Every once in a while I venture to say a few well-chosen words about fashion.
I believe my last foray into beaking off about the world of couture (haute or otherwise) was in my October 26, 2011, article “Fashionate!“
I’m due for another venting.
I’d like to discuss a disturbing phenomenon of which I’ve recently become aware…
People (and by this I mean The Great Unwashed [1]) deriving a sick, perverse thrill from watching fashion models fall down.
And yes, I get the humorous angle at play here.
In The Comedy Biz, it is referred to as a Status Drop. It is as least as old as Graeco-Roman comedies… that is, when the actors weren’t parading around the stage wearing enormous phalli. [2]
The principle at work is this… an exalted person suffers a swift and sudden drop in status. The classic example from silent films is the rich, pompous and usually fat man slipping and falling on a banana peel.
A cheap, easy laugh, to be sure.
But what goes on when The Wretched Refuse watch a fashion model slip and fall is much nastier. There is a meanness of spirit that I don’t believe enters into the old Charlie Chaplin ‘fat banker banana fall’ schtick.
The Huddled Masses LOVE it. There is a fiendish glee that is simply absent when, for example, you see some chunky southern girl destroy an above-ground pool simply by going into it.
The models, people feel, somehow deserve to fall. They’ve earned the humiliation and the howls of derisive laughter. It ‘takes them down a few notches’… it ‘cuts them down to size.’
Ladies, you cannot sit still for this kind of attitude from the common rabble!
It’s bad enough that you’re treated like dogs or glorified clothes hangers from those within the business.
You must reclaim the fashion faux-pas… the runway tragedy… and transform it into something chic and glorious.
Let’s take that frown and turn it upside down, ladies. Find the fun in a bad situation!
I give you… SPAZTIQUE!!
Your slip and fall at Paris Fashion Week Spring 2012? It is no longer clumsy… it is Très Spaztique!
That time you lost your balance and fell off the runway in Milan? Proprio Spazticamente!
Everyone thinks your ankle-twisting walk on the Prada runway was klutzy? Far from it! It was Totally Spaztique!
Don’t let Walmart zombie shoppers define you!
Be Chic. Be Spaztique!!
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This article is affectionately dedicated to my dearly beloved friend, Chelsea Dagger [3], who is tall, slender, blonde, gorgeous, smart, athletic, fun, funny, generous, philanthropic, kindhearted, sweet… and a totally spastic klutz!
If it’s beside her or near her, she will find a way to knock it down, trip over or bump into it.
Here’s to you, my darling Chelsea. You’re delightfully Spaztique!
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[1] (i.e. The General Public) I doubt many in the fashion world experience quite the ‘laugh riot’ when a model twists, sprains or breaks her ankle, cracks her kneecap or fractures her wrist.
[2] See Aristophenes’ deliciously funny play Lysistrata - a hilarious account of one woman’s extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War. The title character Lysistrata persuades the other women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace.
[3] She has, hands down, the coolest name in the world.
