How Does It Feel?

Some thoughts on fashion criticism and craft.

Alexander McQueen SS03

Last week, I had a question hit my anonymous letterbox:

Hi, Savannah. How does one objectively critique the message of a collection when its primary aim is to evoke “feeling”?

Which led me to think about fashion criticism and craft. Unless you’re lucky enough to attend a Fashion Journalism program — only available at a scant number of for-profit colleges in the U.S. — odds are it’s not something you’ll ever be taught. I certainly wasn’t. I put in my years in traditional art journalism, and later, opinion writing, and then I was able to finally transition to fashion criticism. How does anyone else learn? Reading, studying the masters, enriching the palette, expanding the canvas. It takes time, research, and willingness.

In trying to answer this question, I want to take some space here to talk about CRAFT. Of course, we’ve got to treat this like any other branch of art criticism or non-fiction writing — there’s a yawning grotto of turns and techniques to discuss, and there’s no way in hell I can cover every single one of them here. So we’re going to start with the question at hand, which I think holds another question in its jaw: what do we do when witnessing feeling?

And, too: if you’re not a (fashion) writer, I think there are ideas to embrace, here, regarding how we all might examine a collection and understand it on a deeper level. 

---

The novelist Siri Hustvedt once wrote:

“There is great poten­tial for being wound­ed, and great poten­tial for joy. Only the unpro­tect­ed self can feel the beau­ty of joy.”

I like this quotation and think about it often, even when I’m harshly critiquing. In many ways, writing is a constant game of jeopardy — you are not merely opening the doors of your soul but imposing your will on a reader. Look inside my heart and know that it is true. Writing, even when the subject has nothing to do with you, is a vulnerable act, totally unprotected. And while it is very easy to stonewall your reader into submission, playing nonplussed, distant, impenetrable, this tack has slim margins of success. To write effectively, or maybe just convincingly, you must not simply invite your reader “in” but give them the keys to the house. Joan Didion called this the tactic of a “secret bully.”