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Eat the Poor: Fashion Week 2008

by Staff | 2008.02.01

From the most formative moments of civilization, humanity's greatest thinkers have pondered the question: What are poor people good for?

Over the ages, we have discovered several uses for this problematic yet sizable population. For starters, those born into abject poverty have always made excellent soldiers. These brush-cut mounds of Kalashnikov-fodder follow orders obediently, fight valiantly for a comically misplaced sense of loyalty they call "patriotism," and can help settle bitchy squabbles between plutocrats by marching off to die sans limbs in some inconvenient and cumin-scented crotch of the globe. The impoverished also make for fine factory employees, provided they are required only to accomplish one repetitious task over and over again in a 40-year Mobius strip punctuated by child births and trailer home foreclosures. Pump them full of potato vodka and Jesus and they'll churn out knickknacks and knucklefucks until carpal tunnel turns their median nerves into Silly String. Bless their souls. And no, we haven't forgotten the value of the indigent in the laboratory testing of cosmetic products intended for the wealthy. The utmost reverence must be paid to the men and women who laid down their lives as experimental subjects in the quest for safer laser vaginoplasty and perineum rejuvenation. For that, much respect is due.

Despite their industrial value, poor people are rarely viewed as arbiters of fashion. And maybe that's fair, considering the roles outlined above; between absorbing shrapnel in a sweaty jungle teeming with carnivorous centipedes, manning an assembly line at a pig hoof gelatin refinery, and having Joop cologne sprayed within a smell-radius of twenty meters, the deprived individual has little time for exploring the nuances of style. When the highlight of someone's existence is failing a paternity test on "The Maury Show," can they really be expected to know the proper houndstooth twill to wear at the Maserati Christmas ball (a Glen Plaid) or a caribou roast with the Russian royal families of Novaya Zemlya (a Prince of Wales check is preferred)?

But let's examine the fashion sensibilities of the beggarly a bit more closely. Their garments are functional. And form follows function. The stiff collar on a fisherman's jacket that protects his blackhead-speckled neck from Lake Ontario gusts as he unloads squirming perch can just as easily keep a yachtsman safe from the airborne beads of sweat that fly from the brows of his brutish hired oarsmen. And the same pair of steel-toed boots worn by a construction worker who helps to transform his former tenement into a gleaming tower of luxury condos can be used by the new resident of the luxury condo to kick the construction worker--now unemployed and homeless--in the teeth if he attempts to steal a copy of Northeastern Gamebird Monthly from the doorway. There is a beautiful symmetry to it all.

Thus, it says here, in the very words you are about to read, that the phrase "working class" need not be regarded as oxymoronic. Newsies, chimney-sweeps, gravediggers, and anyone who moves crates around a wharf for their daily bread all typically exhibit fantastic style. Such jaunty hats! What swirling scarves! Just look at those darling soot-smudged leather gloves, so dewy with whooping cough phlegm! In addition to providing the wearer with a certain world-weary soulfulness, cloaking oneself in the fashions of the ham-and-eggers can also deter would-be-ransomers from scooping your toddler from the steps of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School and shoveling him into the back of a tinted-out white van.

Of course, the most nettlesome issue is how to uncover these styles without coming into direct personal contact with the poor -- they're dangerous, repugnant and guaranteed to the lower property value of any acreage upon which they trod (unless bearing hedge-clippers). But for authenticity's sake, they must be seen in their natural habitat of cramped apartments with kettles of gruel bubbling on the stove where babies wail from the shadows beneath Korean-manufactured 37-inch flat-screen televisions. The most comprehensive access to the emerging pret-a-porter creations of the penniless could be provided by social workers, law enforcement officers and public university professors, but those groups too are drawn from the low, shit-caked rungs of the social ladder.

Because some bleeding-heart liberals believe that tranquilizing the poor via "flu shots" in order to examine their thick woolen mufflers, hard denim work jeans and air-bubbled athletic sneakers raises a number of ethical and financial questions, the responsible recourse is simply to embrace our slovenly underlings. We will all be better for it. By narrowing the societal chasm between the extraordinarily wealthy and groups who are less hardworking and intelligent--such as the upper middle class--every community will benefit. This symbiotic relationship will be the equivalent of a humanitarian petting zoo: metaphorically speaking, we can stroke their glossy hides while they scrounge dry, wheat-based nuggets from the flat of our palms.

The sacrifices will be worthwhile, my friends. The notion of flying between Buenos Aires and Frankfort in business class seating instead of on a chartered SR-71 Blackbird may seem ridiculous, but what better way to witness the "cutting edge" cardigans of struggling young lawyers? The vagaries of taking one's own vehicle to a car waxing establishment are but a small price to pay for connecting with someone who may have just invented a creative way to wear bandanas. Just imagine the wonderful fashions currently being woven within the cultural tapestry of McMansions, American-made sports cars and butler-free bathrooms! And the lives of those unfortunate creatures may, in turn, be brightened by the distant glow from our idyllic estates with platinum helipads and champagne birdbaths that sing with burbling Krug Clos du Mesnil.

As hedge funs managers, professional futbol players, celebrity astronomers, and Persian princes, we have a duty. God is too busy protecting virgins from pornography and cackling with glee as He heaves adulterers into scalding pits of hellfire to shepherd mankind into fashionable unity -- this, distinguished friends, is the great mission of Fashion Week.

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