological--if a woman does it, chooses it, has an opinion about it, then it's empowering. There's just no need to point it out--it's tiresome.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

buwaya said...I would think that a woman who is genuinely powerful would dress like the Empress Theodora and surround herself (these being necessary accessories) with dignified eunuch functionaries and a squad of spear-bearing palace guards.

Did you see Beyonce at the Grammy's or was that just a good guess??

jaydub said...

How do you make a statement on the Women's March without any pussy symbology? Think how edgy this could have been if a model had flaunted a pink hajib with pussy ears or a burka with a pink fallopian tube sequined on the front. Really edgy, not to mention suicidal.

jaed said...

I was just going to say that about Beyonce. Madonna, as well. If the sideboys in her performances aren't court eunuchs, they'll do until something better comes along.

Popehat has coined the term "wokevermin", which is probably self-explanatory and is my favorite word so far this month. Used concerning some wokevermus who complained, on seeing a woman's story of being widowed and left with an unborn child, that the woman is not a "WOC" and therefore she's privileged and who cares about her situation and she's not special she's just a white woman and many WOC have also... yadda yadda...

Zach said...

"Woke" is worse than slang, because it has a large and complicated meaning that's difficult to express from an outside perspective.

It's also gratingly ugly, because it's back-formed slang. Nobody actually says woke instead of awake. It's some Brooklynite's idea of what a hillbilly might say.

n.n said...

Objectifying women. Objectifying men. Objectifying babies. It's all Pro-Choice.

The humanitarian pornographers demand their First and Fourteenth Amendment rites.

J. Farmer said...

Cathy Siepp, den mother of the LA blogosphere before sadly losing her battle with breast cancer, once had this to say to feminist complaints she contribute to Penthouse:

"And to all those proper feminists asking how I could work for a mag that exploits women like that, I would suggest: Go write for a woman's mag if you want to experience an institution that exploits women."

Anthony said...

But the big question is, Can one be both woke and bespoke?

mockturtle said...

J. Farmer states: "And to all those proper feminists asking how I could work for a mag that exploits women like that, I would suggest: Go write for a woman's mag if you want to experience an institution that exploits women."

Ask most women whether they would prefer a male boss or a female boss.

Fernandinande said...

Hilarious - women emphasize treating women daily as objects to be ogled with ever more fashionable clothing and NOW they are concerned about women's rights?

CStanley said...

My working hypothesis about the women's fashion industry is that it represents beautiful women, with a particular (rare) thin body shape that looks good in clothing, showing off to the world that they can look ok no matter what hideous, grotesque, or absurd costume is on them. It's clearly not to show clothing that would look good on average women,

I've yet to see evidence to dispute my hypothesis, so by this point it is probably a theory.

ccscientist said...

Does someone think they can really signify "woke"ness with clothing? If they incorporate black or african styles on white models, that is cultural appropriation and "not ok". If you put slogans on the clothes...well, you can make anything a symbol if you put words on it, like a red hat. But the clothes at the link without words do not signify "wokeness" as far as I can tell. Perhaps NY hipster style is "woke" only because it is assumed that this is the demographic of wokeness, without any proof that they are such angels.

M15ery said...

The fashion industry: A bunch of gay men who have convinced feminists that straight men are into dead-eyed emaciated waifs.

damikesc said...

The fashion industry: A bunch of gay men who have convinced feminists that straight men are into dead-eyed emaciated waifs.

No joke. Almost have to buy ads now:

"Women, we like tits. Just sayin'. Sincerely, men"

JAORE said...

" But the clothes at the link without words do not signify "wokeness" as far as I can tell. Perhaps NY hipster style is "woke" only because it is assumed that this is the demographic of wokeness, without any proof that they are such angels."

To tell the truth I couldn't see the high level of wokiness involved until I was told.

Now I see it. Plain as day.........

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mockturtle said...

Women who are into fashion don't dress to attract men. They dress to impress each other.