Stuff the Taliban is Missing Out On

New York City is commemorating the sixth anniversary of 9/11 with the solemn dignity it deserves: with Spring '08 Fashion Week! Woo-hoo!

That's one of the beautiful things about living in a free country like ours, cause if you go to Iran or Saudi Arabia, you're not going to find a week-long celebration of all things size zero and revealing. They're starved for sartorial variety over there, since there's only so much creativity you can put into the one-size-fits-all chador or burqa. I see progress on the horizon in the war on drab, which is great, since they hate us for our freedom and our low-neckline floral print sundresses.

I buy my clothes at Old Navy, which is conspicuously underrepresented at Fashion Week for some strange reason. I don't understand why; Old Navy has this new line of argyle sweaters that comes with a bouncy commercial jingle and five dollar shipping and handling. The people gotta know what pattern sweater they'll be wearing in the near future! Or else, we might all buy different styles, and then all of civilization will be doomed!

No, wait. Not doomed. Motley.

As much as I'm aware of the public's fascination with stupid, shiny things, why the hell does any of Fashion Week matter to anybody at all? No one even wears fashion; we wear giant neon rubber shoes and sweatpants with writing across the ass, and a little chunk of Tim Gunn's soul dies every time someone clips their cell phone to their belt. It's the same insipid news every half-year — "Color is big this season" — as if there's anything else they could possibly say. Really, color? Fuck you, Anna Wintour: I was just about to release my new clothing line made entirely of Saran wrap and Scotch tape! It would be great if Giuliana de Pandi would warn me the day before we all start wearing Lost in Space-style standard issue silver jumpsuits, but otherwise shut it and you can all just get back to purging.

Here's where all the resentment lives: I don't look like that! No one, except the bimbos and himbos sashaying down the catwalk, looks like that. First of all, these guys are WASPier than the all WASPiest WASPs in Greenwich and Newport Beach put together. Even the Chinese guy is WASPier than I am. (You wouldn't believe how many photos I had to search through to find that guy.) The lower-right photo guy is wearing an ascot. In my world, the only person who can wear an ascot without deserving to be punched in the throat is Freddie from Scooby-Doo, so he better get a Mystery Machine and start explaining how local ghosts are actually evildoers in costumes trying to scare everyone away real damn soon.

Would it kill these fashion designers to make clothes for guys who weren't part of a secret government program to genetically engineer square-jawed, six-packed, clear-skinned male models? Especially since... have you ever taken a look at the behind-the-scenes people at fashion shows? Maybe this chick just doesn't photograph well (not like she doesn't have an army of professionals whose job is to make sure their subjects do photograph well), but Anna Sui needs to stick a lot of fingers down her throat before I'll buy that "camera adds ten pounds" argument from her. These designers are practically all two steps away from being forced into a traveling circus. What kind of vain moron dripping with self-esteem issues takes fashion advice from these people? Halloween costume advice, maybe...

Really, dude? You're gonna wear that baseball cap in your official Fashion Week photo? Going with the sideburns and half-beard? Do you have a World Series of Poker tournament to get to after the show?

And that's just the men, where the only room for design creativity lies across two extremes: flamboyantly gay and enormous prick.

Or a really talented designer could theoretically combine the two: What the hell is this guy so smug about. Someone needs to get him a mirror, then smash his head into it to wipe that smirk off his face.