Leon Verres’ Unfashionable Rant on Anna Wintour

Recently some unflattering and downright vicious words from Leon Verres to Anna Wintour have been making rounds in the blogosphere. Verres’ brand, named after himself, created T-shirts that say “F*ck Vogue, F*ck Anna, F*ck You.” {Fashionista} Leon Verres also released a press statement with the following passage:

“Anna Wintour and her Vogue have been taken the fashionistas for fools for many years. She presents perfectly styled Hollywood stars in luxurious outfits and declares that to be the new trend. Besides that I do not know anyone with common sense who considers such extravagantly styled fashion-zombies attractive, with its costly produced pseudo trends the Vogue only attends on an elitist minority of the fashion world, which is out of touch with reality and dieing out. To sum it up. The American Vogue has become obsolete as style authority long ago!”

Fashionista is right to point out that, while some of his rant is at least partially true, Anna has been an overall positive force in the fashion industry. To be sure, Anna does use her position to declare trends, but why shouldn’t someone who has worked her way to the top of fashion be able to influence what people wear? Perhaps Vogue isn’t exactly inclusive for the average consumer, but the magazine is still respected as the standard for mass market fashion magazines.

Plenty of people in fashion will jump to Anna’s defense, so let’s address a few way bigger problems with Verres’ press release and vulgar T-shirts.

The first is the compromising position Verres may be placing himself in by insulting Anna. She is, as Verres says himself, a very powerful figure in the industry and a man with a fashion brand bearing his name does not do well to piss off the editor in chief of all fashion. Not to mention, while Verres has tried to used the t-shirt as a statement of support for fashion bloggers, most fashion bloggers still have a good deal of respect for the Vogue editrix. {Stylelite}

Problem 2 is the “F*ck You” on the T-shirt. Verres and whoever wears these T-shirts are entitled to their opinions about Anna and Vogue, but is it really necessary to walk around offending every single person you see? As much as we love fashion blogs and the people behind them, Danny Roberts’ blogger t-shirts for Forever 21 {The Skinny} were a much classier way to make a statement – and frankly, much more attractive.

Finally, the most annoying and unsettling part of this all is Verres’ grammar. That press release is a mess: “Anna Wintour and her Vogue have been taken the fashionistas for fools”? A comma, rather than a period, after “…fashion-zombies attractive” to separate two full sentences? Really Verres? He seems so passionate, angry and determined to wage a war against Anna and Vogue, but obviously a proofreader was unable or unwilling to join the crusade. While Vogue’s audience may not be buying the magazine for the articles, bad grammar is a surefire way to guarantee no one will take you seriously.