Fashion is the New Architecture

Architecture is one of those things that all wine-drinking academics have to pass through. You gotta know Corbusier from van der Rohe, care about the shoddy treatment of Libeskind over Ground Zero; you can moo that Gehry has his best work behind him. Kind of like baseball.

But, if you care about keeping up appearances, I think Fashion is the new thing. Where else is the dialogue between the creator and the consumer so rich and detailed? The language of clothes, and what they are supposed to say about the wearer and the culture is almost as well developed as, well, language. Which is why I'm interested in the fact that the NYTimes review in fashion says that there's a word to describe what's goin' on. Rebellion.