Simon Doonan Returns

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Well, that was fast. A little over a week after Barneys creative director Simon Doonan quit the New York Observer for Slate.com, his first column is up. In it, Doonan traces the roots of what he's calling the fashion apocalypse in an attempt to answer the following question: "How did we end up living in this all-bets-are-off world where sockless Brooklyn hipsters with Edwardian moustaches make artisanal pickles while, across the bridge, desperate office chicks believe they have no social currency unless they own 398 handbags and 268 pairs of shoes, the heels of which are so high that they would previously have been worn only by a woman who was lying on her back wearing nothing but the pumps in question and a ball-gag?" [Slate]