old writing

My fiercely talented friend Rob Guillory, who co-creates the super rad comic Chew, sketched this for me back when I wrote for our college paper. I love this drawing so much!

Why the World Needs Tavi Gevinson

image from stylerookie.com

Tavi is about to start high school and I’m terrified.

The reason people care about her blog isn’t because she’s got great fashion sense or a fresh writing style, though she has both, it’s because of her uninhibited style that most of us only have until somewhere between 13 and 15. The loss isn’t deliberate, but it happens, and the shift is only noticeable in retrospect.

I found Tavi’s blog late in the game, through another fashion blog by someone much older (and less interesting to read about), about seven months ago. More than the sophisticated looks on other blogs, which I love, or the very trend-generic fashion on lookbook, Tavi’s blog stands out from them all. She doesn’t look like she’s trying to be cool yet like high-school trendsetters. She’s not trying to look sexy like most girls who are just a bit older. Her subconscious hasn’t become inundated with thoughts about her peers, and there’s a clear sense of an untarnished individuality most of us lose as teenagers. And reading her blog--filled with high end fashion, photos of her quirky ensembles I’d never wear, and adolescent musings of an intelligent and insightful kid--reminds me of a world I’ve outgrown but will always deeply miss. It makes me wish she'll never grow up, which is totally selfish.

Let's hope our culture doesn't fuck up this cool kid.