"Spurned Elle Writer Goes On Truly Bananas Rant"
April 3, 2016 8:48 AM   Subscribe

Last week, freelance reporter Jacques Hyzagi wrote a scathing account of the ethics, talent, and working practices of various media figures in what became a viral post for the New York Observer. Responding to the intrigue, The Guardian interviewed Hyzagi to "learn just who is he and why is his background a mystery?".

Before interviewing Rei Kawakubo, Hyzagi's curious list of interviewees included Julian Assange and Ricky Gervais.

Jezebel concluded that while "delicious and abhorrent and fascinating and rude... in the end the joke’s totally on all of us, because now the writer has milked three features out of one interview".
posted by Chipeaux (63 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
tl;dr "Fucking Anna Wintour" is loud and tacky, David Remnick's no William Shawn, and the New Yorker is Reader's Digest for bores. Good to know?
posted by blucevalo at 9:05 AM on April 3, 2016


So Holden Caulfield got a job as a fashion writer?
posted by thecjm at 9:09 AM on April 3, 2016 [31 favorites]


This article reads as if a middle schooler wrote it.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:15 AM on April 3, 2016 [9 favorites]


There's something almost sweet about how naive he is. "I thought we were supposed to be honest and ethical and therefore badmouth the people on whom we depend for freelance gigs!"
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:16 AM on April 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


David Remnick's no William Shawn, and the New Yorker is Reader's Digest for bores

....riiiiiight.

Dressed in sweatpants, he says he hasn’t slept in two days. “I was attacked in a very vicious way. I’m insulted every five minutes … I’m taking grenades from Iraq,” he says, referring to someone from Iraq who insulted him in Twitter....“Why are people taking the side of the powerful figures I attack? There is a rush to conformity here I find puzzling,” he said. “Aren’t you supposed to question authority and establishment?”


thecjm, you nailed it.

Elle allowed Comme des Garçons to edit the interview as they wanted, turning it into a puff marketing piece rather than a hard-hitting interview. “Are we journalists here are or are we corporate shills?” he asked.

Dude...you're writing for Elle.

This fellow appears to be pretty troubled...and troublesome. I think the "insular world of New York journalism" will be fine without his speaking truth to power.
posted by Miko at 9:16 AM on April 3, 2016 [7 favorites]


He insists on no voice recorder, but he allows his photo to be taken to be posted in an online article? How would allowing a reporter record his comments for accuracy later somehow be worse for him than having his face appear online?
posted by hippybear at 9:17 AM on April 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


Graydon Carter, who knows a thing or two about fame, has this parable about a peasant like me arriving in New York from his hamlet and trying to make it in the big city like in a Balzac novel. The provincial enters a dark room and tries to find a door that will enable him to enter another room and so on until he finally reaches success but at each room the door to the next is more difficult to find. Usually in New York society very few arrivistes make it past the first room. I have no idea what he’s talking and it’s probably why his magazine is a giant bore.

That sleight of hand made me laugh out loud. I love this article, love that he's petulant and witchy and refers to himself as a douche and a schmuck. I haven't read the other links yet so maybe I'll change my mind but right now I'd like to buy him a drink.
posted by billiebee at 9:20 AM on April 3, 2016 [18 favorites]


His article, he said, is a conversation starter about ethics in journalism.

Ha-ha. I think Mr Hyzagi may be putting us on.
posted by notyou at 9:27 AM on April 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


Hyzagi-gate
posted by wuwei at 9:29 AM on April 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


His article, he said, is a conversation starter about ethics in journalism.

Ha-ha. I think Mr Hyzagi may be putting us on.


Or he's just that kind of self-involved cobag who picked up the parent phrase from somewhere and doesn't care about its origins. Honestly, he comes across as the sort of human dumpster fire who refuses to believe that any of his subjects are more interesting than he is.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:30 AM on April 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


It is weird to me that any reference to journalistic ethics is now being taken as a reference to the Gate that Shall Not Be Named.

So here's what I think is going on. New York magazine journalists and editors perceive themselves to be engaged in an existential battle which they are losing. They aren't sure their industry is going to be around in ten years, and they're pretty desperate. This dude, because he isn't really attuned to, you know, reality, doesn't know or care about that context. He cares about pure ideals, unsullied by considerations like keeping your magazine afloat or not pissing off people who could pay you to write for them. In a different era, he might seem like a charming character, and his Observer article might have seemed funny. Right now, nobody is in the mood to have a sense of humor about any of this and he's just going to be a guy who never gets hired again.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:36 AM on April 3, 2016 [10 favorites]


The woman he interviewed sounds pretty interesting, though:
Rei opened up for the first time about the way she creates, her excitement at the punk movement in the late 70’s, her support for Hillary Clinton, her interest in the Dada movement, her disdain for feminism, the folly of her constant search for the new, her consternation at the corporatization of today’s fashion, her hatred of the jingoistic current Japanese Prime Minister, the restraints that she imposes on herself and therefore her work, the limits of freedom.
I'd read that interview.
None of this will make it in the interview ELLE publishes.
But I guess I'm not the target audience. Betty Friedan's chapter on the dumbing down of women's magazines in The Feminine Mystique still applies, it seems.
posted by clawsoon at 9:42 AM on April 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


Elle is actually consistently pretty interesting, or at least it is when I read it. They recently hired Ashley Ford, who is awesome, and they often publish articles by feminist writers.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:48 AM on April 3, 2016 [5 favorites]


Oh, it's the same guy who wrote this resignation from Queensborough Community College. Whee.
posted by Shmuel510 at 9:50 AM on April 3, 2016 [5 favorites]


I briefly worked at Elle (in the previous century), and the storeroom there had issues of editions of Elle from around the world. I enjoyed comparing Turkish Elle to American Elle to Indian Elle, and the articles were often interesting. Yes, it's primarily about fashion, but that doesn't mean it should be dismissed as worthless.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:54 AM on April 3, 2016 [8 favorites]


The first bit about hacks selling out to the Clinton campaign< was interesting, went rapidly downhill from there.
posted by benzenedream at 10:20 AM on April 3, 2016


Fun fact about the Observer: it is owned by Donald Trump's son-in-law (Ivanka's husband) who bought it at the age of 25 with $10 million that he "earned" by investing in real estate while he was in college.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:22 AM on April 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


Oh, it's the same guy who wrote this resignation from Queensborough Community College. Whee.

And the same guy who wrote this thing about R. Crumb, which Crumb did not care for.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:35 AM on April 3, 2016 [5 favorites]


That Queensborough Community College thing is... something else.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:39 AM on April 3, 2016


That's a weird way of describing Kushner's money. It has nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with his own father, who also did time for election fraud. I mean it's shady enough as it is.
posted by JPD at 10:58 AM on April 3, 2016 [2 favorites]


To slightly derail, why is there not a fashion database? I did a quite cursory google search and only found the shallowest blogs/instagrams that had database in the title. Perhaps at a fashion school there would be something like that but it seems ideal for the www form. The article about an article had little context about the artist/designer in question (Rei Kawakubo), a name I did not recognize but from googling her efforts has been creating interesting images for many years on a very regular and periodic basis. A slice of her work, say one runway image from each year/season would be fascinating as well as valuable on a cultural/artistic basis. Not just hers but being able to slice the various artist/designers/companies.
posted by sammyo at 11:06 AM on April 3, 2016 [6 favorites]


Shmuel510: "Oh, it's the same guy who wrote this resignation from Queensborough Community College. Whee."

Wow. There's so much to say but I guess the standby "Christ, what an asshole" comes closest. What an insufferable human being.
posted by octothorpe at 11:10 AM on April 3, 2016 [8 favorites]


> To slightly derail, why is there not a fashion database

Hmmm -- there used to be one, done by Vogue I think, but I can't find it now. They have this, but it doesn't have the depth I'd like.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:15 AM on April 3, 2016


Oh, it's the same guy who wrote this resignation from Queensborough Community College.

From that piece:
Always on a diet to squeeze into her tight jeans, which made her look like a bicycle customized with Michelin tires, Ms. Baum was furious against such a state of affairs...
Based on that, I'm going to go ahead and guess that the "it's about ethics in journalism" bit from the interview in the OP was a dogwhistle rather than an accident.

What an insufferable piece of garbage.
posted by dersins at 11:19 AM on April 3, 2016 [14 favorites]


http://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2016-ready-to-wear/comme-des-garcons#all-seasons has Comme Des Garcon Fashion Shows going back to 1997
posted by maggiemaggie at 11:19 AM on April 3, 2016 [4 favorites]


this resignation from Queensborough Community College

wow. Hey Jacques: keep on failing upwards, you status-and-class-obsessed logorrheic shitbag.
posted by lalochezia at 11:22 AM on April 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


The article reads like a transcript of some drunken rant Hyzagi went into when he was at a bar with friends. Actually, scratch the friends part. He buttonholed the unfortunate guy next to him and expected him to listen to his supposed grievances.
posted by orange swan at 11:32 AM on April 3, 2016 [5 favorites]




To slightly derail, why is there not a fashion database?

Back when I attended FIT they had a collection of designs from famous designers throughout history that you could peruse if you were a student, a bit of a fashion museum. Coincidentally, the big exhibit when I started was a retrospective of the works of Claire Mccardell and Rei Kawakubo...

I guess it went online?
Here's a bunch of links to other online collections of fabrics, costumes, and fashion.
posted by newpotato at 11:38 AM on April 3, 2016 [4 favorites]


It's the Charlie Hebdo connection that ties Mr. Hyzagi together, I think: if you're not throwing bombs, if you're not angering everyone, then you're not doing it at all. Holden Caulfield is an apt comparison, but so is "some men just want to watch the world burn."
posted by fatbird at 11:39 AM on April 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


I didn't think we'd get to 9/11 in a piece of fashion writing but then, we did. Congrats.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:12 PM on April 3, 2016


I am shocked, shocked, that this narcissistic, pretentious, vitriolic dickbag has found it difficult to secure meetings with editors or get calls back from them.

Don't they realize that he's dated models?
posted by evidenceofabsence at 12:33 PM on April 3, 2016 [17 favorites]


To be fair, even if he's an asshole (and going by one commenter on the Jezebel piece who apparently knew him from the Sorbonne, a smart, sexist, insufferable, stinky asshole) he's not wrong that a brand being given a large amount of editorial control over a supposedly investigative piece of journalism is problematic. (Also describing it as a "marital beardy betrayal" is just the best.)
posted by billiebee at 12:42 PM on April 3, 2016 [4 favorites]


Don't drag Holden Caulfield into this mess. Holden was a much better writer and had a hell of a lot more humility and self-awareness than this character.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:36 PM on April 3, 2016 [3 favorites]


The article about an article had little context about the artist/designer in question (Rei Kawakubo), a name I did not recognize but from googling her efforts has been creating interesting images for many years on a very regular and periodic basis. A slice of her work, say one runway image from each year/season would be fascinating as well as valuable on a cultural/artistic basis. Not just hers but being able to slice the various artist/designers/companies.

I'd guess copyright reasons. An organization like FIT or Vogue will have images they either own or were granted license to, but a regular individual is going to be hard-pressed to find public domain/Creative Commons/etc images to fill out their database for all the world's designers. And they probably wouldn't want to expose themselves to the potential infringement liability.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:03 PM on April 3, 2016


that doesn't mean it should be dismissed as worthless.

To be clear, I definitely don't think Elle is worthless, nor do I think that about Vogue or any other major fashion rag. What I was saying was that it's incredibly, staggeringly naive to think that the considerations of corporate entities do not matter to its editorial choices.

I'd read that interview.

Rei Kawakubo is not obscure to the fashion community (she's the reason black became the professional urban women's uniform, basically), and I'm not sure there was reason to think there was anything uniquely compelling, at this time, about this piece (without being able to see it, of course).

As for a fashion database, it's not quite what you are after, but some help is available via the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, which organizes some works under a fashion keyword search. Here's Kawakubo in there, and here's an essay about her influence on 20th century fashion.
posted by Miko at 3:54 PM on April 3, 2016 [5 favorites]


"Last June I obtained a very hard to get interview with the Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo from Comme des Garçons...She refuses to be photographed, has given the same bland elliptical interview every five years for the last thirty years, hates journalists and is known to answer a long, in-depth question with a lethal yes or no."

I am enjoying imagining that Kawakubo actually really loves interviews, grants multiple interview requests every month, and gives long, flowing responses, but the interviews keep getting cancelled by fashion magazine editorial departments or pared down to nothing in the editing room, so every single interviewer thinks they've hit the jackpot when they're granted an interview and Kawakubo proves highly conversational.
posted by Bugbread at 4:57 PM on April 3, 2016 [10 favorites]


Rei Kawakubo is not obscure to the fashion community (she's the reason black became the professional urban women's uniform, basically)

Naw, we wear black because it's serviceable. (And doesn't show coffee stains).
posted by jb at 6:05 PM on April 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


And now, because of this thread, I know that there is a line of Comme des Garçons Chuck Taylors, which are completely cute, even if $125 is a lot to pay for shoes with minimal arch support.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:26 PM on April 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


I hadn't heard of Kawakubo so I just googled- her outfits would fit right in with those of the 1913 play Victory Over The Sun, which I love, or one of Schlemmer's Triadic ballets, which I found via metafilter but now can't find the post for.
posted by small_ruminant at 6:40 PM on April 3, 2016


Naw, we wear black because it's serviceable. (And doesn't show coffee stains).

Yep, that's true, but it's also true that before her work with CDG it was actually not too acceptable for working women to wear black. Up through the mid-70s, black on women was associated with funerals, mourning, and negative statements. If you look at dress-for-success professional women's clothing from the 70s and early 80s, you see bright solids and patterns, rarely black. It was largely through her influence in the runway shows that set the tenor of 80s fashion that black became not just a trim color (a la Coco Chanel) or an eye-popping contrast a la 60s mod, but a base color for suits that women could wear head to toe. I know it seems hard to believe, but this is pretty well established. The museum I worked for presented an exhibit about Japanese fashion including her work and others, accompanied by the extensive documentation of this. So sure, it stayed because it was practical, but it initially caught on and became available in mass market clothes because it was serious - at a time women needed to establish seriousness - and avant-garde.
posted by Miko at 6:41 PM on April 3, 2016 [25 favorites]


This may be the most entitled thing I’ve ever read. I’m not sure though, because it’s fairly incoherent. That hangover must have been rough.
posted by bongo_x at 7:33 PM on April 3, 2016 [1 favorite]


David Remnick's no William Shawn"

This strikes me as a mixed blessing. William Shawn was not, shall we say, without his flaws as the captain of The New Yorker.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:58 PM on April 3, 2016


Well I thought the piece was highly entertaining, far more than the reactions to it at least. And this is a more interesting interview than the one in the Guardian.

On that topic of "the ever-thinning line between the marketing division and the editorial division" and overt branded content specifically, I’ve read some good pieces in The Baffler, both first person accounts too. I was reminded of those and to me the point is the same and still very valid, however entertainingly or arrogantly or narcissistically it is being made or not - in fact I think it’s amusing in a sad way to see how the writer is being bashed and the story is now about him, rather than the workings of media outlets owned by big brands.
posted by bitteschoen at 1:02 AM on April 4, 2016 [5 favorites]



"The bottom line is don’t ask McDonald’s for the secret sauce”.

Damn straight, just refer Woman's Day.
posted by clavdivs at 1:46 AM on April 4, 2016


...What is kind of refreshing is that he is doing very little of it the way people expect him to. He's throwing mud at the 'most important' editors in NYC. But it's just mud. I think there's a method to his madness. Then again I have an absolute tin ear for social savviness, so it could just be a wicked thorough train wreck.
posted by From Bklyn at 4:36 AM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


It was largely through her influence in the runway shows that set the tenor of 80s fashion that black became not just a trim color (a la Coco Chanel) or an eye-popping contrast a la 60s mod, but a base color for suits that women could wear head to toe. I know it seems hard to believe, but this is pretty well established.

Wow. The woman literally invented wearing black. That sounds like something a Simpsons parody of a fashion designer would claim.
posted by straight at 8:18 AM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


Also, I love that this guy uses the phrase "bizarrely self-absorbed" to describe some other author's writing.
posted by straight at 8:20 AM on April 4, 2016 [3 favorites]


Dude...you're writing for Elle.

The way we talk about women's magazine journalism is pretty sexist.

I see that's not quite what you meant, but explicate the first time, instead of just sneering?
posted by listen, lady at 6:05 PM on April 4, 2016


considerations of corporate entities do not matter to its editorial choices.

There are very, very few places where this isn't the case. They have more masculine logos, I guess that protects their integrity?
posted by listen, lady at 6:07 PM on April 4, 2016


"Dude, you're writing for the equivalent of GQ"
posted by Bugbread at 6:12 PM on April 4, 2016 [3 favorites]


explicate the first time, instead of just sneering?

It's really not sneering to note that fashion magazines (like travel magazines and food magazines) have a much larger degree of overlap between their editorial content and their advertisers than certain other current affairs magazines. I decline the invitation to declare my nonsexist bona fides every time I comment, especially in cases of such egregious naïveté and obnxiousness.
posted by Miko at 6:26 PM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


Like those Karl Lagerfeld cologne inserts that smell like alcohol and stale paper after a week.
posted by clavdivs at 1:34 AM on April 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


That’s my scent!
posted by bongo_x at 11:03 AM on April 5, 2016


This guy is a miserable human being. I liked his interview with Crumb though.
posted by xammerboy at 3:51 PM on April 5, 2016


Wow. The woman literally invented wearing black. That sounds like something a Simpsons parody of a fashion designer would claim.

maybe she stole it from little old widow women. or nuns.
posted by jb at 10:16 PM on April 5, 2016


maybe she stole it from little old widow women. or nuns.

Interestingly, both go along with the way black used to be marked. Widows wore it as permanent mourning. Only some nuns wore/wear black habits, but those that did, like the Benedictines, chose/choose it as a sign of penance and/or to signal their consecration to God and thus their removal from (aka, death to) marriage on earth. The associations of both are good examples of why secular women in good health typically avoided black until the 80s.
posted by Miko at 6:46 AM on April 6, 2016 [5 favorites]


There's an exception: the Little Black Dress, introduced by Chanel in the '20s. Even then the association was an ironic one, with faux poverty. I like how this author puts it: "A classic instance of insinuating social superiority through the device of bedecking oneself in the raiments of penury...the "expensively poor" or "deluxe poor" look. He goes into how black dresses were associated with servants and shopgirls because black fabric was cheaper than prints. The LBD never went away, but it was usually confined to cocktail situations.
posted by Miko at 6:56 AM on April 6, 2016 [8 favorites]


Obligatory link to Little Black Dress.
posted by hippybear at 12:47 AM on April 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


The controversy over who made black fashionable is easily solved - who cares about historical accuracy or fashion designers, let’s just credit it to punk, everyone is going to be happy with that, right?
posted by bitteschoen at 6:55 AM on April 7, 2016


or Joan Jett.
posted by Miko at 9:31 AM on April 7, 2016


So you're gonna argue punk and Joan Jett made black safe and harmless for respectable middle-class business ladies?
posted by straight at 4:04 PM on April 7, 2016


No, not in seriousness. Tongue, cheek.
posted by Miko at 5:26 PM on April 7, 2016


Remember how I said that Elle was consistently interesting and frequently feminist? They just hired Melissa Harris-Perry as editor-at-large.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:09 PM on April 18, 2016


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