Elliot and Isabel

The New York Post (really?) ran a feature over the weekend concerning Balmain’s American-flag desecrating, $1000+ tank top, and how Forever 21 has knocked it off.

Okay. Whatever. It’s the NY Post. The real (and consequentially hilarious) point that I want to get at is this: they actually quoted a War vet  as saying the whole shebang is “a disgrace.” Moreover, this War vet runs a website about how to protect the American flag against slander. He calls the tank-top anti-Patriotic.

In reality, are the women (and possibly men) who ran Net-A-Porter’s stocks dry on this item really up in arms with anti-American sentiment? Are they gleefully wearing their burnt-out tanks to pro-Gaddafi rallies, taking pictures of themselves giving the finger to those once ubiquitous Obama Change posters? F*ck no they aren’t. Some of them probably don’t even know what Libya is. “Is that a Zodiac?!”

I guess it does have to be taken with a grain of salt considering the source and the general pot-stirring tendencies of the tabloid, but, to me, it’s just another ridiculous instance of fashion being taken more seriously than it should. What do you think?

Christophe Decarnin is gone, as in gone-baby-gone no-coming-back, from Balmain. We all know this. Yet his departure, allegedly due to mental instability, has not been heralded as brave or sad. No.

In fact, the media has sort of had this collectively vicious backlash against Decarnin’s Balmain, as if we (yes, I’m including E+I in “the media”) are all of a sudden awake from a trance. A glitter-loving and mini-skirt-parading trance. Actually that sounds kind of fun, but it’s time to grow up kids…

They’re calling it “unfair,” (the clothes, not the creative director’s departure). One woman, I forget where I read it, is suggesting that Balmain’s pricing took advantage of consumers and press-hype. $1000 dollars for a tank-top would certainly uphold this sentiment – yet, for a time there, if it was Balmain you just had to have it.

I sadly agree – I’m not sad to see Christophe go. It took an objective lens to see just how insanely tacky Decarnin’s vision was. What the hell were we all thinking? Jeeze Louise! Out of respect, here are some looks that are passable. RIP C.D.

The jeans that started a worldwide buying frenzy. The shoulder-pads that came to define Emmanuelle Alt. S/S09.

The famous military collection – even Nene, of Atlanta Housewives notoriety, was spotted wearing a shredded green olive t-shirt that probably cost something like $3500 dollars.

Freja. I had to. This is F/W11 – the collection Decarnin didn’t show up for/may not have been involved with all along.

Who will replace him? I’ve heard they want to hire a no-name. However, there are two routes that could be taken should they decide to hire big:

1) for the ridiculous factor, Donatella Versace. This would secretly make me very happy, and I’d likely fall willingly back in to the all-things-tacky-appreciation-trance, as aforementioned.

2) for the surprise factor, Erdem Moralioglu. Mark my words…

-Elliot