Lynn Yaeger

Lynn Yaeger at Ann Klein show, 2007. Photo from Coutorture.

It is sad to report on the dwindling rank of fashion journalists. Now that Lynn Yaeger is no longer at the Village Voice, one is hard-pressed to think of anybody who could fill her eccentric shoes. Reminiscent of Anna Piaggi—the veteran Vogue Italia reporter—Yaeger pioneered an unmistakable look, which Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton of the Costume Institute recently described as "Porcelain-Doll-via-the-Weimar-Republic,” and which made her a staple of downtown New York.

Her irreverent and unique style reflects her equally irreverent and original fashion reporting, which eschews the usual devotion to all things luxury and celebrates the original and affordable—particularly in her now-defunct column “Elements of Style.” What is most refreshing about her style, as well as her writings, is that she is never shy in exposing the aspirational and unattainable nature of much fashion and fashion reporting, which she counters with an ironic and subversive take on luxury goods and status dressing.

Hopefully, an exhibition of her unmistakable style and take on fashion will soon be organized alongside the lines of the Anna Piaggi exhibition, Fashion-ology, curated by Judith Clark at the Victoria and Albert in 2006.

For Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton on Yaeger's style, see T Moment's blog.

Francesca