GQ: Zuckerberg even worse dressed than Jobs
In a touching attempt to garner publicity, GQ declares the Facebook CEO as tech's worst-dressed male, beating out Steve Jobs. But might there be some greater meaning to this award?
I know that, for so many men in the world, GQ represents the high altar of fashion.
So there will possibly be hordes of engineers, coders, and their lovers streaming toward Gucci today, having heard that GQ has declared Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg as tech's worst-dressed male.
In its presentation of the 15 worst-dressed men of Silicon Valley, GQ reached for a soaring smoking jacket of wit and found, some might say, merely a cummerbund of carping.
It described Zuckerberg's sartorial splendor in this way: "Oblivious to the fact that jeans and ties come in skinny sizes--or that suits exist--the father of Facebook (and we do mean father) loves to recycle the fresh-from-Stats-class look. Zuck's style is so poor, it even inspired a mock fashion line, Mark By Mark Zuckerberg, which thankfully doesn't sell any actual clothing."
Note the ingratiating use of the diminutive "Zuck," as if he's really the magazine's buddy, one that it ribs with love.
As, I am sure, it does with the second place "winner," Steve Jobs. Of Jobs, GQ writes: "Apple releases an iPhone every 0.5 seconds. Steve Jobs never gets an upgrade. The Svengali's self-inflicted uniform (black turtleneck, dad jeans, Seinfeld kicks) rival Superman's in its homogeneity--a style blunder no AutoCorrect can fix."
GQ's imaginative take follows on from Esquire, which, at the beginning of the year, placed Zuckerberg in its 2010 Celebrity Style Hall of Shame.
Though it's easy, perhaps, to chuckle at these magazines' touching attempts at both hip humor and fashion fascism, perhaps there might be a deeper meaning to these awards.
The world of fashion exists to make you believe that if you dress up a little and spend a lot, women will fall at your feet like leaves in the fall.
It exists to tell you that if you just spent a few grand on something with a Briony label, you will be taken into the inner echelons of the power structure on a wisp of a cloud, as you don your Tom Ford shades to shield yourself from your own brilliance.
Then along came these slobs who somehow managed to pierce conventions, see through the superfice and build things that actually appealed to people, leaving the fashionistas as relevant as, well, magazines. These revolutionary rag-wearers seemed to actually believe that substance might occasionally trump style.
I wonder if Zuckerberg watches "Project Runway."