Three seasons ago, it was Tracie Egan in Vice magazine — that was the first one I read, and the only worthwhile one. This time last year, it was The Daily Mail. For Spring/Summer 2010, it was Leah McLaren in the Globe & Mail. This season — tag! — Tanya Gold from The Guardian is our not-it girl: the latest un-sample-sized, anti-fashion female writer, committed for life to feeling misunderstood, never mind assuming the right to misunderstand an entire industry.

Like those before her, Gold whips up old insecurities and understandable hatreds — of snobbish clotheshorses, of silly consumerism — into a rant that’s rather greater than the sum of its points. She mourns the emaciated models, she bemoans the price of a jacket, she tires of relentless trends. She titles it: “Why I Hate Fashion.”

And then, gullible as can be, we read on.

Even assuming (because we’re all pretty educated and “alternative”) that you hate Hollywood — would you read an article called “Why I Hate Movies“? Would you lend a precious freaking second to “Ten Things I Hate About Books”? But! “Why I Hate Fashion” — this is how I’m spending my Monday.

Where else but in fashion is the science of a thing — the formulas, the marketing, the madness and the evil — so readily mistaken for the art? There is no such rant as “I Hate Photography” or “I Hate Theatre.” I’ve spent maybe 2.5 days in the art world and already know it to be populated with the Western hemisphere’s most insufferable elitists — funny, though, I’ve yet to find a Times article called “Why I Hate Art.” Rock 'n' roll can be held responsible for inspiring the worst kind of snobbery, but for that reason would anyone declare, “I Hate Rock 'n’ Roll”? (Come on, you know the Jesus & Mary Chain were just kidding when they sang it.) People hate major record labels or nu-disco DJs or twee indie collectives or Ticketmaster, but no one hates music as a result.

And if you’re only talking of the lady trades, well, even then I’d hold the beauty industry far more accountable — always finding new flaws, forever promising the impossible. And still, no wannabe swan spits the screed,  “I Hate Beauty.” (That was a man, instead, writing in Psychology Today. Worth a read, once you’re done this.)

I worry that I’m too likely a defender of fashion for my defense to mean shit. I am, after all, why Tanya Gold hates fashion. I’m 24 and a size four (I used to be a six, but then I started caring about what I ate; blame Vogue!) and I look good in heels and I dyed my hair purplish, then pink, because Proenza Schouler said so. And so, because you won’t listen to the likes of me, I won’t tell you not to hate fashion. But I can tell you why I don’t:

I don’t hate fashion because I understand it. On this point, there’s not much to say. You get it. Or you don’t.

I don’t hate fashion because, at its heart, this world isn’t what it’s marked up to be. Fashion is neither the promise nor the threat of perfection. No, I feel, it’s pure fantasy: the thing that allows you to aspire and to alchemize, to not be yourself (what is that, anyway?) but whoever the hell you want to be. What is more powerful, more liberating than that? If you follow fashion — not blindly, but with purpose — is there anywhere you can’t go?

I don’t hate fashion because I’m a feminist. And nothing satisfies or thrills me more than to dwell in a land where women dress for other women, where the real appeal isn’t sex, where men don’t really matter at all. My boyfriend hates big shoulders and long slinky knit skirts and my pair of patent geometric heels he calls “robot shoes.” Do I care? Nothing makes me happier than to say, "no, I don’t."

I also don’t hate fashion because I can’t, so unfailing and so vital is it to my self: as expression, but more importantly, as protection. Two or three months ago, I was sent by a newspaper to interview one of (I think) the coolest women in the world. This woman — an actress — has an obvious favourite designer, and when I asked why, she said she loves his clothes because they protect her. The right heel is a weapon, I interpreted, and she nodded; the right dress is a shield. Actresses lie professionally, but I felt that sentiment instantly to be true.

If I put it together right — the semiotics of platinum and platform boots, velvet and leather, boys shirts and lipstick — you’ll take one look and think you know me. You won’t, of course. But that’s where I win. It’s a victory I owe mostly to fashion, and with it, all my love.