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Mar 31 2008 10:06AM EDT

The Grand Finale

So here's the last question, for the last post, from a reader from Australia.

I'd like you to recap your top 5 memorable moments from your blogging tenure- I particularly liked the Balenciaga Leggings of armor (apr), ralph lauren and his polo logo battle.

1. Giorgio Armani and the Great Schmuck Debate: It was an early post, so many of you may have missed it. In a WWD article they quoted Giorgio Armani as saying that H&M treat their customers like "schmucks." I wrote a post pointing out A: I found that an odd word choice for a man who speaks only Italian and French and B: The thinking behind it was a bit hypocritical. Armani's communications director, Robert Triefus, wrote to say that the word he used "coglioni" really means idiots, which clarified A but not B. (Other Italians tell me bollocks is more accurate). Then WWD wrote an item which said I had a problem with their translation of the word coglioni, which obviously I didn't because I didn't know what the word was until Robert wrote to me. I think it was their way of making nice to Mr. Armani.

2. I always enjoy writing the on the machinations of fashion PR. The Truth About Graft (parts I and II), The London Fashion Week: But Are You Family?, my recent rant about getting a seat for the shows in Paris and, last season's, Fashion Week: Isn't It Nice?

3."Breaking" News: Why Proenza Schouler sold to the owners of Valentino, but didn't get the top job; Why it was inevitable that Jade Jagger would leave Garrard after the owner of Garrard made an investment in Stephen Webster; and the first pictures of the Sienna Miller collection which was also my most popular post.

4. Through the eyes of posts on Mark Lee, the C.E.O. of Gucci during the launch of the new New York store and Cassandra Hepburn, a L.A.-based celebrity during LA Fashion Week, I and II.

5. My New Peers. I want to thank many of my readers for offering up everything from job advice (BOF, Coutorture and disneyrollergirl to their credit cards (LO) and the now off-line friend Stylescribble. I had a rough initiation to the world of blogging, so it was great to make so many friends at the end. I'm sure I'll be suffering withdrawal, so I'll send personalized posts via email.

I think it was the fairly harmless post I wrote on Manolo Blahnik joining the internet revolution that first drew my attention to the posts that were being written about me on Jezebel, part of the Gawker Media empire. (They'd been calling me Laurie Goldstein Crowe for a while...) I hadn't been bullied that badly since Vicki Dembo put my red patent-leather boots with the white platform heels into the trash can in 6th grade. It kind of stung but the absurd number of mistakes they made -- calling me Laurie, saying that I hated the Tom Ford store when in fact I loved it (note to Moe: time to cut back on those uppers!) -- lessened the bite. I was advised by my fairy blogfather Felix Salmon not to respond unless I could be funny enough -- and I couldn't, so I didn't. Good advice! I watched as they destroyed fathers and brothers who stepped up to defend their women Gawker/Jezebel chose to attack. You know, horrible horrible cretins like brides who have the gall to ask for a honeymoon trip instead of presents or internet entrepreneurs who sell their companies for lots of money. Honestly, don't they worry about leaving the office alone after dark?

I took solace in the fact that the hated-by-Gawker club included many people I have worked with and consider friends, including "3-olives-a-day" Anne Slowey and Joel Stein, and that the items on me generated very few hits, so the people writing them weren't earning much money off my back.

Eventually I came to the same conclusion that Vanessa Grigoriadis did in her New York Magazine article -- that these were ambitious 20-somethings that were pissed off that people they consider less bright than themselves had the jobs they wanted. And I could sympathize. I mean, we've all been there. But thank god, my friends and I didn't have access to such a public voice when we were making the entry-level New York journalism rounds. Of course, as a firm believer in karma, I don't think I could have drummed up that kind of negative energy anyway. Don't these girls know about Earl? Anyway, off I go to delete 70 percent of my RSS feeds, including theirs. Will someone drop me a line when they begin the good works they'll have to do to compensate? LGoldsteinCrowe@Gmail.com Thanks!


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