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  • July 10, 2008 5:58 PM
  • News

Burning Bridges: Fashion Indie and Coutorture Fight an Uncivil War

By Gabriel Bell

fashionindievscoutorture.jpgAsk General William Tecumseh Sherman or Jakob Lodwick, and they'll tell you, "Blog war is all hell." Well steel your stomachs, because comment fueled bloodshed has crept into the usually genteel sphere of fashion blogging. Like Switzerland, today we watched with fear and awe as two regulars of the circuit, Fashion Indie and Coutorture, fixed bayonets and charged headlong into a bloody embrace.

Like most wars, this one began small. Allegedly, Sarah Conley of Coutorture, a normally pacifistic, if girlie, site crossed Daniel Saynt of the temperamental Fashion Indie by suggesting that the Saynt had gone too far in his critique of Andre Leon Talley's physique. Someone then asked in comments, "does anyone actually give a shit who you are?" A fair question for any blogger. In response to this initial barrage, by, "a doucher who didn't realize my glory," Saynt attributed the comment to Conley, "We are one of the most successful fashion blogs on the planet. More people read us than all the international Vogue's (sp) combined…Does anyone give a shit about me? Try over 500,000 readers per month and an industry that has already marked me as one of the top upcoming influencers in fashion." With that, war was on.

Conley then "dropped" Saynt from her network of associated sites (it's extensive). In a final, reciprocal scorched-earth response Saynt called on his readers to "Torture Coutorture" and posted unflattering pictures of Coutorture's founder, Julie Fredrickson (whom Saynt calls "the most loathed blogger in fashion"), and said she looked "shitty." In fashion, this is the equivalent of a nuclear strike.

If you think this seems like six tempests in a very small teapot, well, you're dead right. But in our years of reading and writing for fashion blogs, this is as mad a skirmish as we've ever seen. May there be peace in our time.

Update From The Front Lines:

Coutorture has categorically denied that the "does anyone actually give a shit" comment on the Talley post was Conley and has stated that their dropping of Saynt from their network was merely "circumstantial". They claim that Saynt, much like the Bush administration, marched to battle on faulty intelligence. Again, we are reporting from within the fog of war here.

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blogs, Coutorture, Daniel Saynt, fashion, Fashion Indie, jewelry, Julie Fredrickson, publishing, Refinery29, style, trends, Vogue, war

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Comments

Posted by Anonymous on July 11, 2008 9:40 AM

Ok, so bottom gets pissed at lesbian and um, that means we get to wear white before labor day?

Huh?

Slap a ho, whut? whut?

I like the retro graphics tho, goes well with my earring.

The Jeffie
bareablog.com

Posted by Anonymous on July 11, 2008 10:17 AM

The pictures of Sarah Conley may not be flattering... but even Andre Leon Talley is prettier than Daniel Saynt.

Posted by Anonymous on July 11, 2008 12:04 PM

The funniest thing is that they misspelled Andre's name and then go on to say insanely racist remarks (turbans are for terrorists? classy!)

Posted by Anonymous on July 11, 2008 2:22 PM

Haha Daniel Saynt totally isn't racist there is nothing racist about those comments at all and regardless that isnt the point of this article. He is totally sticking up for himself and his blogger world from people like Julie. Its not like this is the first rediculous thing she has done I think we all remember her Anna Wintour moment. Im all for Daniel Saynt and Fashion Indie for standing up to this pyscho. After all isn't the whole point of a blog to write what you think? It's called freedom of speech. Thank you Daniel your blog rules Torture Coutorture

Posted by Anonymous on July 11, 2008 10:02 PM

Wow, I just threw up in my mouth a little after reading that last comment. Regardless of whether or not you find Julie Fredrickson ridiculous (a Google search indicates that there are certainly some people who do), no one should ever get away with saying something like, "turbans are for terrorists." I am embarrassed for fools like Daniel, and am deeply disturbed that he's managed to get as far as he claims he has in the fashion world, but then again, the fashion world has never really been known for its sensitivity in the race department (see LeBron cover, lack of black models in print and on the runways, etc). If I understand the situation correctly, all Coutorture did was drop Daniel's blog from their network, and frankly I wouldn't blame anyone for not wanting to be associated with such bigotry. I'll be forwarding this story to all of my Sikh friends (who, by the way, are not terrorists) and hope someone will take this boy to task (or court) for his hateful comments.

Posted by Anonymous on July 12, 2008 1:44 PM

Sweetness. Thanks for the hate. I'm totally posting that cival war poster on Fashion Indie.

Yeah, we're a bit offensive. We aren't the nicest people in fashion and our critiques are sometimes vicious, but believe me, we don't sugar coat shit.

The comment questioning my awesomess was not made by Sarah or anyone from Coutorture. We knew that and never stated that it was so get your facts straight. The comment that did come from them was the very insightful one questioning our site traffic. Why would a network talk negatively about one of their sites traffic? Who knows, but my response to that commenter, letting them know how much traffic we actually had is what sparked our dismissal from Coutorture.

Basically we went into this with eyes wide open realizing the ridiculousness of Coutorture and their proposed value in the fashion blogging world.

Also, my comments on Turbans was purposely made to be offensive and get commenters talking about it. It isn't as if every comedian in the world hasn't said a joke about Turbans and Terrorist. Hell, I've been through airport security, I know how it works.

Anyways Pipeline, don't hate. And try to do some fact checking before you post. It makes you look amatuer.

And I'm so much hotter than Andre.

Hugs and Disses

Daniel Saynt

Posted by Anonymous on July 12, 2008 7:13 PM

On October 27, 2007, Daniel Saynt himself wrote the following on fashionindie.com in a post entitled, "When Daniel Saynt Speaks People Snicker."

"Okay, so if your an avid Fashion Indie reader (which you all should be), you’ll realize that I’m not one to take fashion too seriously. I make jokes. I tell lies. I flub around all in an attempt to show that I know a little more than the average joe about this glammed up, souped up world of fashioney (pronounced like baloney)."

http://fashionindie.com/events/2007/10/29/when-daniel-saynt-speaks-people-snicker/

So why did he get so pissed when he was asked by a reader, "does anyone actually give a shit who you are?"

Posted by Anonymous on July 14, 2008 9:37 AM

I was just in a mood to be pissed. In life you don't get to many opportunities to blast your haters. Your boss, your wife, your parents, and even your friends will push you around and make you feel like shit and you won't be able to do a goddamn thing about it cause you're afraid of what people will think.

Of course online, things are different and you can vent as much as you fucking want without feeling guilty. It's just a little bit of stress relief that I thoroughly entertain on my site. If I really took offense to the comment I could have just deleted it, but by answering back I fuel a fire and get some honest bickering back and forth. Hell, it's all for fun and it sure as hell feels good.

If you haven't done it, I adamantly suggest you try to piss off one of your haters today. It's so worth it.

And it really is all baloney. The shows, the events, the people. It's all one big show that I try to not take to seriously.

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