Camp Rivalry

Working Girl Pieta

Rodarte skirt, Ralph Lauren blue label oxford shirt, Fisherman's sweater by Nonia, Madewell over-the-knee socks, Marc Jacobs shoes

So, I was going to do a marginally thoughtful piece on the Chanel and Alexander McQueen shows, but then Miuccia Prada came along with her witty sassiness and had to totally interlope on my post scheduling.  And, in the interest of pleat- and camp-consistency (seriously, who wears the above outfit to work? Me.  Sad face.), I am electing to bench the aforementioned serious tome to interpose a quick comparison:

Camp Done Right - Miu Miu S/S 2011 (all pictures via style.com):

Camp Done Wrong - Louis Vuitton S/S 2011:

Giraffe shoes-- kind of hilarious, mostly HIDEOUS

Miu Miu's version of camp is the obvious winner.  Layering references and combining seemingly incoherent ideas (traditional box pleats, demure skirt lengths, lamé, pop-art stars, swans, Day-Glo) makes it a success.  Nothing that beats you over the head; a little bit of an inside joke by which to recognize kindred spirits with similarly nuanced senses of humor.  It was an Arrested Development of the fashion world if you will, chock-full of delicious absurdity.  Louis Vuitton, on the other hand , is more like a King of Queens of fashion--literal, heavy-handed, single-minded, simple-minded.  I don't care what style.com says, there are NOT wearable pieces in here for anyone who doesn't want to look like they bought a Halloween costume/pyjamas from some shady massage parlor in Chinatown.  The cynical (i.e. me) would say this Chinoiserie was an attempt at courting the Asian consumer, but if this is what he has distilled from thousands of years of civilization, I hope the Asian consumer has some self-respect and chooses not to dress herself as tacky, degrading caricature.  I read somewhere that after the show Marc Jacobs pontificated heavily on the subjectiveness of taste, the non-existence of good or bad taste, blah blah blah insert other overly-simplistic pseudo-philosophical rationalizations of heinousness here.   Ironically, I think this collection proves exactly that there is at least such a thing as bad taste.