Breaking: Annoying ​Rich People Feel "Deep Affinity" for Africa

The New York Times ran a fairly exasperating piece about Matthew Mellon and Nicole Hanley Mellon’s lifestyle-infused clothing line. (If you don’t know these people, don’t even worry about it—I’m not even sure if working class are supposed to know about these things.) Anyway this gruesome twosome plan to make their fashion “international:”

The Hanley Mellon line will have 10 pieces of clothing, including a coat and blouses meant to be wardrobe staples for a jet-set life, priced from $250 to $2,000. Each collection will be inspired by a different place in the world, with New York City being the first.

And then, who knows?

Rich people + fashion + international destinations? Sigh, we all know where this is going, but it still fucking sucks…

“I’ve never been to Africa, but I feel like I have this deep affinity for it,” Ms. Hanley Mellon said. “I’ve read every Hemingway, we collect Peter Beard, I’ve watched ‘Out of Africa.’ It touches your soul to visit and smell the smells, and you can’t recreate the experience without immersing yourself.”

“…In the old days you’d have to travel to India or China for inspiration, and these days you’ve just got Pinterest boards and you can create looks from home.”

LOL “DEEP AFFINITY.” You can’t make this up!

Excuse me Ms. Hanley Mellon, but you do not have a deep affinity for shit. You admire a rustic colonial aesthetic that have been imposed on the several nations, tribes, and countries collectively known as Africa. I also once watched a Robert Redford movie, but oddly enough I don’t feel a deep soul connection to the trapper/mountain man lifestyle complete with fear of having my makeshift family killed by wronged “natives” (Jeremiah Johnson anyone?). Come on, society. I thought you were better than this.

Today, somewhere in the Twitterverse, there echoed a collective deep sigh in response to the piece:

Of course the piece ends on an optimistic note explaining how they’ve embraced new technology like BitCoin: “‘Now we just need a hashtag,’ Ms. Hanley Mellon said.”

Oh you need a hashtag? #deepaffinity seems like the perfect place to start.