Last night we attended an event put on by Elle Decor called Women In Design in which women all of all ages grabbed some sparkling water and white wine and listened to a panel discussion about interior design and architecture from the female standpoint. On the panel were, Annabelle Seldorf, Bunny Williams, Celerie Kemble, and fashion designer Cynthia Rowley. Rowley talked about her move from an all-white loft apartment (pre-children) to a townhouse with hardwood floors (post-children) and the tendency for elements of her collection to make their way into her home decor. The event included Elle Decor's first annual award for outstanding achievement in design, called the Vision Award, which was earned by Paula S. Wallace, who is the co-founder and President of the largest art and design college in America, namely, Savannah College of Art and Design. The women, led in discussion by Elle Decor's Editor in Chief, Margaret Russell (left), spoke about a range of topics including the recession and the challenges of working with demanding clients. Although not much of the conversation focused, in particular, on their perspectives as women, the point was taken that those who sat on the stage had more than earned their powerful positions in design. To read press literature from the event, click here. 

The magazine industry suffered greatly this week with major layoffs at Conde Nast and Time Inc and significant restructuring within those companies. Mens Vogue, for instance, will be 'absorbed' into it's parent magazine, Vogue. The men's magazine retained only its Editor and Chief, Jay Fielden. 

Zaha Hadid, architect du jour thanks to the Chanel Mobile Art Exhibit in Central Park, has opened an installation exhibit at two venues in Manhattan. The installations show Hadid's interest and talent in large-scale, organic shapes--not to mention, business sense. 

Photos of Charlotte Ronson's collection for JC Penney have surfaced, calling a lot of attention to the somewhat celebrity designer and her ability to strike while the iron is hot. Her collection for JC Penney, called I [Heart] Ronson, will retail between $15 to $65. Pictured above.

If you're a window person, you'll be happy to hear that holiday concepts for Selfridges (the Macy's of London when it comes to tourist-attracting windows) have been released. There will be a window designed by Alexander McQueen and an overarching theme of Santa as urbanite. 

Nicolai Ouroussoff, the New York Times' architecture critic, has us longing for a more critical fashion press with his review of the Chanel's Zaha Hadid art and commerce extravaganza. With every new zinger your editor and creative director found themselves giggling as we wavered between shock and pleasure at the sheer volume of practically scandalous observations.

It’s not just that New York and much of the rest of the world are preoccupied by economic turmoil and a recession, although the timing could hardly be worse. It’s that the pavilion sets out to drape an aura of refinement over a cynical marketing gimmick. Surveying its self-important exhibits, you can’t help but hope that the era of exploiting the so-called intersection of architecture, art and fashion is finally over."

It is a real shame that the best piece of fashion writing we have read in ages comes from an architecture critic but then given the propensity of fashion houses for banning criticism it is no wonder that the Times had to send an architecture critic to do a fashion writer's job.

Why it is that fashion has sunk to such a level of discourse such that we cannot even critique our own internal promotions and marketing campaigns is a question that is much on our mind this morning as we ponder our own place in the style symposium.

We find breathless colorful commentary that expresses the writer's level of cool caché is what is rewarded in fashion journalism over high minded debate or serious inquiry. As a press core we give in to the worst criticism leveled at the industry by blindly pursuing the agenda of oblivious cool. As Ouroussoff points out, it is a crime for which we are rightly lambasted.

But traumatic events have a way of making you see things more clearly. When Rem Koolhaas’s Prada shop opened in SoHo three months after the World Trade Center attacks, it was immediately lampooned as a symbol of the fashion world’s clueless self-absorption. The shop was dominated by a swooping stage that was conceived as a great communal theater, a kind of melding of shopping and civic life. Instead, it conjured Champagne-swilling fashionistas parading across a stage, oblivious to the suffering around them.

And the greatest tragedy of this simpleton agenda? Fashion brings down the entire creative arena from interior design to architecture by continually playing the dim witted blithely unaware younger sister even when we have so much more to offer.  Fashion more than any other industry brings together creative minds by helping us consume the best and the brightest in our daily lives. And yet we never focus on those aspects. Why? Perhaps it is that abominable behavior instantly guarantees "it" girl success much to the chagrin of our more serious sisters and indeed many players in fashion. The over the top sex appeal becomes the story to the detriment of deeper issues and wider creative evolution. Creative minds like Zaha Hadid accept commissions from the well funded in the hopes of creating better work and yet we collectively stymie the efforts by focusing on pathetic consumptive marketing efforts. It is a deeply cynical cycle, one that we never seem able to break.

The pavilion’s coiled form, in which visitors spiral ever deeper into a black hole of bad art and superficial temptations, straying farther and farther from the real world outside, is an elaborate mousetrap for consumers.

Why is it that we engage in this behavior as an industry? Is it that we are scared of discovering that underneath our slick exterior we will be found lacking? Do we really lack any kind of confidence in our own products? Ironically by never looking beneath the surface we engage in a kind of self fulfilling prophecy that damns us to ridicule. By never rewarding the inquiring minds, by overlooking or banning the gadflies, and by promoting syncophantic charades of hip we continue our reign as the attractive domineering dim wit ruler of the creatives but God help us all if our consumers outgrow our childish antics. The rest of the creative world almost certainly has if Nicolai Ouroussoff's review is any indication.