I’m just going to come right out and say it: I don’t have a favorite designer.
I know that’s blasphemous, because everyone is supposed to be able to pick their favorite something or other, especially if they’re passionate about that something. Favorite song, favorite movie, favorite food. That idea is so trite to me, but it becomes even more pedestrian when it comes to fashion.
The industry — and not just the clothes it produces, but the entire industry — changes far too quickly for anyone to be able to honestly say, “Oh, yes. This person is just the bees knees and always will be under every single circumstance.” Stop it. Most fashion, the stuff that really drives this business and keeps people’s houses staffed with servants and whatnot, is here today and gone tomorrow. Even if you liked Marc Jacobs‘ grungy sensibility at the beginning of his career, today, at his peak, that grunge has been replaced by chinoiserie. And honestly? Still don’t know how I feel about that.
Same thing goes for the people. When was the last time you heard anything out of Alexandre Plokhov, the designer behind Cloak? When, for that matter, was the last time you heard about Cloak? This side of four years ago the fledgling label was all anyone in menswear (and even Anna Wintour!) could talk about. Today it’s a lot like Prussia. Which is to say, it’s not there anymore. Ozwald Boateng‘s company seems to still be extant, but you don’t see his work blown up the way it used to be. (Show of hands: who misses his show on Sundance?) And so many brands that start out strong end up flaccid and bankrupt (or worse) in no time flat.
Maybe that’s the reason that I’m so conservative about lauding any one person as my absolute favesies: because they’re all one bad collection away from being blown into smithereens. Even Chanel had to wait three seasons after her post-World-War-II comeback collection until she had the same kind of success she enjoyed before the war.
On top of that, does anyone really wear one designer or brand exclusively? I love a good Lanvin blazer as much as the next guy, but I don’t think I could wear nothing but Lanvin all the time — and not just because I couldn’t afford it. So much of the fun of fashion is mixing it up, and because of that it pains me to see people wearing an outfit pulled straight from the runway or a look book.
I think the best any of us can say is that we really like what a particular somebody is doing at the moment (Michael Bastian, lower your prices and we’ll talk), or that we really like the way one brand makes certain garments. (I, for one, will never like any oxford cloth shirt more than the ones I get for $20 at Uniqlo.) But is there really any one entity of fashion that can satisfy all of our ravenous sartorial desires in one fell swoop?
