Tales from the Back Row Read Online Free Page B

vegetables, some of which grow above ground and some of which grow below ground, I knew that people wear clothes. I knew that really expensive ones with price tags affixed to labels by leather strings were more likely to be considered “fashion” than Jeggings with clear MMMMMMMM stickers running down the legs. For months when I started, I would get up before seven each morning so that I could read every word in Women’s Wear Daily to figure out what mattered the most in the fashion world that day. I could read enough to learn about the fashion business and how it worked and all that. I could figure out which designers worked at which labels, which labels people cared about the most, and what the trends were in everything from online retail strategy to spring denim. But I could not nearly as easily adopt a sense of personal style that said, “I am a person who understands fashion and excels at getting dressed. Do worship my choice of blouse.” I was very cavelady about it: “This is shirt, this is pants, this is outfit.” I used to wear this one white knit top with a tattoo print-esque design on it (shhh!) that had three-quarter-length bell sleeves. I had not yet switched to skinny jeans, so I wore said top with boot-cut Abercrombie jeans I’d owned since high school—the “worn in” kind that looked like they had been used as a rag to wash hippos before they became pants. (This was the hot look for seventeen-year-olds in Austin, Texas.) I wore Reef flip-flops made of fuzzy leopard-printed material. In terms of an everyday outfit for a person who would leave her house, it was perfectly fine in that it clothed me. But as an outfit for a person who would have to go to fashion shows and write about them, it was embarrassing . Like arriving at a wedding and not realizingyour nipples are showing until you get there, and then you spend the next three hours wondering if anyone else can tell. Visible nipples would have been preferable to my tattoo prints and bell sleeves. At least then I’d have something in common with runway models, who I’m sure would prefer to wear sheer clothing than be seen in my old clothes on a runway.
    But I’m not a stylist—I’m a writer and editor. It’s not necessarily my job to know how to put really interesting outfits together. It’s my job to understand trends, interview designers and models and celebrities, and to piece it all together for various blog items for my readers. I had to look professional, yes, and ideally sort of stylish, but I didn’t necessarily need to know that the black-and-white leopard Cavalli top goes perfectly with those Lucite-heeled neon-trimmed Marni shoes and that pair of high-waisted jean shorts with the Chanel brooch on the upper right ass cheek.
    I loved getting to riff and joke all day about celebrity clothing lines and J. Lo’s sequined body stockings. I loved taking interviews and turning them into stories. I love writing about almost anything, really. But I am not a personal-style blogger, and I do not possess the same talents as Rumi “Fashiontoast” Neely, who is one of the original stars. She shot a series a few years back I’ll always remember. She was wearing white and sashaying down a dark road holding a dream catcher. This is her work. Put on a ridiculously cool outfit, pose somewhere telegenic with a dream catcher or meal of fast food or one of her fluffy cats, repeat. She’s managed to make a handsome career out of living her life as though it was one giant fashion editorial aka making her followers (me) wildly jealous of her life and taste. She ended up starring in a campaign for Forever 21. She has an agent. She’s a jet-setter.
    What I find people are usually referring to when they say “fashion bloggers,” are people like Fashiontoast, or the Man Repeller (who models clothing that women love but that—wait for it—­repels men), and Sea