“This isn’t streetwear but clothes about life at street level,” she writes, “and the humanity of everyday people that is both universal and specific.
With so few words she covers so much ground. What’s striking about Givhan’s prose is its tone, how it never relinquishes its conversational lilt. To be readily accessible while packing in nuance and complications, it’s the mark of a capable critic who’s aware of a more general audience. Of course, that breadth of readership doesn’t mean she pulls punches. She’s frank in her assertions; each of those sentence-long paragraphs pop with confident certainty. That style makes her claims undeniable, especially important when she writes in support of a group that the art world and larger world have historically mistreated. “These ‘are’ just clothes in the same way that a black man sitting down at a lunch counter undisturbed is just a midday meal.”
Also to her advantage is her ability to reference. Instead of stretching for elegant adjectives all the time, she can throw in a famous name or group, sometimes to pay homage, other times to ground her image in something embedded in our cultural consciousness. I especially like this paragraph:
“There are hints of Mickalene Thomas’ glamorous portraiture, subversive references to a classic Madonna and child posture, the everyday beauty in a James Van Der Zee photograph and the contemporary confidence seen in so many neighborhood girls who don’t need a corporate glossy or some Instagram influencer to tell them how to look good.”
The list possesses so much range, dipping from religious iconography to Gen Z talk. With this, she effectively glides between the universal and the specific.
Two questions:
- Is there a pressure to reach for any sort of social commentary when reviewing fashion? Does doing so lend a piece of writing more weight? Does it necessarily make that piece better?
- Grad school: is it a must, a highly recommend, or an “if it suits you” type of deal? What’s getting a Master’s in journalism like if you’re interested in pursuing criticism?