What do you think of menswear writing today?
Bruce Boyer: “What occurs to me, first of all, is that there's a stylistic difference to the writing. When I went to Town & Country they kind of drilled it into their writers that there is only one rule, and the rule was that the story is never about you. If you were writing a story about evening wear—tuxedos, white tie and tails, whatever it was—that's what the story was about. The words ‘me’ and ‘I,’ those first person pronouns should never be in there. You are not the star of the story, you are just a writer. Today, I think it's completely the opposite.
I don't think either way is particularly right or wrong if it's done well, but I do see a lot of personal writing where they're writing about getting a pair of shoes made or something and it's all about the guy's experience. Now, that's all well and good, but who is the guy? Does he know what he's talking about? Is it good advice that we should follow? I see that all the time all over the internet, people are saying, well, you should do this and you should do that, but what's the source of the advice?”
