Where Art Thy Robes?

This is (not) just satire on fashion. This is also (not) just satire on celebrity culture.

- KELLY LEWI

CELEBRITY CULTURE IS NOTHING NEW. I would know this, because I grew up in the 2000s. Fortunately or unfortunately, I did not have the adult money to spend on my idols in that era, so I watched them through my father's laptop screen, streaming shows from my then-rather-fast Wi-Fi router. I watched icons rise to their fame, stars who earned their name in the spotlight with their flairs.

The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show had just returned the day before I wrote this, after its many years of absence. The Internet called it the "Superbowl for the girls", and I couldn't agree more. It truly felt like a reawakening, of some sort, to see the legendary supermodels-with Cher, too—on the stage again, stomping down the runway as if time had not intervened. It felt like a revival of the 2000s, a time when personas and attitudes ruled the roost. It felt like watching a true fashion runway again.

It often occurs to me that there is something odd about fashion weeks in the modern era, more specifically fashion runways. Growing up, they meant everything to me. I would scour through magazines to get a glimpse of what was trending, or what would become a trend. They felt magical, like a realm of unbounded creativity that I could only dream about being a part of at the time. All were fantasies that separated the fashionable from the commoners-me.