The Guardian marked his passing with a black-framed portrait of what they called an 'iconoclastic genius' with the legend 'The Darkness Has Won', an emotional trough it didn't plumb even for September 11th. The TV stations last night were incredibly obsequious. I know there's an art to fashion, but they really lost it. His couture clothes were deliberately unwearable and the 'ordinary' clothes were both ridiculous and ridiculously expensive.
To be a genius, you have to make a positive and lasting contribution to society. Fashion surely fails the second of these criteria, given that six months is enough to make fashionistas despise what they used to wear.
But let's see what the assorted pundits believed made McQueen a 'genius' shall we? These are assorted quotes from TV and radio last night:
'fashion publicist': 'he charged so much money for his stuff - it was so cool'
Bloke in stupid glasses: 'one of the most amazing artists of anyone's time'
Ridiculous. An egotistical capitalist who pretended to be rebellious while oiling the wheels is neither a genius nor a rebel. Perhaps unwearable clothes satirise the fashion world, but only if you aren't selling them and other slightly more wearable garments.
The crowning moment of this unjustifiable outbreak of mourning was Jon Snow's conversation with some fashion maven. 'What was his lasting contribution to society?', asked the hapless hack. 'He invented the bumster jean', replied this self-regarding fool. 'Everyone now wears their jeans low now so you can see their underwear'.
I stand corrected. I apologise unreservedly. I realise now that my respect for Darwin, Fleming, Dirac, Turing, Shakespeare, Byron and a lot of other dilettantes was merely callow and unsophisticated thinking. Clearly, persuading everyone that ill-fitting clothing is desirable outshines any mere scientific or artistic achievement. Truly, we are lost, cast out into the outer darkness, lost sheep with no sartorial shepherd. Whither the waistband now? How, O Master, shall we wear our trousers without thine divine inspiration?
Oh yes: 'bumster' isn't a word. It's an excrescence. If there's a hell, McQueen belongs there simply for this.
16 comments:
Actually, when I was 13 I used to wear 'hipsters'- low cut trousers with extended loops to accommodate a fashionably wide belt. My arse, I assure you, hung fashionably if skinnily out of them, as did everyone's, and, it being the summer of lurve, most visible underclothing was, if I remember correctly, paisley. The more recent 'bumster' was 'invented' by prison inmates wearing oversized penitentiary-issue jeans weren't they? Genius where genius is due (if that's what it is). That said, I'm sorry the overpaid geezer was so cut up by his mum's death.
Ah, there's nothing new. I believe that McQueen's 'genius' was to make skinny jeans hang halfway down the buttocks, rather than the baggy ones from African-American prison culture (derived from the sensible measure of removing belts to prevent suicide, I believe).
And yes, it is a sad and poignant death. This is, I think, obscured by the media's incessant desire to turn everything into a global tragedy to fill space.
Controversial, angry Vole - I like it. I like it a lot.
My new years resolution was to be nice to you on your blog. I will go back to that tomorrow. But everything that you have written in your post about McQueen makes you look like a fucking twat.
Your argument is so close in natures to the Mirror's "What A Load Of Rubbish" reaction to Carl Andre's Equivalent VIII it is frightening. Just because McQueen didn't isolate penicillin or write the plays of Shakespeare (which as you well know are littered with made up words) does not mean he cannot be called a genius.
After all, your definition of genius is your own. How clever to define a word incorrectly and then argue someone does not match your definition. A genius is a person with exceptional ability, especially of a highly original kind. You may argue that McQueen does not fit the bill, others may argue that Rothko or Stockhausen do not fit the definition. Personally I think all three major figures in the creative arts.
And what on earth has a talking-head on a news show defined anything one way or another? It is like arguing that a goverment policy is bad because someone in a street interview said it "was a well wicked law and that" A personal opinion of a pundit does not prove or disprove anything as surely you are aware.
Unjustifiable outbreak of mourning? Does not the fact that someone has died in tragic circumstances justify his friends and peers mourning? Does not the reaction of the press and the fashion world illustrate his influence and respect?
You personally don't like fashion. We get that. Fine. But point scoring over a man's still warm corpse? I'm sorry that this man's contribution to society was bringing pleasure to people instead of Byron's more worthy claim to fame of writing bad poetry and fucking his sister. I hope you will be more forgiving at my funeral, should I fail to change the course of human civilisation.
You know, genuinely, I have never read anything in the Daily Mail that I have found as offensive as this post. Congratulations on that if nothing else.
I still love you. Unreservedly. I am just a little surprised by your venom.
Let me try that again...
I agree with you Ben, I admit I was a little surprised by this blog entry, especially the last sentence which does seem a tad too far.
I'm just a bit gutted that all the blog entries and comments I leave designed solely to wind people up, and Vole manages it without even trying...
I couldn't agree with you more Vole...I overheard a conversation recently where one sad individual paid £200 for a pair of boxers specifically to be seen over his 'bumsters' WHAT?!
A tragic loss to his family yes, but not so to me!
Let's be clear here. Nobody except the Vole and a couple of pundits are claiming that the bumster is McQueen's legacy. Spending £200 pounds on underwear is a bit silly but that is the decision of the wearer and not McQueen. (You could not berate an author if someone spent £200 on a first edition)
Also, a twenty a day habit will cost about £2000 a year so it is horses for courses really.
McQueen's work was incredibly beautiful. The Vole is playing a very old Socialist card in pretending that beauty for its own sake is frivolous and not beneficial to society when we all know from reading his blog he doesn't believe it for a second. He is interested in art and design.
I know for a fact that he bought a pair of Ted Baker trousers and then cut out the label. If that is not "pretending to be rebellious while oiling the wheels" I do not know what is.
I have no problem at all with a tirade against the bumster. What offended me was the seemingly purposeful ignorance of his argument against McQueen. Stating that you "know there's an art to fashion" and then following it with "his couture clothes were deliberately unwearable" is ridiculous on so many levels. In this post the vole uses arguments of the type favoured by Creationists and Climate Change Deniers. He holds up scientists as examples of genius in the least scientific argument I have ever seen.
I'm sure the post is intended to be darkly amusing and clever, but then I'm sure that Jan Moir, Rod Liddle and Richard Littlejohn write with similar motives. They fail, and in this case the Vole has failed too. Spectacularly.
The Vole is a very nice man, and in his role as controversial hate-monger he is out of his comfort zone. Hopefully in future he will leave the ignorant nonsense to the Jeremy Clarksons of this world and stick to his areas of expertise (of which he has many) instead.
You know, I really wish I hadn't been a little bit rude about Damon and Naomi a couple of days ago. I can't help feeling all this could have been prevented.
Oh Benjy - you ignore my statement of sympathy for an early death, then misread my other statements.
1. His death was sad. No argument there.
2. I haven't denied the necessity for beauty. And no, this isn't a socialist 'card'. That's a rightwing canard.
3. Why is my definition of genius 'incorrect'?
4. The major point of my piece, which you've totally missed, is the media reaction - that instead of quietly noting the passing of an individual important in his field, hyperbolic comments based on inanity (a 'genius for inventing the "bumster") became the currency of the day. This is how the media work: exaggerating and amplifying to fill space and to grab attention. McQueen is the victim of this.
5. My Ted Baker trousers were bought because they were the plainest trousers I could find. They were marred by the label, which was placed prominently so that people could see it. I don't want people staring at my bottom or judging me by the label, particularly as that wasn't my motivation. I see no hypocrisy here.
6. I do think that the level of mourning is unjustifiable and fake. For his friends and colleagues to be deeply upset is fine. The media hysteria is simply appropriating tragedy to sell newspapers. See also: Diana.
7. I notice you've avoided discussing the economic and ideological points raised.
8. When you've read more Byron, then we'll talk (though I much prefer Shelley).
9. I'm stunned that someone with as many, and such vehement opinions, professes to be offended.
10. The comment about 'deliberately unwearable' is a paraphrase from one of the obituaries.
11. The idea that the decision to spend £200 on undercrackers is an individual choice totally misunderstands the nature of capitalist hegemony. There are no individual choices. There are unique individuals making choices proposed by an economic and cultural system. McQueen was part of the élite but no less a tool of the system than the individual buying the pants. No McQueen (or similar), no £200 pants. No capitalism, no pressure to purchase items at a price completely removed from their labour value. We all participate - but fashion is useful, in a way, in that it accentuates this system in a particularly visible way. More specifically, the sale of expensive but ordinary goods 'enhanced' by the label of a company which also makes bespoke couture clothes is vampiric. Owning something with the label does NOT make you part of the couture culture - you're enabling the lifestyles of the couture wearers by obediently falling under the sway of the brand. The money isn't made from the couture, it's made from people buying the skull-motif scarf with McQueen's label.
Come on Ben, this is basic analysis.
Oh yes: why so annoyed about Shakespeare inventing words? Actually, he turned some nouns into verbs, adjectives into adverbs etc - and did it well.
http://i39.tinypic.com/23m7tjd.jpg
OK. I'll put this as simply as I possibly can so as to prevent any further misunderstanding.
You're post does not attack the media. It exactly mirrors it.
Individual points.
Shakespeare first. Obviously I am not "annoyed by Shakespeare inventing words". I was drawing a link between your "bumster isn't a word" bit.
Now, your numbered points.
1. If you agree his death is sad then perhaps you could celebrate it a little less loudly.
2. The notion of function over beauty is inherently linked with some sections of the socialist movement's distrust of art for its own sake. If you disagree, name ten well dressed socialist political figures)
3. Yours is a very distinct definition of a word with broad meaning(s). It is also heavily flawed - how can you prove this lasting contribution? Are you only a genius if your work is published? It is also a very Christian definition (essentially using Christ as a model for genius), basic hindu thought states that everyone exists to contribute to existence and that each contribution is equally important. Who is a genius now? It is generally accepted that the dictionary definition, which is less strict than yours, is one that will do.
4. But you don't do you? You use the pundits as examples of why you don't think McQueen worthy of a big reaction and NOT his work. All your sources are secondary. You state no opinion on any of his shows, his clothes ranges, anything. You mirror the thing you are accusing of stupidity!
5. Why are you tucking your shirt in your trousers anyway?
6. It's hardly Diana is it. We are talking about one day, not years of fake mourning. The reaction is less than that to say Kurt Cobain. Both tragic, young deaths of people influential in their field. Is his work not as worthy of a days reflection?
7. Is fashion expensive? Boo hoo. You have no qualms paying for designer cheese. Or leather bound books. Or Apple macs.
8. I have read When We Two Parted, She Walks In Beauty, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Don Juan, So, We'll Go No More a Roving and a some other bits and pieces. Is that enough for you fun boy? I don't like his work, which I feel time has been unkind to. Certainly I am more familiar with the work of Byron than you are of McQueen.
9. I do have many opinions. But all based on primacy sources. I do not like Byron because I have read Byron and not liked it, not because of Keats or Wordsworth's opinion of him.
10. All couture is essentially unwearable. It is an exageration, deliberately flamboyant and sensational. Some of it trickles down to the high street but a lot of it is never intended to do. McQueen in particular was at the more artistic side of the catwalk, which is part of the reason for the sadness of so many at his death. The fact that the line is quoted from the Guardian instead of being an opinion based on your viewing the work rather underlines a lot of the points I have been making.
11. Misunderstanding the capitalist hegemony am I? Oh dear, I do keep doing that don't I? I must be a right fucking idiot. So let's get this right: there are no individual choices just individuals making choices. I had a similar problem at breakfast when there were no individual slices of marmite toast. Luckily there were some individual slices of toast with marmite on them. Yum Yum! "Come on Ben this is basic analysis" - well yes, it is, if you think that capitalism is wrong. I am no less "enabling a lifestyle" by buying organic cheese than I am by buying a pair of Ted Baker socks. The maker profits. I buy organic vegetables but I am not naive enough to think that the owners of the company that deliver them don't live in a big house. I personally find the belief that everyone is an automoton buying whatever they are told to incredibly patronising. Of course advertising and the like attempts to manipulate our desires but companies go bankrupt every day because people don't buy their crap.
Also, frankly, point 11 is a little late to start harping on about the evils of capitalist society. And I really don't want to get onto that. My argument with your post was not on political lines, but on your ranting about fashion in way so marvellously free of research, and your 'I'm glad he's dead' tone. You derided a man's life and work on the basis of a few comments that people made about him. That is the very laziest form of journalism.
Whether I agree or disagree with your opinions on capitalism or even fashion are largely irrelevent. Your post on McQueen is so far of your usual writing and moral standards that I genuinely thought someone had hacked your computer while reading it.
I'm not going to engage further. I'm too angry that you think what I wrote can be summarised as 'I'm glad he's dead'.
I derided the MEDIA RESPONSE to his death and expressed my opinion that fashion is the epitome of capitalism's ills. I don't need to analyse McQueen clothing because I was talking about two systems: capitalism and the media. Oh, and 'bumsters' is a horrible word describing a horrible garment.
When art meets capitalism especially in the technological age, art loses. This is particularly true of fashion.
Your breakfast analogy proves that you haven't understood my point about the atomisation of the individual under capitalism. I certainly have not called you an automaton and resent your claim that I have. I may love the Frankfurt School, but I'm fully aware that consumers are sophisticated and often resistant. However, your toast and marmite are industrial products qualitatively identical to any other of the 'choices' available - your choice is limited. Capitalism leaves us with no profound choices, only superficial ones - e.g. the veg box or McDonalds (or both, in your case). We try to distinguish ourselves via the combinations of choices we make because capitalism has persuaded us that buying stuff makes us individuals, while providing goods on an industrial scale, which is perverse.
'Choice' isn't freedom: it's work. We work very very hard all the time to maintain our place in the system - collecting every Tom Waits CD (you) or every Field Mice album (me), learning what to love and what to reject, believing that this make us special or unique. It doesn't. It merely identifies us as existing in a particular place in the system. Being devoted to fashion is particularly hard work because rapid change is at its core - you have to work harder to keep up, you have to spend more. Being anti-fashion, as Barthes pointed out, isn't outside the system either. It's cheaper, but it's still hard work.
There's no need to point out that I'm enmeshed in this system: of course I am, and I've never denied it. No individual can opt out: only a concerted effort by a mass can do that.
I don't get point 9. I have no idea what Keats or Wordsworth thought of Byron.
I'm not taking the mockery over fashion's expense. I bought an expensive Apple Mac because a) it works and b) it will last for many years. My previous one cost a fair amount, was used 8-10 hours per day for 7 years: seems fair. This one will last the same. Books last even longer. Fashion is deliberately ephemeral and the costs are obscene. We will just have to disagree on this point. (And the famous trousers had the label more prominently than that - I do wear my shirts untucked).
Way to not engage further. Wow!
Point 9 is my whole argument. Let me try and make it clearer.
This is your argument.
1. Man is dead.
2. Idiot says dead man invented bumster.
3. Dead man is an idiot.
That, surely you can see, is flawed.
If your post actually was about the fashion industry then the points you are now making are all well and good but you directed it at one person. If you argue against one person then the least you can do is check your facts.
Finally please don't present this 'limited choices' stuff as complicated theory that I don't understand. I see the argument. I just think it is shit. Capitalism doesn't limit my choices, it increases them. Of course there is a limit to choices. How on earth could there be infinite choice? Do you not, deep down, find the notion of 'profound choices' laughable in a godless universe? What exactly can be profound when we are all just animated dust?
Apply the capitalism argument to thought. Can you have an original thought, or can it only be an amalgam of things you have experienced? Do you not infact have a position where there is no individual thought just individuals having thought? You can make the observations on anything: there are no individual breaths, just individuals breathing air: there are no individual zooplankton just indidual baleen whales eating krill. I am being purposely flippant because I am illustrating that these theories are playful in nature and games are made to be toyed with not adhered too.
Oh, and finally, not all fashion is ephemeral. The classics never go out of style darling.
Fashion/style: yes, decent point. My critique is of an industry predicated on exclusion and rapid change. Did you see the interview with Burberry's chief this weekend. He described the Burberry trench (a garment I rather like but which, like most clothes, looks awful on me) as 'democratic' - and waffled very badly indeed when the journalist delicately raised the matter of the price.
On the bumster matter: inventing it is idiocy. Doesn't make the man an idiot, only on this particular regard.
I didn't think I'd discussed the choices thing as beyond your ken (sorry if that's how it sounded) - just thought I'd made my point.
Thoughts can be individual because we're all a unique combination (amalgam) of common experiences and contexts - but original thought is rather scarce. We are largely hosts for thoughts - in, as you say, a godless universe, this isn't a game. I happen to believe it.
Post a Comment