To the Editor:
I am writing in response to the fashion scene section of Friday’s YDN. It is easy to take low blows at the fashion industry, citing it as frivolous, vain or simply inconsequential, but I expected more from a Yale publication. Rather than cutting off the heads of Yale students and adding a snide, sexually suggestive piece of unoriginal commentary, why don’t you explore a side of fashion that is less often given editorial space, but represents a much broader image of the true social consequences of fashion? Why not explore how representations of the body have changed as a reaction to fashion trends, or, if you are in need of more controversial material to draw readers, why not explore how female sexuality has changed in the past 50 years and how this is mirrored in the industry. Whatever you do, can the cliched commentary. You might just discover that fashion has social, political and philosophical implications beyond cropped body parts and a laundry list of brand names.
Brynne Lieb ’07
Oct. 21, 2005
The writer is the director of design for YCouture.