THE FORGIVING WORLD OF FASHION

Kate Moss has just been signed up to design clothes for Topshop. Jane Shepherdson, brand director of the chain who turned it into one of the country’s top stores, promptly quit. Topshop has denied that the two events are related.

The forgiving world of fashion
pardons a multitude of sins.
If there’s a pretty face involved
it rolls over and it grins
like a puppy caught in ecstasy,
like a seal in the sun,
ripe for some club-happy model
to get another deal done.
It matters little to the fashion world
what misdemeanours were committed;
it just gurgles joyfully
if its clothes are nicely fitted
and cling like spider’s web
to the body of Kate Moss.
It tail-wags for attention
from Topshop to Hugo Boss
and pants its appreciation
in every major magazine,
on billboards, on the TV
and from the movie screen.
If a model turned mass murderer
the fashion world wouldn’t flinch
it would simply wait a year or two
and draw them back in inch by inch
and only a couple of people
would stand down in disgust.
The fashion world, like a puppy,
is unflinching in its trust
of anyone who pats it
or gives the dog a boner.
One must assume the model, then,
is the fashion world’s dog owner.