Everyone’s talking about the endless possibilities for innovation at the intersection of luxury and technology. Caught up in the race for everything to be faster, better and more seamless, we tend to forget that simplicity is often best. Sometimes, an experience only requires our five senses. | | | | Pushing paper at A-COLD-WALL* S/S 2018, LFWM, London, June 12, 2017.
(Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images) | | | | | | “Everyone’s talking about the endless possibilities for innovation at the intersection of luxury and technology. Caught up in the race for everything to be faster, better and more seamless, we tend to forget that simplicity is often best. Sometimes, an experience only requires our five senses.”
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| | rantnrave:// CRAIG GREEN reigns supreme at LWFM. Green always begins with workwear, but the experimental methods he brings to his collections make him stand out against a sea of labels riffing off of—you guessed it—workwear. Great way to cap off the LONDON menswear shows, which have officially come to a close. Here's an interview with Green from REDEF curator emeritus, ADAM WRAY. Now we're off to MILAN and PITTI UOMO. VIRGIL ABLOH spoke to GUY TREBAY ahead of his much-anticipated project at Pitti... If you care about or work in retail (emphasis on that last one), you'll want to listen to this podcast with L2 founder/NYU professor SCOTT GALLOWAY and KARA SWISHER. Smart stuff... In a new book, ELIZABETH CURRID-HALKETT asserts that conspicuous consumption, as treated by economist THORSTEIN VEBLEN (reductively, IMHO), is over. Instead, people are spending on "services, education, and human-capital investments" to confer status. And while "conspicuous" and "status" are relative terms, she uses a combination of economic data and observation of social norms to make a compelling case... Was blown away that Patagonia recently launched a 10,000 square foot archive. Was further blown away by some of its contents. Patagonia has moved far beyond self-ID'ing "dirt bag" culture and into the realm of corporate bellwether. It's become a symbol for low-key "ethical" consumption, moving handily alongside the techwear/outdoor gear movement. What happens to a brand when it reaches this kind of cultural ascendancy? #Archive. Given the resources required to build and maintain corporate archives, from a business perspective, it's a flex. Let's talk again about those intangibles... Related: this piece by CAM WOLF on apparel companies signing on to the WE ARE STILL IN initiative... In brief: Designer MARINA SPETLOVA has a background in chemistry and works with leather to create some other-worldly looks... Murmurs about what's up at LANVIN... Two studies chasing the numbers of fashion: ADOBE has a digital price index for online fashion, and DATAFINITI looks at shoe prices based on gender... More IKEA collabs. The whole thing smells. Like what (besides some arguably heavy-handed marketing)? A fragrance with BYREDO. Interesting thought experiment. Let's hope this one doesn't reference FRAKTA (ah yes, the scent of 100% polypropylene). | | | - HK Mindy Meissen, curator |
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| Mike Pagano left his father’s Brooklyn watermelon business to partner with his brother-in-law Lou Vieni in their own business. In 1989 the pair became the new owners of Jerri’s Cleaners, at 444 Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village. Established by the eponymous Jerri in 1964, the dry cleaner remains a beloved neighbourhood business. | | |
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| Along the way, it’s also going to take millions of jobs. | | |
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| Welcome to the wellness industrial complex. | | |
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| "I first got into buying clothes in 2008, when I was about 16 years old. Like most people, I got my first part-time job (in my case, working at a restaurant in my hometown), got a bit of disposable income for the first time and was keen to find something to do with it." | | |
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| In 1899, the economist Thorstein Veblen observed that silver spoons and corsets were markers of elite social position. In Veblen’s now famous treatise "The Theory of the Leisure Class," he coined the phrase ‘conspicuous consumption’ to denote the way that material objects were paraded as indicators of social position and status. | | |
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| Outdoor shopping centres are drawing in customers who long ago wrote off the traditional mall experience through a modern mix of food, fashion and practicality. | | |
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| These summery shoes are more than a decade in the making. | | |
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| It all started with a raccoon coat. | | |
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| Vintage expert and streetwear cult figure Patrick Matamoros launches his new brand, Saint Luis, and offers some insight. | | |
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| Brands, mayors, states, investors, universities, and Michael Bloomberg are taking matters into their own hands. | | |
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| Inspired by the city of Madrid, Josep Font has made Delpozo synonymous with an organic simplicity. | | |
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| The company, known as the British equivalent of the streetwear brand Supreme, has arrived in SoHo. Lines form. | | |
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| Luxury companies are turning away from glossy magazines, long the industry’s top venue for advertising. To launch a recent line of watches, Gucci asked social-media artists to write memes. | | |
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| Ghostwriting for social media stars is the secret new Millennial It-career. | | |
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| As Volga Volga prepares to show its collection for the first time at Pitti Uomo in Florence, we talk in depth with the Tokyo-based, Russian born designer who has spent years working with Yohji Yamamoto and has collaborated with Comme des Garcons. | | |
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| Green is, without contest, one of the most important designers working in London right now. | | |
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| The brand - and Ivanka - ignored the jailed activists though. | | |
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| In this time of immense questioning and head scratching within our industry (and without), how important are the CFDA Awards? | | |
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| For an industry that has talked for years about wanting to "disrupt" the fashion calendar (arguably to find some happy medium, balance and dare I say, uniform simplicity, at least in terms of scheduling, in order to ease some of the stresses of the industry's heavily taxed creatives), fashion has a funny (read: down right chaotic) way of showing it. | | |
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| Everyone’s talking about the endless possibilities for innovation at the intersection of luxury and technology. Caught up in the race for everything to be faster, better and more seamless, we tend to forget that simplicity is often best. Sometimes, an experience only requires our five senses. | | |
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| © Copyright 2017, The REDEF Group |
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