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Judy Blame's Obituary: Writings on Fashion and Death
Judy Blame's Writings on Fashion and Death
Paperback
Published January 20, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 10, 2023
How can a book be so dark and so fun-filled, at the same time? Some great deep dives -- I loved the sequins piece. Suffers some of the flaws of journalism compilations -- coherence issues and redundancy, but a really important read on a lost era of local history.
May 10, 2022
[Pasting in the catalogue info, not sure why it's missing]
https://www.pilotpress.co.uk/catalogue
Judy Blame's Obituary:
Writings on Fashion and Death
Derek McCormack is the author of fashion- inflected novels that cast luminaries such as Elsa Schiaparelli and Balenciaga as characters. This collection brings together for the first time McCormack's fashion journalism. He writes about and interviews fashion figures that fascinate him, tracing the ways they inspire and inhabit his novels. The result is a sort of memoir in essays: as he writes, "My tribute to [Judy] Blame is about him and about me—there are lots of my own tales woven in with the topics I touch on. The writing here is a sort of autobiography, a life seen through a scrim, or a life as a scrim—my moire mémoire."
Judy Blame's Obituary contains twenty years' worth of reminiscences, reviews of fashion shows and books, interviews with writers about fashion, and interviews with fashion designers about writing. He talks to Nicolas Ghesquière about perfume, and to Edmund White about which perfume he wore as a young fag in New York City. He inspects the clothes that Kathy Acker left behind when she died, and he summons the spirit of Margiela in a literary seance. He traces the history of sequins, then recounts the cursed story of Vera West, the costume designer who dressed the Bride of Frankenstein. These pieces were all previously published, some in Artforum, some in The Believer, and some in underground publications like Werewolf Express—what binds them together is a sense that though fashion victimizes us, this victimization is sometimes a sort of salvation.
About the author: Derek McCormack is a Canadian writer. His most recent novels are The Well-Dressed Wound and Castle Faggot, both published by Semiotext(e). Of Castle Faggot, Dennis Cooper said: "It is really just one of the best books ever, and maybe the greatest novel ever written."
Praise for Judy Blame's Obituary:
‘Derek McCormack, Canada's most famous author as yet unsullied by Nobel Prize or television adaptation, hides in plain sight as a fashion journalist. Parallel to his writing incantatory, scatological fiction, he has reviewed collections and interviewed the great and good of “la mode”. His divagations are often darkly hilarious and always exquisitely tailored. The sublime and the ridiculous coexist in his prose, as they do in life. Fashion victims, ignore his insights at your peril.' — William E. Jones
'Derek McCormack is one of my first and most enduring literary heroes. He only writes about what he loves, and has the lover’s rare gift of giving every stray object a proper home. You couldn’t mistake his aesthetic for anyone else’s—even if you were standing as far away as the moon.' — Sheila Heti
'I am charmed, amused and somewhat obsessed by ‘Judy Blame's Obituary’. Derek McCormack observes fashion and art and all its quirks with a sense of factual fabularity and camp mundanity. Stories captured like falling stars and written down like fan facts.’ — Princess Julia
Available at:
Donlon Books (London, UK)
Tenderbooks (London, UK)
ICA Bookstore (London, UK)
Good Press (Glasgow, UK)
After 8 Books (Paris, France)
Printed Matter, Inc (New York, US)
Type Books (Toronto, Canada)
https://www.pilotpress.co.uk/catalogue
Judy Blame's Obituary:
Writings on Fashion and Death
Derek McCormack is the author of fashion- inflected novels that cast luminaries such as Elsa Schiaparelli and Balenciaga as characters. This collection brings together for the first time McCormack's fashion journalism. He writes about and interviews fashion figures that fascinate him, tracing the ways they inspire and inhabit his novels. The result is a sort of memoir in essays: as he writes, "My tribute to [Judy] Blame is about him and about me—there are lots of my own tales woven in with the topics I touch on. The writing here is a sort of autobiography, a life seen through a scrim, or a life as a scrim—my moire mémoire."
Judy Blame's Obituary contains twenty years' worth of reminiscences, reviews of fashion shows and books, interviews with writers about fashion, and interviews with fashion designers about writing. He talks to Nicolas Ghesquière about perfume, and to Edmund White about which perfume he wore as a young fag in New York City. He inspects the clothes that Kathy Acker left behind when she died, and he summons the spirit of Margiela in a literary seance. He traces the history of sequins, then recounts the cursed story of Vera West, the costume designer who dressed the Bride of Frankenstein. These pieces were all previously published, some in Artforum, some in The Believer, and some in underground publications like Werewolf Express—what binds them together is a sense that though fashion victimizes us, this victimization is sometimes a sort of salvation.
About the author: Derek McCormack is a Canadian writer. His most recent novels are The Well-Dressed Wound and Castle Faggot, both published by Semiotext(e). Of Castle Faggot, Dennis Cooper said: "It is really just one of the best books ever, and maybe the greatest novel ever written."
Praise for Judy Blame's Obituary:
‘Derek McCormack, Canada's most famous author as yet unsullied by Nobel Prize or television adaptation, hides in plain sight as a fashion journalist. Parallel to his writing incantatory, scatological fiction, he has reviewed collections and interviewed the great and good of “la mode”. His divagations are often darkly hilarious and always exquisitely tailored. The sublime and the ridiculous coexist in his prose, as they do in life. Fashion victims, ignore his insights at your peril.' — William E. Jones
'Derek McCormack is one of my first and most enduring literary heroes. He only writes about what he loves, and has the lover’s rare gift of giving every stray object a proper home. You couldn’t mistake his aesthetic for anyone else’s—even if you were standing as far away as the moon.' — Sheila Heti
'I am charmed, amused and somewhat obsessed by ‘Judy Blame's Obituary’. Derek McCormack observes fashion and art and all its quirks with a sense of factual fabularity and camp mundanity. Stories captured like falling stars and written down like fan facts.’ — Princess Julia
Available at:
Donlon Books (London, UK)
Tenderbooks (London, UK)
ICA Bookstore (London, UK)
Good Press (Glasgow, UK)
After 8 Books (Paris, France)
Printed Matter, Inc (New York, US)
Type Books (Toronto, Canada)
April 2, 2023
"There are fourteen turds in this sentence."
Derek McCormack is my personal literary hero and it's so special to hear his voice outside of fiction. There is no keener or faggier eye than DM's. All words are jewelry on his sparkling collar and everything he writes makes me a little bit more glamorous just by having encountered it. I bow to thee, Oh Great Gay Virgin Mary--please take me with you in your rapture couture <3
Derek McCormack is my personal literary hero and it's so special to hear his voice outside of fiction. There is no keener or faggier eye than DM's. All words are jewelry on his sparkling collar and everything he writes makes me a little bit more glamorous just by having encountered it. I bow to thee, Oh Great Gay Virgin Mary--please take me with you in your rapture couture <3
September 22, 2025
'I have made a breakthrough in the psychoanalytic study of fags, or psychofaganalysis - thanks to Thierry Mugler'
great read, funny, sad and super, dear I say, faggy
great read, funny, sad and super, dear I say, faggy
July 27, 2023
4 / 5 stars
quite a few typos lol
quite a few typos lol
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews