Editorial: The Incredible Pretentiousness of Being a Golden Blonde

We are not the only ones who got nauseous reading that insipid and downright silly article in this past Sunday’s New York Times called “Golden Blondes” written by Jill Gerston. Click here for article. Are we suppose to care about these people? Obviously Ms. Gerston does, but it says more about her than the subject of the article.

And while Gawker.com beat us to the editorial punch, we just cannot let this kind of crap go by unscathed without making some comments of our own. Here are some of the more profound quotes from the article:
“You can’t work in fashion in this city and not look good,” explained New York blonde Ms. Castellano (an account executive at Ogan Dallal Associates with the golden locks of hair that she spends hundreds of dollars each month to keep up).)

And, according to Jill Gerston, a “New York blonde” is a “polished, pedigreed creature[who] can usually be spotted in her natural habitat, the Upper East Side, dropping off her offspring at the Episcopal School, scrutinizing embroidered 480-thread-count sheets at Pratesi and sipping drinks at La Goulue.”

We are not sure if we should laugh or cry as to what the writer considers “news worthy” but this “epistle” seems little more than a pay back article plugging (sucking up?) some of Jill Gerston’s friends, associates, and close editorial sources. Not since the days of the late editor Amy Spindler, has the Times allowed a writer to pander so much to his or her sources. Talk about name dropping (not to mention book titles), Jill has got everyone from Plum Sykes (whose pontifications was referenced 5 times) and Ivanka Trump to Robert Verdi and a gaggle of colorists, socialites, and other well known and well connected fashionistas who are sure to keep Ms. Gerston busy with scores of invites to top parties, free color consultations and cocktail parties from now until Christmas!

The only question posed by this article that has not been answered to our satisfaction is not do blondes have more fun, but to what extent Ms. Gerston’s cronyism is being encouraged by the editors of the Style Section of The New York Times. This article is another example of why the phrase “fashion journalism” as practiced by so much of the media — and particularly The New York Times — continues to be a oxymoron.

Perhaps we are being too hard on Jill Gerston. A Bernadine Morris she is not. See, we can name drop also.

-Ernest Schmatolla

Ernest

Publisher

Ernest Schmatolla is publisher of Lookonline since 1994. It is the longest running fashion site on the Internet.

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