THE TAVI BACKLASH: TOO MUCH, TOO SOON?

Tavi Gevinson, the 13 year-old Chicago fashion blogger /sensation, plus queen of all media, is becoming more and more famous by the second.

To date, she has not only grown an audience of millions, for her blog, Style Rookie, but also: appeared on the cover of some of fashion’s hippest magazines, acted as muse to Rodarte, the hot Canadian label, appeared as a guest of honour at Rei Kawakubo’s holiday party then charmed all of Japan, appeared in the front row of the most A-list fashion shows and, most recently, penned a column in the January issue of Harper’s Bazaar.

Is she too much to believe?

The fashion jungle is beginning to omit ominous rumbles …

The Cut, NY Magazine’s fashion blog reports: “Huffington Post’s longtime contributing style editor Lesley M. M. Blume, also an author of children’s books for girls Tavi’s age, notes, the story will generate a ton of publicity. “A lot of people are going to read this. Is this a smart marketing move? Of course,” Blume said. Did she get the sense people were taking Tavi seriously? “I think she’s very dear, but I think it’s crazy. I think it was insulting enough when we were expected as adult women to take our fashion cues from Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. All of a sudden women in the fashion world were starting to look like bag ladies. I mean, that’s very silly.”

The blog continues: “Elle’s Anne Slowey said Harper’s Bazaar hiring Tavi “feels a bit gimmicky.” Yet she finds her riveting. “I’m fascinated by anyone who’s willing to, like, rock personal style, and you’ve got to give her that, she’s got great style,” Slowey said. She thinks there is a disconnect between Tavi’s video about Rodarte’s Target collection and her writing. “I’m sort of fascinated in the same way the world was with JT Leroy,”* Slowey explained. “You look at her video, and the writing doesn’t sync up with the way she talks about fashion. When I watched that video it smacked of this ethereal vagueness — this vacantlike quality where it was like everyone was on Vicodin.”

Meeeow.

But young Tavi is already no stranger to controversy. As soon as she emerged on the scene, speculation grew as to who was actually responsible for her posts.

Could a twelve year old be that precocious?

Was there a secret, adult, “Team Tavi” behind the blog?

Was it a cunning marketing strategy?

Her father, Steve was “outed” as an English teacher, could he be writing “her” posts?

(If he was he would have to have been the first and possibly only fashion-savvy English teacher on the planet, in my opinion.)

Planet fashion is a brutal and suspicious place.

Comments on blogs were not always positive: “I hate to be a dick but it always looks like the Salvation Army threw up on her. If she had achieved fame through any other outlet she’d be on the worst dressed list. So am I bitter? Duh. I dressed like that when I was fifteen too, and all I have to show for it is a series of very embarrassing photographs.”

And: “I wonder what Tavi will be like after she hits puberty because she won’t be as cute anymore…”

The world of open comment forums is more than a bit brutal for anyone to handle.

Let alone a child.

Steve Gevinson admitted as much in an interview for the AP, quoted on Frockwriter, describing Tavi’s reaction after one particularly high profile event:

“She slept in the bed with us that night to get back to sleep. [The next night] She woke up, and again woke us up, and said – and this is really heartbreaking – ‘I just woke up crying and I don’t even know why I’m crying.”‘

There’s a price for playing with the adults, I suppose.

All the fame, the glittering parties and powerful people are daunting enough, even for adults.

If Tavi is a fashion savant, her story reminds me more of Susan Boyle, than Anna Wintour.

And, I do fear (a little) for both of them.

* An infamous hoax, where an adult pretended to be a child and gained publicity, book contracts and fame, before being found out.