recession advice from ‘vogue’

As its newsstand sales plummet and the entire magazine industry is in freefall, Vogue magazine has had to do things it never would have done in the past. Instead of only write about luxury and expensive things and people who are ten times more beautiful and fabulous than you’ll ever be, they have to occasionally look like they’re in touch with the regular folk. That’s why on the cover of the May issue there’s a headline that would be right at home on any magazine in your grocery store aisle – “You’re Fired! Surviving and Thriving After the Pink Slip.” However, because this is Vogue, the story isn’t about a working class person who got laid off and is struggling to make ends meet. Instead, it’s a first person essay by longtime Village Voice fashion writer Lynn Yaeger (pictured at left), who was laid off last year. While I think Yaeger is a good writer and her firing from the Voice was upsetting, I have a really hard time a) identifying with her, and b) not rolling my eyes continually during her article. If Yaeger wrote her piece [which is not available online, or I'd link to it] in bullet points, here’s what she’d advise you to do in your own layoff situation:

• Own your own home! Then you don’t have to worry about pesky things like rent.
• Have enough fabulous, expensive designer clothes already in your closet that you could wear a new outfit every day for a year. After all, being laid off doesn’t mean you aren’t still glamorous.
• If you recently went on a designer shopping spree just before being laid off, have a deep spiritual struggle about which things to keep and which ones to return to the store. I mean, doesn’t the world understand how cruel it is to make you return that thousand dollar purse you didn’t even get a chance to use?
• Be sure to have lots of wealthy and influential friends who will hire you immediately for highly-paid freelance gigs.
• Make a budget, and then promptly throw it out the window.
• Live in Manhattan so you don’t have to have a car and can rely on public transport.
• Find out where normal people have lunch. Go there.
• If you simply can’t live without an expensive cocktail ring but can’t afford it, work out a payment plan with the jewelry store owner.

Look, I get that Vogue is a magazine about high fashion, and therefore every article they run has to relate to glamour and luxury. And the difference between Lynn Yaeger and me is that she was a woman much further along in her career than I am in mine, and thus she had a way higher standard of living. Therefore, it was probably a lot harder for her to cope with her sudden unemployment than it was for me. The part I disagree with is the way that Vogue tried to package Yaeger’s piece as a service-oriented “tips” piece, because it was anything but. I subscribe to Vogue, but for me it’s about escapism (“seeing how the other half lives”) and art, not about learning ways that I can simplify my life or cope with being laid off. Please – I have a blog for that.