I was watching someone’s pre-Oscar red carpet show last night from my hotel room in Panama City and came sharply to.
Joanna Coles (Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief) remarked in passing that the red carpet is now a fashion world unto itself and that, in general, style decisions there tend to run in the direction of the classic and conservative.
“Why is that?” she was asked.
“Celebrities don’t want to be turned into memes.”
Wow, I thought, if we have a group of people who command admiration, who rank high, who garner virtually limitless amounts of capital (cultural, social and economic) to themselves, it’s A-list actors.
And here we see them cowering before the mob, terrified of judgment and ridicule. The very rich and very famous have been reduced to awkward teenagers who live in fear of bullying.
Things have changed. Or, better, the more things change, the more they look like 18th century France.
Or we are all ruled by fourteen year olds with Tumblr accounts? Wait, that means I hear the Tumblrs rolling…
Susan, a terrifying thought…
trickle-proof fashion?
Leora, it’s a great question. I found myself thinking last night, what if much of American says, “Oh, that’s the fashion and THEY move in a more conservation, classic direction.” This is trickle-down but it is an artificial trickle-down largely shaped by the A-listers fear of the mob. OR, the Oscars begins to look stodgy and clueless and everyone interested in fashion that’s really vital and interesting begins to ignore it. This is the “elites fall from currency” scenario and as you say the beginning of trickle-proof fashion. Fashion that doesn’t move. Fashion that just sits there, captive of the carpet. And Hollywood, normally so superbly good at hearing and responding to contemporary culture, loses a little of its influence. Not likely to be the beginning of the end, because it is so well adapted to responding (and creating) culture in other ways. But something to keep an eye on. Thanks. Grant