soopastryheart

I’m no expert of fashion, evident in the fact there are plenty of designers whose names I butcher rather horrifically, but I am fondly appreciative of it. I subscribe and read (yes, read, not just look at photos and smell perfume samples) an ample amount of fashion magazines, and The Man Repeller is a daily favorite. Magazines like Esquire, Elle, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and a dozen others regularly have strong articles (on a multitude of subjects besides fashion), written by writers I’m a big fan of.

I have a pretty good sense of humor and an adequate grasp on reality to take shit too seriously. I try not to belittle sartorial endeavors, but I also understand that there are far more important things in this world than the shade of denim I’m wearing this season. Sometimes, I’ll come across a feature that I find a bit ludicrous, but most times I’ll just let it pass by. But this past weekend, as I was perusing through my stack of September issues, I caught something in Elle that left a pretty sour taste in my mouth.

And the more I looked back at it, the deeper my eyebrows furrowed. By no means am I a political anything, but I found myself growing increasingly irritated at the word choices of Joe Zee:

(from Elle)

Yes, let’s take one of the most regressed and oppressed regimes in the world and turn it into a mockery for your couture needs. I mean, this seems like a caricature of itself for it to be real, something along the lines of this:

Could you imagine overhearing something like, “You look so oppressively fierce girl, so North Korean of you” dropped in casual conversation? Or “Girl, you are totally channeling Kim Jong Un right now, so dictatorially chic!” How offensive would this be? Some analogies are just too tacky to be used colloquially.

It’s shit like this, fashion, that makes you such an easy target for ridicule. Why are you begging for people not to take you seriously?