Lewis and I were enraptured while watching a TV special about Chinese Journalism. It was specifically about the stupidity of Fashion "echelons" to detect "new trends". Here's the scoop... which you won't believe!
Weibo is China's most popular social media. A student here at NYU was browsing it, scanning for fashion ideas. She spotted a user named, "Fairy Fashion Designer" who called herself "the next Coco Chanel"! The user was a teenager living in a rural Chinese province: Shandong Xintai. Essentially, she used the hashtags "fairy" "fashion" "coco chanel" to get noticed. Meanwhile, the only type of fashion she created was literally "garbage", piled on top of her in the shape of clothing.
Using old food, discarded tools, umbrellas, diapers, corn husks, and trash bags, she cluelessly made a hodgepodge of "ensembles".
The interviewer--a naive 20-something-year-old with nothing better to do--messaged her. The "fairy" invited her to be a model at her hometown fashion show. For the novelty of the situation, the bored college girl agreed... and journeyed to her in Nanliuquan Village.
Sitting in a corn field, near her shack, the "fairy" gave a faltering interview, needing to be coached several times (college girl). Then, she took an old plastic tarp, wove red string to cinch it around her waist, and strung twigs with wire to make a small vertical design in the front. Another outfit finished!
Perhaps because the Chinese are forbidden access to Facebook and popular internet sites, they latched on to such bizarre "creations". The farm girl's pictures "went viral".
People who saw the images were disgusted. They couldn't imagine how the talent-less girl could be maintaining her fame and fan-base. Some speculated that it was a publicity stunt (just like the Vietnam music video "Gangnam Style" went viral--for no particular reason--even appearing on the MTV Music Awards [Well, no surprise there!].) Sometimes, power brokers like to pick a random idiot to make famous, as a way of flexing their "muscles" to show off how powerful they are. Similar to the plot of the movie "Trading Places".
Anyway, the farm girl was invited on Chinese television shows... that were apparently desperate for something to feature. She was quoted to say, "To get more ratings, TV shows wrote scripts for me. They told me if I followed the scripts, I'd get more famous." So much for "reality TV"! While on TV shows, she began "name dropping" all kinds of odd combinations, just to get attention.
The live TV audiences Booed her and scolded her to get off the stage.
She proceeded to host her "fashion show", with the college girl interviewer donning an outfit. Obviously, another entity was behind the event. An uneducated, poor-spoken village girl could not have gathered makeup, models, a huge professionally-made banner, microphone/sound system, and several videographers. Her audience was unimpressed.
With the nonsensical runawawy momentum of typical "fashion" trends, somebody offered money to throw her a debut exhibition in the city. Social "connectors", bloggers, fashion editors, stylists, and fashion executives attended. Champagne was poured. It reminded me of the fable, "The Emperor's New Clothes" (like below).
Typical in the world of "high fashion", all the overpaid idiots look at garbage and cohesively copy each other by saying how magnificent it is.
"Very avante-garde and abstract."
"The pursuit of color is beyond everyday people."
"It gives space for the imagination."
"So outgoing!"
"It conveys a unique perspective towards society."
"Very unconventional to pursue their freedom."
"It encourages recycling and environmental conservation."
"There's so much meaning and story behind them."
Somewhere, they found a Russian-looking blonde model to wear some the garbage. When she was on camera, she name-dropped mindlessly like the rest of them, "I think it's very fashionable--like 'high fashion' in Milan, or something else, or in New York Fashion Week." Yeah, just brilliant.
When the farm girl finally appeared, she actually mispronounced Coco Chanel! Twice. Such absurdity. How could anyone believe that she was the mastermind behind it all?
At the event, when the interviewer asked the girl's mother of her opinion, the mother replied candidly, "I don't like the design. We are farmers--busy with work--and don't have time for this."
As a dozen cameramen watched, a fashion stylist in the audience wanted to be dressed by the farm girl. The girl blundered through it, merely wrapping old curtains and scarves over the woman's head and shoulders. I tried not to laugh, while watching my TV. Clearly, that stylist could not continue to say how "talented" and "creative" the farm girl was. That's all you can expect from a publicity stunt anyway.
The interviewer mindlessly proceeded, "Though there's no trace of Chanel in this outfit, if people were told this was a Chanel vintage item, some would pay a lot of money to own it." Are you crazy!?
Two months later, the college girl published the episode on China's version of Youtube: Youku. It supposedly got 100,000 views on the first day. Believe it or not, a Chinese clothing brand contacted the "fairy" farm girl to influence its new collection! She kept appearing on more TV shows (just like Paris Hilton kept appearing, despite everyone's complaining of her uselessness). It reminded me of how media baron, Mr. Hearst, bullied his own newspapermen to keep promoting his untalented girlfriend. Eventually, the media talked about the farm girl's "persistence", drawing cheers from its audiences. One TV show judge said, "Our China needs a designer like this." Well, China's economy is flunking, so...
Lewis and I certainly didn't see anything like this during our trip to China. But if you want to know what we DID see, please go to:
http://halfwindsorfullthrottle.blogspot.com/2014/11/our-trip-to-china-part-i.html
Using old food, discarded tools, umbrellas, diapers, corn husks, and trash bags, she cluelessly made a hodgepodge of "ensembles".
The interviewer--a naive 20-something-year-old with nothing better to do--messaged her. The "fairy" invited her to be a model at her hometown fashion show. For the novelty of the situation, the bored college girl agreed... and journeyed to her in Nanliuquan Village.
Sitting in a corn field, near her shack, the "fairy" gave a faltering interview, needing to be coached several times (college girl). Then, she took an old plastic tarp, wove red string to cinch it around her waist, and strung twigs with wire to make a small vertical design in the front. Another outfit finished!
Perhaps because the Chinese are forbidden access to Facebook and popular internet sites, they latched on to such bizarre "creations". The farm girl's pictures "went viral".
People who saw the images were disgusted. They couldn't imagine how the talent-less girl could be maintaining her fame and fan-base. Some speculated that it was a publicity stunt (just like the Vietnam music video "Gangnam Style" went viral--for no particular reason--even appearing on the MTV Music Awards [Well, no surprise there!].) Sometimes, power brokers like to pick a random idiot to make famous, as a way of flexing their "muscles" to show off how powerful they are. Similar to the plot of the movie "Trading Places".
Anyway, the farm girl was invited on Chinese television shows... that were apparently desperate for something to feature. She was quoted to say, "To get more ratings, TV shows wrote scripts for me. They told me if I followed the scripts, I'd get more famous." So much for "reality TV"! While on TV shows, she began "name dropping" all kinds of odd combinations, just to get attention.
The live TV audiences Booed her and scolded her to get off the stage.
She proceeded to host her "fashion show", with the college girl interviewer donning an outfit. Obviously, another entity was behind the event. An uneducated, poor-spoken village girl could not have gathered makeup, models, a huge professionally-made banner, microphone/sound system, and several videographers. Her audience was unimpressed.
With the nonsensical runawawy momentum of typical "fashion" trends, somebody offered money to throw her a debut exhibition in the city. Social "connectors", bloggers, fashion editors, stylists, and fashion executives attended. Champagne was poured. It reminded me of the fable, "The Emperor's New Clothes" (like below).
Typical in the world of "high fashion", all the overpaid idiots look at garbage and cohesively copy each other by saying how magnificent it is.
"Very avante-garde and abstract."
"The pursuit of color is beyond everyday people."
"It gives space for the imagination."
"So outgoing!"
"It conveys a unique perspective towards society."
"Very unconventional to pursue their freedom."
"It encourages recycling and environmental conservation."
"There's so much meaning and story behind them."
Somewhere, they found a Russian-looking blonde model to wear some the garbage. When she was on camera, she name-dropped mindlessly like the rest of them, "I think it's very fashionable--like 'high fashion' in Milan, or something else, or in New York Fashion Week." Yeah, just brilliant.
When the farm girl finally appeared, she actually mispronounced Coco Chanel! Twice. Such absurdity. How could anyone believe that she was the mastermind behind it all?
At the event, when the interviewer asked the girl's mother of her opinion, the mother replied candidly, "I don't like the design. We are farmers--busy with work--and don't have time for this."
As a dozen cameramen watched, a fashion stylist in the audience wanted to be dressed by the farm girl. The girl blundered through it, merely wrapping old curtains and scarves over the woman's head and shoulders. I tried not to laugh, while watching my TV. Clearly, that stylist could not continue to say how "talented" and "creative" the farm girl was. That's all you can expect from a publicity stunt anyway.
The interviewer mindlessly proceeded, "Though there's no trace of Chanel in this outfit, if people were told this was a Chanel vintage item, some would pay a lot of money to own it." Are you crazy!?
Two months later, the college girl published the episode on China's version of Youtube: Youku. It supposedly got 100,000 views on the first day. Believe it or not, a Chinese clothing brand contacted the "fairy" farm girl to influence its new collection! She kept appearing on more TV shows (just like Paris Hilton kept appearing, despite everyone's complaining of her uselessness). It reminded me of how media baron, Mr. Hearst, bullied his own newspapermen to keep promoting his untalented girlfriend. Eventually, the media talked about the farm girl's "persistence", drawing cheers from its audiences. One TV show judge said, "Our China needs a designer like this." Well, China's economy is flunking, so...
Lewis and I certainly didn't see anything like this during our trip to China. But if you want to know what we DID see, please go to:
http://halfwindsorfullthrottle.blogspot.com/2014/11/our-trip-to-china-part-i.html
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