Bitten: A Q&A with Sarah Jessica Parker and Cathy Horyn

Whoever thought that a humble little line of sportswear could cause so much ruckus? That's what I kept thinking when I read the latest post on the incomparable Cathy Horyn's blog, a Q&A with Sarah Jessica Parker talking about Bitten, her line of sportswear for Steve & Barry's. It's a fascinating interview because Horyn, one of the great critical minds of fashion, dares to ask the pointed questions we all think deep down:

Q: Did you have any concern that maybe we don't need more stuff clogging the planet. There is H & M and Target, and Topshop wants to open here.

A: Of course. I think I would have felt that if I didn't understand the Steve and Barry's customer. There aren't H & Ms everywhere. And that's very trendy fashion - it's not what every woman wants. I don't feel there is this surplus, in a way. To me, it's about access.

The result of Horyn's sharp questioning creates weird little fissures in the interview where it seems that SJP is spinning her wheels a little. It's clear, though, that SJP has good intentions and has her heart in the right place, but Horyn's summation of the line still stands: it's good for basics, but could use a little surprise here and there. (My own feelings and opinions are similar to Horyn's: great t-shirts and basics and jeans, could use a dash of eccentricity and they could be a little better in quality control.)

But lately, especially since writing about Vera Wang's line for Kohl's, I've been thinking beyond the clothes and trying to wrap my mind around why Bitten has become so controversial within certain fashion communities. (My thoughts are pretty scattered about it all, but I think it's worth putting down here if only because, well, where else am I going to put them?) There have been tons of other celebrity fashion lines, yet something about this particular and particularly non-exciting one, fronted by one of the most relatable and affable celebrities ever, has somehow sparked an interesting flurry of debate. For me, if you scan a lot of this gauntlet-throwing and discussion, I think I boil it down to a simple question of: Who does fashion belong to?

By "fashion," I don't just mean simply clothes, I mean the aura and pleasure that clothes confer to their wearers, and how that aura is created and by whom. A lot of it is marketing, and there's no doubt that Bitten gained a lot of attention from its association with SJP - it was a brilliant marketing move on Steve and Barry's part. And a lot of aura comes from the media, which we read to find out what has "it" and what doesn't. But a lot of "aura" comes from within a design itself: what tradition, lineage, history or narrative it evokes and how the wearer participates in that. And it's clear here that a lot of fashionista critics felt that the clothes had little "aura": they expected a lot more, perhaps more of the eccentricity that marked SJP's most famous character, the iconic Carrie Bradshaw. When SJP and Steve & Barry's defend themselves against these critics by saying that the line is not aimed at them, critics again countered that Bitten underestimates their customer, that they deserve more than t-shirts and jeans, that the people deserve fabulousness and fashion and are ready for it. (In fact, they would think of themselves as belonging to "the people," too.) What I don't think gets mentioned very often is that most of these design collaborations have been aimed at the fashionista segment, so I'm sure the expectation was there that they'd get the same strong design direction that Proenza Schouler or Viktor & Rolf gave for their respective retailers. But when they realized it was not aimed at them and they didn't get what they expected, well, we know how that went. And the result is an exhausting push-pull, where words like "elitist" and "charity" get thrown around unproductively and everyone trying to interpret what "the people" want to wear, what they should wear, what they deserve, etc.

Sometimes I think the fashionistas are right, and there could have been a bit more of an aesthetic risk. Because there could have been a few things that "pushed it," but I'll give them the possibility that they played it safe right out of the gate. And there's something to be said about broadening the imaginative possibilities of clothing whenever you can: after all, design is everywhere, and it wouldn't hurt to bring a flight of imagination, whimsy and even beauty in even the most humblest collection. Everyone deserves beauty and good, imaginative design, even at a low price point. But sometimes I think SJP is right, because deep down I believe most people in America opt out of "fashion" in the way that it's been conceived of by the fashion industry, the one that magazines like Vogue and most fashion blogs center around, and they just want to wear what is practical and what works. They don't keep up, they don't care about whether Kate Moss wears flares or not, they don't know who the hell Karl Lagerfeld is and if they did they'd think he was a real creep, and yeah, they don't have a lot of money to spend on clothes because they're for better or for worse paying for gas in their cars right now, or paying up their noses for health insurance, or paying off student loans that get more and more exorbitant, all in the middle of an incredibly consumerist society in which participation is equated with buying power, for better or for worse. But clothing is, after all, a necessity, and maybe "people" just want to be comfortable and wear cute things and go on with their lives like everyone else. You could shove all sorts of aspirational silhouettes in their faces, but they're not going to buy those damn skinny jeans as long as they still make bootcut ones because, well, people like what they like. They want to buy something that works and get on with it. And after all, as we all know, what (and who) the fashion industry thinks is beautiful can be incredibly narrow and confining. You could debate it, ad nauseum, really, and get no closer to the answer of "What should Bitten be?"

But this is a debate that characterizes a lot of fashion in America, so how was the case of Bitten different? Here's my theory: Maybe the sin of the "Bitten" line is that it knows that there are poor people in America, acknowledges this in the nicest way it can without saying "We know you're broke," and attempts to address it, albeit through selling things. And a lot of the debate surrounding Bitten is really a reflection on how we can and can't talk about the poor, or class (or its often unspoken correlative, race) in America, especially in a world like "fashion," with its ties to aspiration and fantasy and carefully cultivated "aura." And it's a reflection of how little or much we know of how "people" really live.

Either way, what I'm willing to bet throughout it all is that Steve & Barry's took a good look at the changing fashion marketplace, one marked by shorter and shorter production cycles in which jeans swing from bootleg to skinny to God knows where now faster than ever. They took a look at American casualwear and where most people buy it, and realized that those prices are escalating at a rate not commensurate with wages in America. Then they probably looked at the Gap and its troubles as a company and realized that they're not buying into these disposable production cycles and the punchy, trendier designs that serve these timeframes best. And they probably saw an opportunity because they knew they could make these clothes for a lot less, an opportunity they attached to an actress with a Q rating that is off the charts to get them some attention.

Ultimately, the debate will be resolved in the only way that a capitalist society can unfortunately manage: in the marketplace. And at the moment, the stuff is selling. So maybe the "people" are into it. But who knows how long? But I have a feeling that the line's inherent conservatism - its opting out of the "fast" fashion cycle - will end up being its strength, if it's truly well-made as SJP says it is (and the jury is still out on this.) It may not be exciting, but it just might hang in there.

All that said (sorry dudes), I think this bag looks kind of cool:

Posted by Kat in Fashion
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