Zac and Jay Set Out to Prove Fashion is Stupid, Instead, They Prove That It’s Fun
Zac and Jay are funny, but maybe more importantly, they’re fun.
Over half a million Youtube subscribers follow the duo as they crash office parties in London, give a strangers dog the best day of its life, and sneak into Ed Sheeran’s “smallest ever gig”.
They do a lot of sneaking.
The video that brought me to their channel was the first of what is (as of March 2020) a trilogy of Fashion Week “pranks”.
Released in February 2019, “We Faked a Model To The Top of London Fashion Week” has accrued over 16 Million views, the most successful video on The Zac and Jay Show channel.
The viral video follows the Zac and Jay team around as they invent the hottest up-and-coming model from Bucharest, “Maximus Bucharest”, the alter-ego of their also-a-Youtuber friend, Max Fosh from the youtube channel “Max Fosh“.
Piecing together the wildest things they can think of (to a point, more on that later) to dress up their new model phenom, the team releases Maximus Bucharest into the streets of London Fashion to crowds of paparazzi.
The duo has now made 2 follow up videos with different results, but none of them fail to do what the comedy team originally set out to: make a scene, and make fun of fashion.
Zac and Jay Do Not Think Too Highly of High Fashion
Within the first minute of the third video, Zac and Jay define fashion as they see it,
“Fashion: a world where you can reach the pinnacle of your career dressed as an asylum patient, and angry bum bag, or even a wacky, waving, condom arm flailing arm tube woman”
Sure, these outrageous (also known as “editorial”) designs are part of the world of high fashion.
I can’t say I’m an expert, nor can I defend every wild idea that walks down a runway.
My fashion experience is limited to watching The Devil Wears Prada whenever it’s on TV, about six-and-a-half seasons of Project Runway, and lurking on r/mfa since my late 20s.
But as someone who tried unsuccessfully to ignore fashion for 28 years to, and then spent the last not-gonna-say many years trying to learn some basic rules in order to build something of a personal aesthetic, I can say that while it’s easy to make fun of the fashion world for misunderstanding its own frivolousness, to try and put effort and thought into what you’re wearing before you walk out the door actually takes a healthy measure of getting over yourself.
Which is not what I thought, or most people probably think, about fashion: that in order to get into it, you don’t have to take yourself more seriously, you have to take yourself less seriously.
There’s a lot of assumptions about fashion in these Zac and Jay videos.
While I’m not an expert in fashion…
…as a writer and all-around noticer of words, it stood out to me that Zac and Jay ended their definition of fashion at “condom arm flailing arm tube woman”.
They do not, and are rightly not concerned with, giving a balanced and nuanced argument for the misunderstood values of fashion.
That’s not funny.
So I thought, as someone who tries to make his pop culture commentary fthought provoking and funny, I would try giving a balanced and nuanced argument for the misunderstood values of fashion.
Not Dancing About Architecture
“Writing about comedy is like dancing about architecture”
I am not taking time out to “explain a joke” and I’m not trying take the piss out of these videos. I honestly enjoy them.
It’s just that this group of videos do such a good job of pointing out the mainstream assumptions about fashion I literally couldn’t have found a better set of examples to help me write about this thing I’ve been wanting to write about for awhile.
While Zac and Jay could do more to subvert those assumptions consciously, I argue they do so, very successfully, on a subliminal level.
Mainstream Assumptions of Fashion as Catalogued by Quotes from 3 Zac and Jay Show Videos
“We’re taking the piss…about fashion week”
Max Fosh, who becomes Maximus Belfast in the first Zac and Jay video, says the above quote as the group is brainstorming about how to dress Maximus.
From the very little I know about British slang (something about rhyming is part of it?) I do know “taking the piss out of” something means deflating a person’s or group’s perceived-to-be inflated sense of self importance, usually through humor.
In other words, British people don’t think anyone should think highly of themselves and so they make fun of them.
I enjoy this about British people.
In this first example, we see the goal that the group thinks they’re aiming for: to show fashion week how silly it is.
This leads me to believe, if you can believe it, that Zac and Jay think fashion is silly.
Or at least, that fashion is too self-righteous to see how silly it is.
In their lies the first mainstream assumption of fashion: fashion is presumptuous and silly.
“A world most of us wouldn’t understand”
The videos use a formula early on by defining fashion as the craziest outfits they can find. Fair enough. Designers made those things and paraded them out there.
This is another assumption of high fashion: fashion is weird shit for weirdos and none of us will ever understand it so why even try.
“He isn’t famous, he isn’t a model”
The implication here seems to be that because their roommate is neither famous nor a model, no one at Fashion Week should care about him, and the fact that media and fashion insiders start making a fuss about him, is a sign that they are shallow.
Assumption: fashion is shallow.
“Look at these peasants, snapping away for the perfect shot at a completely made up stranger.”
I think peasants is funnier in England English? It sounds super harsh in American.
This just furthers the assumption above.
Why are people paying attention to someone who doesn’t matter:
Because they think he matters based on how he’s dressed?
Or, because how he’s dressed, matters?
Assumptions Subverted Subconsciously
The first video builds its set up based on the assumptions we’ve just listed out.
Then the team then goes on to have an absolute blast shopping for and dressing up Maximus Bucharest.
They are absolutely silly about dressing up their friend as a model.
They think they’re doing it ironically but at what point does irony go all the way back around to sincerity?
One point might be my own love for instant ramen noodles, but another point may be at about 10:10 mark of the first video.
Zac and Jay are dressing Max with a large blanket, readying him for his second day on the town.
They throw the blanket over one of Max’s shoulders and one of them exclaims, “oh shit, game change” because the look just came together.
I have never made a piece of clothing in my life but I can imagine draping a piece of fabric over a model and exclaiming, “oh shit, game change” is a thing that sometimes happens during that process.
And Maximus is a success.
Within 2 days of walking the streets, Max falls into his role as model, photographers agree with him and take his picture, insiders at a runway show call him a natural.
All because they were having fun.
Photographers and curious onlookers gather around him, not just because they perceive him to be famous, but because his outfit is making a statement.
Yes, fashion is a visual medium, but the success of Maximus is a sign of fashion’s complexity, not its shallowness.
They were crowding an admitted non-model-non-famous person because what he was wearing resonated with the fashion world.
You can’t do that with just any outfit you whip together. Their second video proves this point even more profoundly.
The Sophomore Slump
The team’s second video didn’t do as well in views as their first, nor did their model make the impression on Fashion Week he did the first time.
That’s called the sophomore slump and is just further proof that Zac and Jay are now legitimately fashion designers.
During the second video we even hear Zac (or maybe Jay?) say, “the big day is tomorrow, we’re all feeling very tired, morale is low, but we go on” and Maximus himself, in a moment of frustration and exhaustion says, “we need to be taken relatively seriously”.
To their credit, Zac and/or Jay answer, “no we don’t” but it’s too late, Maximus answers, “yes, we do” and it’s clear: the pressure to follow up the first hit has taken the fun out of the process.
So while this series of pranks, on the surface, takes the piss out of fashion week, they also solidify a deeper truth: fashion is about fun, it’s about creating and enjoying beautiful things.
And when it’s not fun it’s not enjoyable.
I Get It
High fashion is easy to hate and easy to poke fun at, and when it veers into rigid self-seriousness, it can prove itself deserved of such treatment.
But what these pranks unwittingly reveal about fashion is that when you’re having fun, you’re going to attract a good energy. If you’re enjoying yourself, you have a chance at success.
Zac and Jay, definitely laughing at how ridiculous the contents of their wardrobe are, nonetheless, having a blast.
They are throwing a thousand things at the wall and seeing what sticks.
Their definition of “sticking” might be different than a legit designers, but they are inarguably approaching the task of dressing a model with innocent, open minded glee.
Open-mindedness is the first step in creativity.
You cannot hate what you are making while you are making it.
The hating-it part of creating something comes later, after you release it into the world and see how poorly it’s received.
Finding your own fashion style is about not taking yourself so seriously that all you feel comfortable wearing is the same shorts-and-a-t-shirt combination you’ve been wearing since high school.
I absolutely do not know what has happened to Gavin McInnes in the last 8 years since he released this video, it’s probably a topic for another, much more serious article, but I would be lying if I said this video didn’t find me at the right time in my life.
There’s nothing racist, conspiratorial or even too self-righteously angry about, “How To Dress Your Age”.
It simply contains the quote that got me to stop taking myself so seriously, and start taking what I wear more seriously,
“I think fashion style is a fun game…people who take it seriously miss the point, and people who don’t participate miss the point”
Nowadays, almost a decade later, I would add a finer point on it: while people who don’t participate in fashion are still missing the point, people who take it too seriously, to the point that it’s no longer fun, are also equally missing the point.
Taking fashion somewhat seriously, enough to give it even a modicum of thought and planning, was a big step up for me, and was an important part, perhaps ironically, in helping me find the joy in it.
Zac and Jay were back to doing their best work by the third video, when they realized success wasn’t about putting pressure on yourself or trying to live up to something you had created before.
Success in fashion, just like in Sneaking-Into-Things Youtube Channels, is all about finding the joy and trying to put that back out into the world.