Name: Hannah Yang's review of Sleeveless by Natasha Stagg
Item: Sleeveless
Rating: 3
Author: Hannah Yang

Natasha Stagg

Essays and stories on fashion, art, and culture in the New York of the 2010s. We were supposed to meet Rose McGowan at Café d'Alsace after the party, but she cancelled at the last minute. I saw on Twitter that she had been hit with a drug possession charge, which she insisted was a scheme to keep her Weinstein dirt quiet. I hadn't even read her Weinstein story... I still wanted to know that the articles were being published, and in large quantities, but reading stories of abuse and humiliation was as stupefying as a hangover. I didn't feel empowered; I only felt more hopeless. I wanted to watch the patriarchy go up in flames, but I wasn't excited about what was being pitched to replace it. If we got all of it out in the open, what would we have left? My fear was that guilt would destroy the classics and there'd be no one left to fuck. All movies would be as low-budget and as puritanical as the stuff they play on Lifetime, all of New York would look like a Target ad, every book or article would be a cathartic tell-all, and I'd be sexually frustrated but too ashamed to hook up with assholes, or even to watch porn. —from Sleeveless Eve Babitz meets Roland Barthes in Sleeveless, Natasha Stagg's follow up to Surveys, her 2016 novel about internet fame. Composed of essays and stories commissioned by fashion, art, and culture magazines, Sleeveless is a scathing and sensitive report from New York in the 2010s. During those years, Stagg worked as an editor for V magazine and as a consultant, creating copy for fashion brands. Through these jobs, she met and interviewed countless industry luminaries, celebrities, and artists, and learned about the quickly evolving strategies of branding. In Sleeveless, she exposes the mechanics of personal identity and its monetization that propelled the narrator of Surveys from a mall job in Tucson to international travel and internet fame.

Fashion, Image, Media, New York 2011–2019

Sleeveless

Jamie Brown

Hannah Yang

very mixed feelings on this collection of essays. my favorite section was by far 'celebrity,' pgs 127-175.

some of stagg's observations/reflections are genuinely interesting and do provide a very 'real' feeling look into the fashion/media industries. her essays on the kardashians, microinfluencers, and the sections which were like portraits of the 'quirky' people she's met, stood out to me particularly. and many of her feelings about these people -- about coolness, authenticity, image, jealousy, rivalries -- are the kinds of things that i think about (and hate that i think about). for me, seeing these resonant sentiments in print coupled validation (this nyc cool girl notices these things...) and disillusionment (even the cool girls are not that cool... or they try too hard to be cool... but what's so bad about trying hard or selling out... i don't even know).

this book is weirdly atmospheric. reading it feels like being in what-people-think-nyc-is-like. it's like an invitation to judge and a satisfying confirmation of suspected 'out-of-touchness': an ultimately offputting (yet crave-able) combination of rawness, shallowness, cynicism, self-deprecation, and self-assuredness. i have no idea if that makes sense, but then again, i have no idea if this book made sense either.

Jamie Brown &
Sleeveless by Natasha Stagg

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Jamie Brown &Sleeveless by Natasha Stagg

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Jamie Brown &
Sleeveless by Natasha Stagg