The Fashionable Obamas
Nothing exposes emotional immaturity like a passion for fashion. There are millions of people who don’t feel emotionally secure unless they are striking a “safe” fashion pose at every moment. For these empty souls the Obama Phenomenon offers a boatful of hope. The Obamas have tossed these fearful poseurs a lifeline and the promise of many more fashion-pose lifelines in the future.
In the interest of full disclosure, I now reveal that my first job after graduating from Parsons School of Design in New York City was a minor position at the Anne Klein Design fashion house. Anne Klein had long ago succumbed to cancer; the joint was then being honchoed by the tough and brusque Donna Karan (1975). I landed the job because I was the only designer in my graduating Environmental Design class whose portfolio emphasized product design rather than architecture. Donna Karan needed a product designer who would work for dirt. Why a product designer? Because the Anne Klein line included lots of Anne Klein fashion accessories – sunglasses, luggage, jewelry, etc. – as well as clothing. These accessories were cranked out by companies such as Foster Grant and American Tourister.
Before I got there, everyone at Anne Klein, from Donna Karan on down, was a graduate of some fashion program. These folks were forever coming up with snappy futuristic ideas for stylish accessories that would, hopefully, morph into other cool stuff and do all kinds of wonderful things. But when the “suits” flew in from the Midwest factories and wanted to know exactly how these wonderful mechanical transformations would happen, the fashion crew was left speechless, because they were clueless. My job was to make practical sense of their fashion fantasies.
I left Anne Klein with these insights: 1. Fashion is a deadly serious business kept afloat by emotionally insecure consumers and, 2. New fashion ideas are culled from large pools of poorly-paid fashion-school graduates. All the big-name fashion icons are editors who snatch up bright ideas for a song and then pretend to be the genius who thought of them. These “artists” resemble the late-night talk show hosts who keep their dozens of gag writers well out of sight. So, when I see Michelle Obama striking any fashion pose I know for a fact that the woman is a clothes horse. I’ve seen lots of clothes horses – naked and hard at work.
Time for one more disclosure: Because the thrifty Donna Karan refused to hire unionized dressers from the theatrical wardrobe union to service the backstage quick changes of her runway models, the grunts in her design pool were drafted to assist Donna’s models at fashion presentations. As one of Donna’s draftees, I worked a show at the Plaza Hotel assisting a statuesque African American model who was every inch a working professional. It was during this show that I came to understand what it means to be a clothes horse – someone like Michelle Obama.
There are platoons of eager designers yearning to have their creations displayed on the backs of eye-catching people. Fashion designers know that popular people will popularize their products. That’s why the team at J.Crew jumped at the chance to spin some duds for Michelle Obama the moment one of Michelle’s hirelings requested their help to package Michelle for her husband’s inauguration. After the inauguration the fashion press and the lifestyles rags went wall to wall with photos and vapid jabber about Michelle’s wonderful “fashion sense.” It was all nonsense. Michelle’s fashion sense is an illusion created by lots of self-interested fashion consultants. Mrs. Obama is a clothes horse. That woman is so fearful that people might get a glimpse of the real Michelle – the unpainted, unretouched Michelle – that she pays a fulltime makeup artist to follow her everywhere she goes. No other First Lady has been that insecure. How much “relaxer” does it take to keep her hair from ever looking African? What is she ashamed of ? Nothing is more phony than an unbroken chain of fashion poses.
The point of all this is that Michelle Obama is as much a slave to fashion – is as thoroughly addicted to the security of “approved” fashion poses – as are the millions of insecure poseurs who look to Michelle Obama for clues about how to be securely fashionable – which is to say, the objects of other people’s approval and envy.
The natural response of any emotionally healthy person might be, “All of these people are pathetic,” but no harm was being done. All that has changed; the Obama Phenomenon just spawned something truly cruel and grotesque.
Enter the Water Dog
The same sorry crowd that opines about how Michelle O’s sleeveless garments expose her sinewy biceps and who fret about her lopsidedly mis-buttoned argyle sweater and who whisper that her man-style buttons-on-the-right-side-of-the-garment is a closet curtsy to gay fashion are the same needy people who will dash to get themselves a living fashion accessory, just like the one the charming Obamas just acquired – a Portuguese water dog. This will bring a world of suffering to millions of dogs.
Fashion is all about the urgency of now. Yesterday’s fashions are so last week. The instant the Obamas announced their choice of a pet, the Obama imitators placed orders for that very same glamour-accessory pet. Given that the Portuguese water dog was, until that moment, the 64th most popular breed in the United States, the existing supply of these dogs will soon be exhausted. The declining supply will drive up puppy prices, which is a big green light for this country’s thousands of horrible puppy mills to snuff their stock of breeding bitches and replace them fast with the Obamas’ fashion-statement dog of choice.
As Newark Star Ledger staff writer Brian Whitley tells us, “Like the pillbox hats of Jackie Kennedy, the breed of the Obama family’s new ‘first puppy,’ Bo, is poised to take off as a must-have in American households.” He goes on to say that New Jersey breeders are reporting that interest in “Porties” has surged. He says the breed is now “drenched in presidential allure.” Mr. Whitley quotes one breeder who told him that after the Obamas announced that the water dog was on their short list, he received three or four inquires each day. Scrupulous breeders allow only one litter each year per dog. The price per puppy is typically from $1,800 to $3,000. According to breeder Mitch Horowitz, “People are going to reproduce these dogs however they can. Prices have already gone up a lot. It’s going to be general mayhem.” (Newark Star Ledger, 4/14/09)
Back in 1972 there were only a dozen of these dogs in America. They were a working dog in decline, displaced by technology. In their heyday these web-footed energetic swimmers helped fishermen herd cod into nets along the coast of Portugal. A healthy Portuguese water dog is a rugged, well-built, sixty pounder in need of vigorous daily exercise. They play very hard and cannot be left alone for long periods or in kennels. All of which makes the sad fate the Obamas have visited upon them all the more horrible.
The Horror
During President-elect Barack Obama’s first press conference he let fly with two signature pieces of Obama humor. The first was a slap at former First Lady Nancy Reagan: “I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any séances.” His second crack was a bit of self-deprecating humor that gave offense to some people of mixed-race heritage: “. . . our preference would be to get a shelter dog, but, obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me.” Some people were stung by his “purebreds are better” subtext.
Mr. Obama’s choice to reject all shelter mutts in favor of a purebred animal will have tragic consequences for millions of dogs. While mutts are too wildly dissimilar to ever be fashion statements, an identifiable purebred animal can be “drenched in presidential allure.” By fingering the Portuguese water dog as the next must-have fashion accessory, Barack Obama marked these dogs for disaster.
There are an estimated 4,000 puppy mills in America, though the number could be more than twice that number. It’s a nasty business that keeps out of sight. These forced-breeding factories send to market over half a million puppies each year.
Here’s how they operate: From the moment a bitch comes into her first heat at about six months of age, she is bred without mercy. She will spend the rest of her miserable life isolated and caged, producing two litters a year for eight years. Her puppies will be snatched away and rushed to market before they have been properly weaned. Many of the pups will die from exposure and disease in the trailer trucks that transport them to pet shops or puppy brokers. The puppies arrive weak, distraught and possibly under the legal age for sale. Because of the squalid and desolate conditions from which they came, these puppies may harbor a host of health and behavioral problems. The biggest lie you will hear all year may be the one from the sales assistant who tells you that “All our puppies come from small breeders and were raised in loving homes. Our dogs don’t come from puppy mills. They are all healthy and well adjusted.” If you don’t know the breeder, don’t believe the sales assistant. Reputable breeders do not sell their puppies to pet stores or “dealers.” Puppy mills do sell to pet stores and dealers (wholesalers). Sometimes the dealers impersonate breeders.
Though puppy mills are scattered across the United States like a disease-ridden archipelago, there are higher concentrations of these rustic animal factories in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Pennsylvania. In many cases the operators are rural people who have turned their hand to dog production. They see dogs as a commodity and nothing more. These hicks maximize their profits by spending as little as possible on animal care. They breed the bitches until they are all used up and then they kill them. The dogs are not given names.
Mill dogs may spend their entire lives in cramped cages or recycled rabbit hutches, never walking on anything but stretched chicken wire. These dogs wear rusted livestock tags in their ears. Mill dogs are underfed and deprived of even basic veterinary care. Their cages may be out of doors, sometimes roofless, with nowhere to hide from the sun, the rain or ice storms. Or the dogs may be hidden away in dark unventilated barns where the ammonia stench from decaying urine burns the eyes and throat.
The most common feature of all puppy mills is filth: the cages are filthy; the dogs are filthy. Long-hair breeds fare the worst as their fur becomes caked and matted with filth. Mange is rampant, as are pneumonia, eye infections, ear infections, bleeding paws and rotting gums and teeth – all of which go untreated.
Endless circling inside the cramped cages is typical of distraught dogs who have spent their entire lives in close confinement. A breeding dog’s fate is a poor diet, no medical care, no exercise and no socialization. Their keepers don’t love them; they are only kept alive for as long as they keep producing those $500 puppies. When the dogs are exhausted, they are taken behind the barn and shot . . . or clubbed or electrocuted, whatever is cheapest. This will now be the fate of a million Portuguese water dogs.
Any dog sold by a pet store, a flea market, an auction or a Website came from one of these puppy mills. Even top-dollar pet boutiques where the celebrities shop get their dogs from the hideous dog factories. The Humane Society of the United States has produced a hidden-camera exposé of the swanky Pets of Bel Air in Los Angeles. It offers a shocking contrast between the self-deceptions of the glitterati and the grim reality of where their pets come from.
A puppy’s pedigree is in no sense whatsoever a guarantee of the dog’s quality. The American Kennel Club, by law, is not responsible for the temperament or behavior of the dogs it sells, nor do they guarantee the health of their dogs. The only sure way to know that your dog did not come from some dumb-hick hellhole is to buy it from its breeder.
Purebreds are expensive. That’s why the pet shop sales folk are such accomplished liars – they want to keep prices high. And that’s why the millions of insecure fashion-slave jerks who just must have a cute dog just like the Obamas will try to beat the high cost of keeping up with the Obamas by purchasing their Portuguese water dogs from auctions, Websites and flea markets. This will provide all the “Obama stimulus” the hayseed breeders need to keep on torturing millions more dogs.
Of course, all of this horror was predictable and could have been avoided if President Mutt had just purchased a shelter dog. His defense was that little Malia had an allergy to shelter dogs.
At that point a truly humane parent would have taken little Malia to the White House screening room and shown her the Humane Society exposé about the hideous puppy mills. Then he would have told her she was getting a goldfish.
Thomas Clough
Copyright 2009
April 19, 2009