June 9, 2020 George Floyd Buried in Houston | June 10, 2020 Samira Nasr Now Leads Harper's Bazaar US
/
June 9, 2020 George Floyd Buried in Houston | June 10, 2020 Samira Nasr Now Leads Harper's Bazaar US
On this day June 10, 2020, you might think that the landing page of Harper’s Bazaar US has left the fashion business. I considered posting an old Temptations song ‘Ball of Confusion’ but what we are actually seeing is a ‘Ball of Clarity’.
Somebody needs to write a new song to describe this moment in America and the fashion industry. What does fashion even mean at this point?
One answer is the escapist route of the Chanel Cruise show, an effort that “totally ignored the cataclysmic context in which they would be worn. It was more like a return to some of high fashion’s escapist failings of the past rather than a meaningful step toward the future,” wrote Vanessa Friedman of the New York Times.
If this is how a fashion house “adapts” to the changing world — if these are the clothes that are the response, if escapism is presented as an answer, if photographs and video simply attempt to mimic what once was, as opposed to reframing what could be, if a statement from a designer can’t even acknowledge the pain and complications of her consumers, even the rich ones — then, pretty as the products may be, it is not doing its job.
In the pain and promise of our global fashion moment, voices matter. Who steps up? Who stands down?The fashion gods have delivered a new voice to the dialogue.
The new editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar US, Samira Nasr now carries a bigger megaphone. Talk about an epic moment for a fashion editor to take the reins of a major US fashion magazine.
