“On a recent morning a group of Vogue editors, fashion agents and well-heeled Upper East Side ladies made a pilgrimage of sorts to the Lighthouse by La DoubleJ, a new store on East 69th Street, housed in a genteel brownstone just off Madison Avenue.”
That’s how New York Times fashion writer Vanessa Friedman opened her piece headlined, “Fashion’s Woo-Woo Queen Comes to the Upper East Side.” That would be J.J. Martin showing her “emotional heeling” merchandise at the Lighthouse by La DoubleJ.
Times piece that choked the woke.
Note the UES tropes that made it into the lede: “Vogue editors,” “well-heeled Upper East Side ladies,” “genteel brownstone.”
Friedman did her duty describing the attempt at “emotional heeling through clothes. But what is more entertaining than the actual article, as is often the case in the NYT, are the readers’ comments.
I rubbed my hands together in anticipation of the sanctimonious moralizing and was well rewarded. The “Reader Picks” (the only comments worth following) started off with:
“I sometimes can’t even believe what I’m reading. At a time when so many people are worried about housing, groceries, healthcare, jobs and keeping their heads above water, we get (another) fawning portrait of ridiculous extravagance and someone who is as deep as a spoon.”
“Fashion deserves thoughtful coverage,” another reader wrote. “But so does the question of when extravagance, privilege and very expensive consumption are being dressed up as something more interesting and relevant than they actually are.
Ya think?
By the way, the three priciest neighborhoods in New York City, according to Property Shark, are Hudson Yards, TriBeCa and SoHo. Hudson Yards has a Fendi, Dior, Bvlgari, Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels. But have you been there lately? The Washington Post called it a depressing, sterile array of “pointy and shiny and pointless buildings.”
Look at the gray armies wandering aimlessly past the blankness of Hudson Yards. Few bother dressing up to promenade there.
Who can blame them?