A couple of weeks ago word came down through the Twitter pipe that Condé Nast would be shutting down Gourmet and Cookie magazine. Cookie, a publication devoted to stylish parenting (and therefore utterly annoying and forgettable) has only been around for 4 years, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that no one will mourn its passing. Gourmet, on the other hand, has been published since the 40's, and has a well-earned reputation for being the home to intelligent food journalism.
In Best Food Writing 2005, 10% of the articles came from Gourmet. The 2009 edition has yet to be released, but, barring a minor miracle, it should be the last one with any Gourmet writing, which, when you think about it, seems a little ridiculous.
The Best American series by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt highlights a dizzying array of genres, from travel to short stories to science to comics...but not one for fashion. Which got me thinking - where's the book for the best fashion writing? And if there was such a book, who would be in it?
The Sartorialist has a book, but thank god it's not for his writing.
I read my fair share of men's style magazines (or men's style writing in other magazines)--Fantastic Man, Monocle, GQ, Details, 10--but the only name of any writer I can come up with is Glenn O'Brien, he of the plaid suits and "Style Guy" moniker. Blogs don't fair much better in terms of name recognition - the first hit on Google for "men's style writer" is for a blog that hasn't been updated in over a year.
But that Google search belies the fact that many blogs feature excellent writers, a niggling detail often glossed over by mainstream media when it attempts to catch up to this blogging fad. Fashion blogging - everyone knows what that is. It’s those sites where people post pictures of themselves in odd poses, here covering their faces, here looking to all the world like their backs are broken. The people who write fashion blogs often seem to have endless supplies of money. I don’t look at many fashion blogs, which might seem hypocritical or simply arrogant but is only a demonstration of how narrow a definition I accord the term “fashion blog”. This is a fashion blog. This is a style blog.
Don’t get me wrong, I like reading about fashion. I just don’t read about it on blogs. What I want from a blog is someone telling me something I can’t figure out just by looking at whatever it is they're talking about. I just can’t view the same person in the same pose in essentially the same outfit day in and day out, and frankly they don’t need me to. Those people are doing just fine on their own with thousands of hits and hundreds of comments. And it’s not because I don’t admire them for their stamina. Taking pictures of yourself is hard work. It’s all I can do to stand still and not wear an expression that says I was just about to sneeze or possibly fall asleep.
Here is a list of style blogs that I think set themselves apart based on the quality of their writing. If you're on this list you can add this badge to your site*:
The Dapper Kid - The blog is a little image heavy right now, but when he goes off he goes OFF, firing paragraph after paragraph on the history of the trench coat, the photography of Juergen Teller, or the proper way to match your socks and ties. I might have made all those up, but that's how varied his output is - he COULD have written about any of those. And he should. Hint hint. (He did write a recent and thoroughly enjoyable post titled "A Translation of Identity".
Wendy Brandes - Here's what you need to know about Wendy Brandes: she was at the taping of Nirvana Unplugged; she designs jewelry; she swears a lot, both in person and on her blog; she likes medieval history; she is the best person you could hope to have dinner with on your first night in Paris.
Here's what you need to know about Wendy's blog: it is a site of good. I don't mean it is good. I mean, like Superman, it does good. It heals, it purges, it clarifies the mind. Fuck yeah.
Daddy Likey - It should come as a surprise to no one that Daddy Likey has parlayed her blog into a book. Her blog practically is a book, only without the floppy bits of paper tied together with string. Winona has, in my estimation, the clearest voice of any style blogger going - thoughtful column headings, clever turns of phrase, and the most ardent chocha-pic gatherers of anyone not employed by TMZ. But most of all, Winona has a huge heart. Even when she's skewering a model's pose, she does so with love.
Style Salvage - Full disclosure - I consider Steve and Eliza to be good friends. But they're on this list because they write at length about all things men's fashion. I doubt anyone reads this blog and not theirs, but on the off chance you're making that colossal mistake rectify it post haste by reading this interview with the team behind Casely-Hayford.
Threadbared - Academics and fashion seem as far apart as Rush Limbaugh and the NFL (sports-reference to prove my manliness), but this blog makes it work. From the blog: "neoliberalism and humanitarianism from a transnational feminist analytic, which includes the "management" of refugee crises but also beauty as a civilizing project." If you understand that, this blog's for you.
*Especially proud? Use this post-sized badge.
