I'm not going to say I'm an ageist-- but maybe I am. Let's just say there are not many people I look up to who are still a few years from qualifying from a driver's permit. There is one, however, and I am not the only one to feel this way about Tavi Gevinson.
Who is Tavi Gevinson? She's a 14-year-old fashion blogger. Big whoop, you say? Well, so said I, until I actually paid attention-- she's been at this for a few years and she's got more style chops than most people two, three, four (or more) times her age.
Her style is quirky, not always in the highest of taste, but constantly inventive. The thing I admire most in fashion and style is not text-book coherency, but rather confident boldness. This is why I look up to people like Schiaparelli and, despite his serious lapses in appealing aesthetics, Karl Lagerfeld.
Plus, and this is what impresses me most, I'll admit (for this quality I am afraid is rarer than dressing well, and much more precious), is her excellence in writing. She is hilarious. I wonder if there is some fifty-year-old English professor-cum-comedy writer editing Tavi's pieces, but I suspect it really is just her little middle school self blasting away gaping holes of amusement and intelligence in the English language.
Okay, so maybe she's not the wiliest wizard writing has ever known, but it's damn impressive. Most fashion bloggers reek of self-interested mediocrity crying for attention from an elitist industry accelerated by the world wide web (hypocrisy? perhaps, exaggeration? not so much), but Tavi exudes a pure and innocent joy in the wonders of sartorial experimentation and personal expression. Not to mention, her knowledge of obscure fashion history (most of which she was not remotely alive for, more so than even infantile wee me) is extensive and admirable. She knows her Japanese avant-garde and nineties red carpet references just as much as her vintage Dior and 1930's headgear. Top notch, really.
You can read Tavi's blog, The Style Rookie, here.
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