Monday, December 23, 2013

Yoga to the rescue

Say you find yourself, at 23, with "fifteen pair of Christian Louboutin shoes, none of which [you] can walk in." This is, as I understand it, around $10,000 worth of near-unworn shoes. Say that your concern is less the YPIS-hurling you're in for if you openly discuss your collection in an online article, and more that you've got all these fab shoes you can't hobble around in. What are you going to do?

Yoga, of course! (Via.) Not yoga-the-spiritual-practice. The yoga that brought us leggings more expensive than pants. Flawlessly-toned women carrying those mats around town. An entire lifestyle based on a vaguely L.A. version of haute health. Point being, according to The Daily Beast, now there's a special kind of yoga for walking around in heels.

In any case, I'm not losing sleep over the commercialization of yoga, and can see the value of being able to walk in heels. And I'm impressed, or something, by the author's candor about her possessions. Mainly, though, I'm struck by what this hints at regarding journalism today - an entire pay-or-lack-thereof system predicated on the assumption that recent college grads' financial needs have already been met and then some. Indeed, that last bit is probably what inspired me to react to this story in the first place.

6 comments:

Miss Self-Important said...

If she's a fashion reporter, maybe she gets stuff for free, as fashion bloggers do? Or this is how she prioritizes her spending? But I don't think it's an assumption of journalism as a whole that all its entrants have a closet full of Louboutins.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

Agreed that most journalists don't have piles of Louboutins. But it seems incredibly unlikely that a 23-year-old fashion writer (as vs., say, a celebrity, maybe a high-up fashion editor) would have received 15 pairs of Louboutins. Also very unlikely: that someone who "prioritizes" $10,000 worth of conventional expensive shoes isn't spending similarly on the rest of her wardrobe. And... I don't think she owes anyone an explanation of how she came to have the wardrobe she does. But I don't see this as entirely unrelated to a field where unpaid and very low-paid work is, certainly at 23, quite normal.

Gwen said...

My first thought was that she does not own 15 Louboutins. I'd wager she doesn't even own one. She has other, far cheaper high-heels she feels uncomfortable wearing.

The piece reads as PR for a Yoga studio trying to appeal to a specific market. The marketing person for the studio learned that you should sell solutions to problems. And selling solution to Louboutin pains sounds... lucrative.

The journalist added that she personally has those problems as a way to make this PR piece more relatable to the target demographics.

In short, yes there is a journalism problem here. But I see it as a problem of PR masquerading as journalism.

Miss Self-Important said...

Both, evidently (that is, family money plus free stuff): http://thedcladies.com/2009/dc-ladies/fashionista-contributor-erin-cunningham/
Maybe an internship w/ Louboutin paid in stilettos? That would be pretty great.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

Gwen,

I like the way you think, but MSI seems to have Googled more/more efficiently than we did!

MSI,

You should be a detective! (I gave up when I realized how common of a name she has.) But yes, amazing, we have our answer(s). As a rule, I don't think freebees mean $800 shoes, let alone 15 pairs. But if you're working for Loub himself, what else might the perks be? Although that still seems like a lot, especially considering she was presumably an intern. My guess would be, she had an internship and with it came a discount. I can't imagine it was $10k in free shoes.

caryatis said...

"Your feet should be able to do whatever you want, just like any other part of your body."

What!? If this yoga teacher tells her students that their bodies will do "whatever you want," they will be sorely disappointed.