My dad and I have a ‘bit’ we do whenever we watch football together. ‘What they need to do now is just get a goal,’ one of us will say. ‘Just get it in the net,’ the other will agree.
It’s not a side-splitting joke, but it amuses us nonetheless. The comedy is in the word ‘just’, a parody of oversimplification by the cocksure non-expert. ‘Just get it in the net!’ Well, duh. Everything looks easy when you don’t know that much about it.
I’ve been thinking about this longstanding gag a lot recently — and not just because football season is reaching its climax. It’s the aftermath of fashion month and the awards shows, when most of the Internet appears to think they’re a critic.
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Just look at the flurry of reaction to the dresses at the Oscars last week. ‘Not for me!’ ‘Slay!’ ‘Sack the stylist!’ ‘She won the red carpet!’ Positive opinions, negative opinions, just lots of opinions lavishly expressed with volume and authority. Since when is everyone an expert on sewing zips, steaming, and archival Balenciaga?
Consider, too, responses to Seán McGirr’s Alexander McQueen debut earlier this month. (He was named creative director of the British house last year following the departure of Sarah Burton, who has steered the brand since founder Lee McQueen’s death in 2010.) On social media, the debut collection was met with reactions that skewed disproportionately hostile.
'It’s not just that I don’t like the collection because that is very subjective, it’s that I see no through line to what Alexander McQueen has been,' one social media on X, formerly known as Twitter, wrote. 'If you just see this show without context or notice, I bet you couldn’t put McQueen name to it,' added another. 'In short, when will Alexander McQueen fire Sean Mcgirr?' one scorned.
The McQueen a gig was always going come loaded with expectation and responsibility: it was the house that ignited many a creative’s love of fashion, so people have strong emotional ties to the brand.
But it wasn’t the first time in recent months McGirr’s faced negativity. When his appointment was announced in October it was met with a maelstrom of reproval about the dominance of white men occupying the top design jobs at houses. A very valid, very fair point about a much bigger issue, which also exemplifies exactly why we need broader voices across the industry.
I’ve been thinking a lot then about what criticism means. Thanks to the Internet, everyone can express an opinion very publicly and very immediately. While it is undoubtedly necessary to democratise fashion, powerful to hear our voices amplified, and important to call the industry’s ruling class to account, that doesn’t mean everyone is an expert authority. We all have an opinion, sure; everyone has the right to express that, of course. But does that make everyone a critic? Absolutely not.
The renowned writer Daniel Mendelsohn sums up the difference between opinion and criticism with more eloquence than I do in a 2012 essay for the New Yorker: ‘All criticism is based on [the] equation: knowledge + taste = meaningful judgment. The key word here is meaningful. People who have strong reactions to a work—and most of us do—but don’t possess the wider erudition that can give an opinion heft, are not critics.’
He describes reviews as a ‘mini tutorial’ or a ‘capsule history,’ which I love – that is the beauty of a great review, be it positive or negative.
When hiring for a job recently, I was alarmed at how many wannabe fashion journalists get all their news and ideas from social media. There is a space for it, of course, but it shouldn’t replace the illuminating analysis of the expert. (Fashion critics I recommend you follow if you don’t already: Friedman at the New York Times, Cathy Horyn at The Cut, Rachel Tashjian at the Washington Post and Tim Blanks at Business of Fashion.)
Something else to think about? Time. We’re so used to voicing opinions instantaneously that we seem to have lost the ability to form them with consideration and nuance. In the clamour to be first, we can lose the capability to think, to reflect.
I wonder, too, if we don’t give designers sufficient time to settle into their roles. After all, for a designer arriving at a storied brand, figuring out how to balance the codes of the house with their own sensibilities takes time. News broke this week that Walter Chiapponi has left his role at Blumarine after one season; no word why at the time of writing, but fashion truly moves at warp speed.
Fair criticism is born from cool deliberation as much as hot emotion. And, by the way, us fashion journalists aren’t immune to the thrill of posting from a show in real time. But remember, not everything reveals itself immediately.
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