» HADOUKEN « fashion beef!
You woke up on a Monday morning to a hot new Hadouken newsletter. How sick is that?
Anyways, I have an affinity for anyone who unabashedly speaks his or her mind. Say what you want about Kanye West's politics, he's 100% correct in saying that free thought is under attack in America. It's true. Group think is at an all time high, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to cut against the grain. We live in a time where such behavior is immediately branded as detestable by malinformed dogma-spewing nincompoops.
Controversial opinions don't receive a lot of likes on Twitter. They get downvoted to hell on Reddit. And they are misconstrued into headlines on both Fox News and CNN (and everyone in-between--if you disagree with me, let's chat).
So when President and Editor-in-Chief of New York Magazine's "The Cut" Stella Bugbee penned her almost-takedown of Anna Wintour for her questionable behavior with respect to (1.) Harvey Weinstein, Georgina Chapman and Marchesa vis-à-vis this year's Met Gala and (2.) Ms. Wintour's spotty track record with problematic actors and issues over the years, I was surprised and delighted to see it receive relatively unanimous positive attention.
Nary a year into her role as Lord Empress of New York Culture at "The Cut," Ms. Bugbee's letter was quite bold. Some quarter-century junior to Ms. Wintour, there's a lot of fashion left for Ms. Bugbee. Which leads me to question: why? Did Ms. Bugbee merely attempt a Gotti-style hit on the Castellano-like Ms. Wintour to solidify her place among fashion's La Costra Nostra as we approach the third decade of the 21st century? Or is she really the bastion of free thought that I so hope (need?) her to be? Who's to say? I'm just glad that Ms. Bugbee decided to use her platform to instigate real discourse--there are only so many articles about Rihanna, Meghan Markle and new jack beauty trends through which a The Cut reader can wade.
While Ms. Bugbee's letter has lost some steam and collapsed under the weight of a never-ending news cycle, if I were a betting man, I'd wager we haven't seen the last of Bugbee v. Wintour. And I'll be here with my popcorn to watch the rest of it play out.