Let them eat couture!

Poor little rich man.

CNN reported today on fashion designer and big whiny baby Oscar de la Renta’s hilariously out-of-touch pissing and moaning in response to the outfit Michelle Obama wore to meet Queen Elizabeth II. (I only clicked on the article because I initially confused Oscar de la Renta with boxing champ Oscar de la Hoya.) Basically, Ms. Obama wore a little skirt suit with a cardigan and some pearls — a very typical Michelle Obama outfit — which de la Renta considers some sort of huge faux pas. Being a. from the western U.S. and b. just some middle class schlub, it never occurred to me that a sweater would ever be considered an offensive garment in any context (unless it had “Female Body Inspector” embroidered on it or something I guess), but even if it is, whatever. The queen is a pretty mellow lady, and people have probably done worse things in front of her than wear a sweater.

De la Renta didn’t stop there, though, proceeding instead to deliver a very important public service message:

“American fashion right now is struggling,” he said. “I think I understand what [Obama and her advisers] are doing, but I don’t think that is the right message at this particular point.”

“I don’t object to the fact that Mrs. Obama is wearing J. Crew to whatever because the diversity of America is what makes this country great. But there are a lot of great designers out there. I think it’s wrong to go in one direction only,” he added.

To complain that fashion — a completely superfluous and frivolous industry which contributes nothing essential to society, which survives by requiring rampant waste and conspicuous consumption, an industry which therefore by definition caters exclusively to the rich, and which could not exist without the snobbery and classism of its proponents — is “suffering” at a time when literally millions have lost jobs and entire industries and universities are collapsing requires a kind of audacious “fuck the poor” attitude not seen since 1789. That or de la Renta is, in the words of Edmund Blackadder, blessed with a head emptier than a hermit’s address book.

And what exactly is this “right message” de la Renta cries out for at “this particular point” (a recession)? Ostensibly, he wants Obama to cast off her tasteful mall-clothes message and wear the uniform of the elite: couture. To hell with humility, practicality, and solidarity, and, implicitly, to hell with the American people, nearly half of whom earn less than $30,000 per year. This is the message of high fashion in general, which is necessarily beyond the means of all but the wealthiest members of society. To declare that Obama’s famous preference for J. Crew is a misstep (unless she’s just doing “whatever”), that she “should” be wearing designer labels, particularly when she meets other elites like the queen, is essentially to declare one’s belief that social, political, and economic elites are all members of the same ruling class; that those who wield political power should also dominate the masses economically; that it is a faux pas for a member of the political elite to refuse to behave as an economic elite; that brands like J. Crew, which, frankly, many people would still consider kind of fancy, are fit only for unimportant tasks and, conversely, that tasks done by the sort of people who wear regular clothes are unimportant.

If someone had made such openly anachronistic assertions in another context, if someone were to outright say “those who have less money are lesser people,” we would be outraged. And yet, although this is precisely what the very existence of high fashion does, we devote magazines, blogs, and television stations to slavishly following the words and deeds of our 21st-century aristocracy. 

I could understand the raised eyebrows if Ms. Obama had worn a tuxedo T-shirt to meet the queen, but the outfit she chose was classy, tasteful, and — dun dun DUN — bourgeois. If anything, she should be praised for her relentless refusal to indulge classists like de la Renta. Though actually we really should all just shut up and quit reducing every woman in the universe to whatever she happens to be wearing at the moment.