This is a guest commentary on Tavi Gevinson, whose Fashion Rookie blog was shut down by Blogger yesterday because she posted a 1998 fashion photo revealing the model’s nipple. Here is the Gawker version of the story. The model was Maggie Rizer — another story worth knowing.
By Beth Bagner
This whole thing with Tavi is ridiculous, well in a way not as much ridiculous as it is preposterous. The thing about Tavi is that she truly gets it (I’ve been reading her since she’s 11 when Stylerookie began, she just turned 14).
She’s a pint-sized curious creative genius, a true artist. As a photographer, her art has inspired me (that should tell you something right there, because I photograph A LOT of nudes, this includes nipples). She’s an ancient soul reincarnated into a middle-schooler living in the ‘burbs surrounding Chicago. Tavi Gevinson self describes herself as, “A tiny 13 year old dork that sits inside all day wearing awkward jackets and pretty hats.”
But there’s a lot more to her than that, and she knows it. She has captured massive amounts of attention from designers, publishers, and business people. Not to mention her fan base, I’m not quite sure the amount of hits her blog receives daily, but I will bet its up there. She has inspired fashion collections, and overall she’s a smart cookie.
I have to admit that when I first heard of this story here on Planet Waves (thanks Kyla), at first glance I thought that I was reading that Tavi exposed her own nipple on Stylerookie. I chuckled pretty hard for a couple of seconds because I thought that if it was true, that was really awesome on Tavi’s part.