burning bridges

How to Alienate Everyone in Your Industry

The end.
The end. Photo: Getty Images

Many people would insist that the greatest joy in life is seeing others around you happy, but those people aren’t considering an even better option: watching a stranger toss a lit match on a bonfire of drama. This pleasure was dutifully delivered to us today by a man named Jacques Hyzagi in a New York Observer story titled, simply, “ELLE on Earth.”

In the story, Hyzagi laments the mishandling of a rare interview granted to him by elusive Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons. His complaints about the profile — and about fashion people in general — are legion. This is a rare, precious example of a man so hell-bent on telling his side of the story that he stops at nothing in order speak his truth.

The story begins by burning “the boring Atlantic and vapid Politico,” then goes on to ponder where his interview with Rei should eventually land. “The bores at New York Magazine said no because I would not be able to get her to say anything interesting,” Hyzagi writes. The New Yorker according to Hyzagi? “Very Reader’s Digest meets GQ.” But why stop there? More! More!

On Anna Wintour:

I realized Anna Wintour had never invited Rei, the goddess of fashion, worshipped by every single designer from Karl Lagerfeld to Marc Jacobs and Alexander Wang, to her insufferable annual ball at the Met. Had Rei refused the yearly extortion of ad buying in Anna’s September issue too many falls in a row?

The piece inevitably ended up at Elle, with a companion article set to run in the Guardian. Elle is the focus of Hyzagi’s torment, but his swipes are like a machete’s: broad and undiscerning. Read the full essay if you delight in sipping tea, but to sum up, here is a running list of all the publications and people Hyzagi takes umbrage with in his piece:

The Atlantic

Politico

Time Warner

Condé Nast

Hearst 

Hillary Clinton

New York Magazine

The New York Observer

The New Yorker

David Remnick

Judith Thurman

Anna Wintour

Robbie Meyers

Anne Slowey

The Guardian

Vanity Fair

Graydon Carter

“Fascist and anti-Semite William Randolph Hearst”

“Too often the fear instilled by mediocrity and incompetence, the two tits that nourish capitalistic societies, can only feed the beast if patterns and routines are kept as is,” Hyzagi writes. What a beautiful day to watch bridges burn.