Thursday, July 15, 2010

The Difference Between Travel and Fashion People

Okay, internet. We need to talk. I am about to make severe generalizations, but this rant needs to happen. It keeps entering my head when I see particular examples of the below day in and day out.

  • Fashion people don't get Twitter. There's nothing sadder than hearing that so-and-so big fashion names, who are otherwise terribly interesting people, have joined Twitter and then seeing that their tweets are so uninteresting to the point of annoyance. It's even worse if they start using texting language ("lol," "ur"). Fashion PR people and some bloggers/journalists are the exemption; it just seems to be the fashion personalities who don't get it.
  • Travel people get Twitter too much. Sure, it's an excellent networking tool and a platform for getting your name out there and your travel stories read, but when your tweets contain hashtags up the wazoo, weeks of references to an obscure convention you attended along with maybe 12 of your 1,200 followers, and 30 rapid tweets that show one side of a conversation on travel tips, you suck. #unfollow.
  • Fashion people travel way more than travel people. I could probably scientifically prove this if I had to. Fashion people--those actually involved in the fashion machine--are all over the place, all the time, and jumping continents comes naturally quickly. Life is one beautiful trip from Paris to Milan to New York to Miami to Shanghai to Moscow to the wilds of Norway to Buenos Aires and beyond. Travel people, on the other hand, have their destinations. It's a trip and then home. Trip and then home. Unless you're doing an around-the-world, but even then you're still not traveling with the freedom of fashion people.
  • Travel people do the fashion thing with difficulty. A prime example is something I've been championing whenever possible--that travel shoes do not have to be ugly. I realize this is an uphill battle, that tourists will forever be wearing Kipling fanny packs and Teva sandals, but damnit at least try for some personal style? If you can plan a 3-week long Shinkansen tour of Japan, then surely you can put something better than Crocs and Nike on your feet. And buying an Alexander McQueen scarf in London or a Chanel bag in Paris is NOT what I mean; that doesn't count.

1 comment:

Suneyla said...

love this! I want to be a fashion GYPSY!