The Fashion Club
A Lawndale High school club, concerned with the promotion of "looking good," both through example and the critique of others. They have extremely high physical and social standards for admission: there are strict requirements for weight and fingertip length, and Brooke had to have extensive plastic surgery to get the point of possibly getting membership.
The Club is generally assumed to be one of the most powerful cliques at Lawndale High. The members are presented as being highly popular and at all the right parties. In early episodes like "Malled", they could get boys to drive them anywhere they wanted just on the promise of getting to hang out with them; they abused this by making the boys stay in the car during their shopping trips, and eventually boys stopped giving them rides ("Legends of the Mall").
The Fashion Club was officially disbanded at the end of the Daria series, with all four members deciding to take extended sabbaticals. However, since the four immediately started making plans with each other to fill their newly freed time, it can be wondered if the club is as dead in spirit as it is in name.
Members
During the course of the series, the Fashion Club consisted of:
- Sandi Griffin: president
- Quinn Morgendorffer: vice-president
- Stacy Rowe: secretary
- Tiffany Blum-Deckler: treasurer
As a School Club
While the Fashion Club are an official school-sanctioned club - they are referred to during a school assembly in The Old and the Beautiful - they seem to lack a faculty adviser or any sort of oversight. They have an internal charter and by-laws, which is quite byzantine - "Antisocial Climbers" implies Sandi is making up the by-laws but it's the only one.
Sandi Griffin has stated she founded the club.
The Club's Place in the Lawndale High Social Order
The Fashion Club appear to be at the top of the Lawndale High social order: at noted, boys used to do anything for them, girls like Brooke were desperate to join, and they got into the right parties. The Fashion Club definately views itself as highly popular, and Quinn certainly is. However, most of the time on the show girls weren't shown wanting to join and most of the boys shown were interested mainly in Quinn (to Sandi's annoyance). The club only had three members before Quinn joined. The track team, presented as a high-placed clique, had publically dismissed the Club ("See Jane Run"). Notably, Tiffany once stated "Everyone likes us because we tell them what's wrong with their outfits", a remark that heavily implies the opposite (on the writer's part).
Admission Policies
Admission to the Fashion Club appears to be a lofty ambition of many girls at Lawndale High. During the series, we never see any admissions besides Quinn, who is admitted, as Vice-President, on her first day at school. Brooke is strung along with implied promises of admission, but these presumably false promises fall apart when something goes, badly, wrong with Brooke's looks.
We do hear admission policies being discussed in the episode Fat Like Me. There is an Accessory Committee, which includes (and may consist solely of) Tiffany.
The Fasion Club's Mission Statement
From their website (see below):
"To lead the Lawndale High School populace in all matters of attire, personal adornment, and garmentual self-enhancement. To support fellow students in achieving their appearance goals, even the hopeless ones with greasy bangs and rough, dry elbows. To spot trends, reflect upon them, and critique without malice or favor (like why are all those girls with thick calves jumping on the Capri pants bandwagon?). To maintain standards of dress in school hallways and classrooms using the time-honored tools of philosophical enlightenment: logic, gentle persuasion, and vicious, relentless ridicule."
The Club and Daria
Daria and the Fashion Club as an entity had very few interactions; while Daria was aware of and contemptous of them, she tried to avoid them and they tried to avoid her. Exceptions to this included several deliberate attempts to start a conversation in "Too Cute", "The Misery Chick" and "Quinn the Brain" or unsuccessful makeover attempts in "Malled" and "I Loathe a Parade", (to show the public what good work they do); and "Fat Like Me", where Daria covertly helps the Fashion Club survive in order to win a bet with Jane (neither cared beyond that).
The Fashion Club didn't think much of Daria, but as "Quinn the Brain" shows, the girl unnerved them: an attempt to talk to Daria went tits-up because none of the three had the guts to talk to her.
As what the fashion Club means to Daria, that nightmare scene in "Monster" said enough.
Web presence
The two original MTV Daria websites gave the Fashion Club their own website and online presence.
Their first website was That Lawndale Look, made pre-2000. Sandi was the webmaster. The website was created "to inspire higher wardrobe awareness and heightened grooming excellence. Because you people need it so bad." It ran monthly articles by the members, a guide to them, and a copy of the Mission Statement.
In 2001/02, they'd created Selective Soulmate, an online dating site for popular people: "It's hard enough to match accessories (especially greens), so how likely is it that you'll meet your perfect match among the panting losers at the local high school?" The website was so exclusive that "so far" the only members were the Fashion Club (and they intend to never let other girls in). Sandi was looking for a long-term (and wealthy) relationship, Tiffany thought three months was long-term, and Stacy admitted she'd change anything about herself if a guy would prefer it that way. (They'd also created a profile for Daria, in the hopes that a boyfriend who wasn't Tom might take her out of the house when they're there.)
Fanfic Stereotypes
Daria's Nemesis
Despite the above, it is a common fanfic trope to set up the Fashion Club as Daria's mortal enemy. In such fics, either Daria is out to destroy the club, or one or more members of the club is obsessed with making Daria miserable. C.E. Forman's fanfics, in particular, followed this trend, with Sandi and the other members tormenting Daria in stories like "All Washed Up." Lew Richardson's "Heroes" also shows the Fashion Club in opposition to Daria. "See Jane Spike" by TAG takes a more comedic, over-the-top approach to a Daria & Jane/Fashion Club conflict. In E. A. Smith's "Good Intentions", Daria's opposition to the Fashion Club takes a slightly different form, as she attempts to "rescue" Stacy from the Fashion Club.
The trope, while at odds with canon, makes narrative sense: antagonists are needed for drama, but Daria doesn't have any real recurring enemies in the show itself. The Fashion Club are absolute opposites to Daria, and seem like they should be her enemies.
A Coven of Teenaged *itches (choose your own word)
Especially in the earlier seasons of Daria, the Fashion Club was portrayed as a clique of young women having situational ethics, who would resort to the most outrageous methods to further whatever their aims were at the time. The FC members, especially Sandi, were shown to seduce young men or even commit crimes such as assault to get what they wanted. Stories such as "Clothes Make the Manson" and "Outbitched" are examples of this view of the Fashion Club. Also, the members were shown as being perfectly willing to turn upon each other in order to maintain their popularity; examples of this are illustrated in "Sins of the Past" and the AU-fic, "Darius."
Lesbian Experimentation
There was a period of time where lesbian relationships between members of the Fashion Club were explored in Daria femmeslash. The most prominent pairings were Quinn/Sandi, with Quinn/Stacy a close second. The genre reached its acme with "The Passion Club," which gained notoriety for its after-prom sequence where the Fashion Club members indulged in a liquor-fueled mutual tryst in a jacuzzi. This approach (along with many other Dariafic tropes) was deconstructed in The Angst Guy's And When Your Heart Begins to Bleed, wherein Stacy's advances towards Quinn are rejected, leaving her to pine.
Trivia
- The Fashion Club are collectively and colloquially referred to as "Clubbies", "The Clubbies," or "the FC" by Daria fans. In post-canon stories, they are usually called the "Former Fashion Club" or "FFC"
Alter Egos
External Links
That Lawndale Look (from first MTV website)
Fashion Club's Guide to Digital Dating (second Daria website)