Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
The recent furore about "The Chiffon Trenches," the new autobiography in which André Leon Talley takes aim not just at his fashion enemies but also at many of those former allies who helped him in his career, sent me back to my shelves to reconsider some other examples of the "tell-all" exposé of the intrigue, back biting and madness behind the glamorous veneer of the fashion world. For all the lunacy and hysteria there is to expose, such frank glimpses are relatively few — and increasingly rare now that the large fashion houses have such total control over the major media outlets that they can close down gossip by threatening to withhold the ever-scarcer advertising revenue. Simply put, those brave enough to tell all are regarded as backbiting the hand that feeds them, almost certainly killing off both personal contacts and a future in the small, insular and highly protective fashion industry. This is a beautiful, fragile bubble that can be burst all too easily by those waving sharp sticks.
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