At the New York Fashion Week when supermodel Bella Hadid stumbled on the ramp at Michael Kors show, the fashionistas sat by and watched and captured the moment on their smartphones. Bella calmly laughed off the tumble and got back up on her five-inch heels to finish the walk. Still, it’s difficult not to reflect on the loud “Ohhhh” that erupted from some of the crowd – largely from the pit of professional photographers or the uniform lack of helpfulness from the front row, some of whom appeared shocked; most of whom seemed much more intent on snapping the moment from behind their phones.
I am personally saddened by the fact that instead of clapping at the end of a show, for instance, the vast majority of guests are glued to their phones to capture last minute photos of the garments and design as the designer takes the bow. Attendees putting down their photos to clap for the designers who have worked to produce the collection is so last season.
Now that brings me to the bigger topic of how we have evolved from being just human on the journey through and “ISTS” to become “Selfiest Narcissist”. Once we got rid of Imperialists and Fascists, we got cluttered into narrower cluster of “ISTS” – Capitalist, Communist, Rightist, Leftist, Nationalist, Terrorist and are now probably peaking with the narrowest of “ISTS” – Selfiest (Selfie-Crazy Person). The word SELF in Selfie describes it all.
From the ramp of NYFW to the streets of India, it is the same apathy we see. People are prompt in digging out their smartphones to capture a video of a man bleeding on the streets after run over by a car or a woman being molested in a mall but too slow to lend a helping hand or least of all, use the same smartphone to call police. Fashion has seen the trends swinging from wide to narrow to wide shapes again but we beings are just fashioning ourselves to narrower vision and minds as time go by. Give this a thought.
Height of Leggy Clergy (fullStop).