Is it just me or is there a major cultural shift going on in New York? I thought I already experienced it in 2007 when The Misshapes took over the club scene and it seemed that everyone in New York was letting go but that party ended and everyone went back to their “normal” boring selves. These days I feel like the city is eating its young.

The New York Times ran an article in the Style section on Marc Jacobs today. While this is not anything new, I found the reporting particularly back-handed. Once the darling of American fashion, the Times goes on and on about how he is no longer setting the trends, even providing quotes from F.I.T. fashion students (I mean come on! Really? They couldn’t get a more credible source?) on how they don’t look to him for inspiration because his look is too “all over the place”. Also, reporting on how people of a certain income no longer have him on their top ten list of go-to designers.

It seems that the world is more interested in his personal life (or just judging him for it) and that the brand he has built over the last two decades is becoming “too mass-ified” But don’t worry kids, the Times makes it all better by calling him “a survivor”! What the fuck does that mean? In my humble opinion, I think he is one of the most talented designers ever. Effortlessly creating clothes that men and women can feel cool and beautiful in. On the tail of the new “smoking ban” in parks, beaches and pedestrian pavilions and the lazy criticism of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way“, I sense this major shift in the city.

It’s almost like the identity that New Yorkers are so adamant in conveying and protecting doesn’t mean shit anymore. The article has some merit when it comes to the fact that they let Marc defend himself against these allegations of him losing his edge but that is it. There is nothing about his charitable contributions to HIV/AIDS organizations or anything positive he has done in the past twenty years.

Maybe I’m just in a bad mood. Or maybe New York has lost its edge. A city where creativity and the unusual was once revered is now becoming Disney World. Either way it seems that the city is now getting behind the whole “building them up, just to tear them down” way of thinking. I thought we were more original than that. I thought this was a place for the misfits who could break free of the social norms pushed onto us. New York please don’t let me down or I’m moving to L.A.