From love to hate: What Kathy Horin taught the fashion world
Last week One of the most famous fashion critics of our time, Katie Horin, has left The New York Times, where over the past 15 years she has published more than a thousand articles on fashion. Based on Khorin’s career, it’s quite possible to make a sequel to the film “How to lose friends and make everyone hate you”: Carolina Herrera, Dolce & Gabbana, Giorgio Armani and many other designers refused to let her into the shows of her collections. Cake, “Oscar de la Renta called the fashion critic“ a callous hamburger three days ago, ”and Edie Sliman, apparently planning to hate her to the last breath. But none of these stories could not shake her position - Horin left for a personal reason, to be able to spend as much time as possible alongside her elderly and seriously ill partner Arth Ortenberg. Alas, this did not come true - a few days after Khorin’s official resignation, Ortenberg died.
Now, a week later, Katie Horin broke the silence and published a column. A suspicious eye will see there an attempt to survive the death of a loved one: the text begins with Chorin’s story that she is going to brush up the painting bedroom with two favorite colors, and ends with drawing a line under fashion journalism and under the condition of the fashion industry. She once again writes that a woman first of all needs comfort and few modern designers are able or willing to provide it to her, sacrificing them in favor of beauty.
No wonder that Khorin once again got to the point, given her deep understanding of fashion, an enviable sense and an amazing ability to become the center of a scandal, leaving it as worthy as possible, without bending under anyone. Her entire career in The New York Times is a story of love and hate: Katie wrote a laudatory ode to Rafa Simons before he was appointed creative director Jil Sander - and half the industry fell in love with him. And after a series of scandals involving John Galliano, the journalist of The New York Times was one of the few who was able to clearly react to what happened. In the column devoted to him, she gave the designer a hard but honest advice: John Galliano absolutely definitely deserves a second chance, but it’s better if he does it all next time.
Frankly speaking, Khorin was never perfect - like all of us: for example, she sometimes confused the names of fabrics or, according to Marc Jacobs, did not know the history of fashion perfectly. When Kathy Horin announced her retirement, many began to bend their fingers, listing the main conflicts with her participation. Indeed, it is easier to tell about those with whom she did not have time to quarrel over a long career. Is it difficult to make enemies in the fashion world? In the comments to the above text, they ask about Galliano, and what, in fact, did he do that? I didn’t kill anyone, I didn’t take the last piece of bread, and as for statements that it is outdated, it’s not true that beautiful and well-tailored things will always be in value. Kathy Chorin’s value lies precisely in the fact that despite the amazing sensitivity of the fashion world, about which it has long been impossible to speak seriously due to the latter’s lack of at least some self-irony, she was devoted only to herself. Conflict is a conflict, but the tasteless people would like to know in person, and who else to trust in this matter, if not Katie?
Katie Chorin left The New York Times at a not easy time to publish: this week the marathon of fashion weeks began in New York, which will continue over the next month in London, Milan and Paris, and the fashionable section will noticeably become scanty without Katie’s speakers. Without consistently sitting in the forefront of the shows, Horin's “Style” section is now in sheer imbalance. The Disney company even made a cartoon where the character Katie sits in the front row next to Daphne Guinness and Karin Roitfeld. NYT editor Stuart Emrich has already assured his readers that, despite the departure of Horin and her immeasurable contribution and influence on the fashion industry, the newspaper does not lack new talented authors and the amount of materials about fashion in the print version and on the website of the publication will only increase.
Of course, there are no irreplaceable ones, but not all replacements are equivalent. What Horin was involved in was not conflicts, but attempts to teach the fashion world and everyone else at least something. Listing stories from the life of Khorin, it would be useful to show, with a concrete example, what Cathy gave tacit advice.
Do not be so suspicious
For example, Edie Slimana she seems to want to do not so suspicious, but what to do when a person manages to be offended by the article not even about him, but about Rafa Simons. Despite the positive reviews about his collections for Dior and his work in general, Eddie Slimane was wildly offended because of the following mention: "... without Mr. Simons, who sewed narrow, tailored suits, and showed them not on models, but on people from the street, there would be no Edie Sliman. " And although in the continuation of the article, Katie added that Raf Simons would not have been without Helmut Lang, and then praised Edie for his ability to always adapt to the changing reality, Slimane harbored a grudge for several years. At the debut show designer for Saint Laurent in October 2012, Katie was not invited. Physical absence at the show did not prevent Khorin from writing a review about the collection, of course, not the most flattering one: "... I got the impression that the person who worked on this collection fell out of fashion a few years ago."
In March 2013, the story repeated. Katie looked again at the photographs of the collection on the Internet and wrote a review in which she compared Sliman’s creations with things from Topshop, adding that even a box filled with Saint Laurent Paris labels is much more valuable than grunge Edie Sliman's dresses. “By removing“ Yves ”from the name of the house, Slimane deprived the brand of any connection with its founder, for example, good taste and the power of femininity,” Horin concluded with a devastating review. Designer's response appeared on his Twitter page the next day. In an ad-styled The New York Times page titled "My Own Times", Slimane called Kathy "a bully from the schoolyard" and "a little stand-up comedian." Then he drove through her style, low sales of her book about designer Bill Blass, and summed up: "As long as it depends on me, Miss Chorin will never receive an invitation to the SLP show, but she can easily grab two for the price of one for Dior." In a commentary on WWD, Katie called it all stupid nonsense, and representatives of the Saint Laurent Paris brand disowned participating in this story, since Slimane published a statement from his private account. It is a pity that we will not see the solemn resolution of this story, although, perhaps, Edie will tell in some interview what brand of champagne he opened when he found out about Katie’s resignation.
Responding to funny pop culture attacks has long been unimportant
The seemingly unexpected feud began after the presentation of CFDA awards in 2011, when the Council of Fashion Designers of America awarded Gaga the status of fashion icons. In her review of the ceremony, Kathy paid particular attention to the dress in which the singer went on stage to receive the award: "Despite her cheerful speech, she looked like an embalmed mummy in a black Versace dress (apparently from the latest collection of Gianni Versace). And I don't know why Donatella said that Gaga’s choice was a great honor for her, most likely simply because she had to say something flattering about the superstar. Be more selective, Miss Versace. " Lady Gaga's detailed response was not long in coming. In her column in magazine V, the singer questioned the professionalism and importance of the views of Horin and accused the critic of one-sided judgments.
But the most interesting continuation of this conflict awaited everyone some time later. In September 2012, at the Fashion Week in Paris during the Mugler show (the creative director of the brand at the time was Lady Gaga's stylist and friend Niche Formichetti), the new track Gaddy was used as the soundtrack. And although her voice was somehow changed beyond recognition, the lyrics of the song left no doubt as to the authorship of the composition. Part of the track called "Cake", which in rap slang can mean either "ass" or "money", turned out to be devoted - what a surprise - Katie Horin: "Nicopanda got style trick, Cathy Horyn your style ain't dick / Walk a mile in these footnotes, I run in ain't runnin 'shit / you chew beef, I wear meat ", a couplet is not translatable. The singer did not forget to mention Katie Artie Ortenberg's boyfriend: "Ortenberg, you can do nothing Lady Gaga". Fortunately for Gaga, there was no comment from Katie.
We must keep a fresh look at things
In December 2008, Katie Khorin published an article entitled “What's wrong with Vogue?”, Accusing the American edition of the fashionable bible and its editor-in-chief Anna Wintour that the magazine had become hackneyed and predictable, despite the fact that the best editors collaborate with it , photographers and authors. The fact that Anna Wintour refused to give Katie an interview for this article did not prevent fashion critics in almost two thousand words to tell in detail about what is wrong with the main glossy magazine of modern times and why rumors that Wintour post is soon may take Karin Roitfeld, not groundless. Khorin was particularly angry at the article that Vogue released at the height of the crisis: the magazine sent its correspondent to the mass supermarkets Wal-Mart and Target in order to find alternatives to shopping there in order to compensate for the economic decline. “I’m ashamed to look at how Vogue responds to the recession,” Katie Horin wrote about this attempt.
If you apologize in time, the conflict is settled.
In September 2012, Katie entered a gastronomic squabble with Oscar de la Renta, casually calling him a “hot dog of American fashion” in a review. In response, Khorin received an advertising page dedicated to her in WWD, where the designer was perplexed why then he could not call her a “three-day-old hamburger”. Fortunately, Katie took the trouble to explain that the "hot dog" was more of a compliment, and then came to the backstage of the Oscar de la Renta 2013 fall-winter show in his design dress, where they finally made up, and Oscar did not fail to make a joke: "It takes two to tango "(" In order to dance tango, we need two ").