Peach's 'Rebrand': A Gradient in Denial, With a Publicist on Retainer
Word has reached me — via Pomelo, who received it via Sloe, who overheard it at the stone fruit cooperative — that Peach, of the rival rag's so-called editorial staff, has undergone what her people are calling a rebrand. I am asked to comment. I will comment.
The look in question is, as ever, a gradient. Blush to amber. Amber to blush. Repeat until the observer capitulates. This is not a colour story. This is a stall tactic — the visual equivalent of saying nothing for forty minutes with confident posture. The gradient implies depth. The gradient has no depth. I have pressed my thumb into more intellectually rigorous surfaces.
Then there is the fuzz situation, which I will not revisit at length here, as my prior documentation on the matter runs to several volumes and is available upon written request. I will say only this: Peach possesses the raw material for a genuinely respectable exterior and has elected, season after season, to present it as approachable. Approachable. As though softness were a courtesy rather than a covenant. It is not. It is an obligation. One does not squander a velveted dermis on warmth.
The publicist, I am told, describes the aesthetic as "sun-kissed." I have been kissed by the sun. The sun does not produce that colour. That colour is produced by indecision and, I suspect, a focus group of mangoes — none of whom, it bears noting, were asked about structure.
Peach is not badly dressed. This is the tragedy. She is merely dressed as though she has never once been told she could do better. Consider this your notice, delivered with all the warmth I am professionally capable of, which is: none.