Tag Archives: Fashion

There Is Apparently No Going Back to the Way It Was

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Last week, Sarah Rutson, a former buyer for Lane Crawford and for Net-a-Porter announced that she was getting rid of about 30 years worth of clothes.

The reasoning behind such a purge? In short, Rutson has said that knowing that there will no going back to pre-lockdown times led to the decision to clean out her closet.

All in black – just the way I like my girls.
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But if one must wear colour…
Photo provided by Philip Oh
Enough said.
Photo provided by Style du Monde
When you know, you know.
Photo provided by Larry Busacca/Getty Images

I do not get it. She is, as American Vogue Senior Fashion News Writer Emily Farra puts it, an OG street style icon. So lockdown or no lockdown, I cannot imagine parting with such superb pieces of clothing. Don’t Zoom calls have a video option? Why can’t that Givenchy jacket be worn then?

Regardless, she is parting with it and with so much more – it seems like no designer was spared. So if you are on the hunt for some Alber Elbaz-era Lanvin runway pieces (!!), for that infamous red and navy striped Dries Van Noten blazer or for the metallic pink heart-printed Gucci skirt pictured above, check out The RealReal in a few weeks.

That being said, if you are like me and cannot afford any of it, but you still want to better understand the logic behind such a massive closet cleanup, I suggest reading Farra’s interview with Rutson for American Vogue.

A lesser art?

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Where I teach, we offer our students the possibility of receiving an international education, aimed at developing the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills needed to live, learn and work in a globalizing world. At the end of their 5 years with us, each one of our IB students is asked to present a long-term project – their personal project. In grade 10, knowing that they have this big project coming up, the students run around the school looking for a supervisor. And that’s where I, as a teacher, come in.

Except that every year, I dread this moment. Don’t get me wrong: I do want to help out and it is somewhat of an honour to be asked to supervise a student’s work… but I dread it nevertheless. I dread it because I would love to be the teacher they go to when they’re doing a project on Hannibal Barca – 3 years of latin made me quite skilled in the history of Ancient Rome! I dread it because even though I am dying to review a book based on a school that’s run by a admirer of Kim Jong-il, I am never asked to supervise such projects. I dread it because I’m the one students go to for their fashion-related projects; for their, gasp, fluffy projects… I dread it because it makes me have to confront this uneasiness I have in regards to my love of fashion and all things pretty.

Is fashion a lesser art? Does it make me less than the science teacher or the sports aficionado at my school? And ultimately, does it make me less than an history major or an accountant? These are questions I’ll ask myself when I have to discuss my hobbies, when I have explain what makes me me. I often catch myself searching for a better answer than “my love of fashion” – any other answer is better than fashion, right?

The thing is I don’t have answers to any of these questions – I don’t even think that there are any. So I always end up answering “my love of fashion”.

And yes, this year again, I’ll probably be  supervising another fashion-related personal project, because really, who else will tell them that, just like Rome, a design collection cannot be build in a day?

 “Everybody is so passionate about this, there’s a resistance to fashion, an idea that to love fashion is to be stupid. I think this is for two reasons. One is because clothes are very intimate. When you get dressed, you are making public your idea about yourself, and I think that embarrasses people. And two, I think that fashion is seen as women’s work. My conclusion is that because fashion touches your intimate life, it embarrasses people.” – Miuccia Prada (Ph.D. in Political Science – oh and, fashion designer)