Fashion is popular because it’s a mystery. It’s the ebb and flow of the subtle things we propose as designers, and that people respond to like flocks of birds turning all of a sudden in the middle of the sky. | | What news? Vogue 1935. (Cecil Beaton/Condé Nast Collection/Getty Images) | | | | “Fashion is popular because it’s a mystery. It’s the ebb and flow of the subtle things we propose as designers, and that people respond to like flocks of birds turning all of a sudden in the middle of the sky.” |
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| rantnrave:// Here are 20 (+1 bonus essay) of my favorite stories from 2017. These are stories that put people at the center—that tell how style, fashion, and commerce can reveal who we are and what we want to become. Others tell stories of large-scale commercial enterprises that connect countless people across the world. Two are speculative, telling tales from imagined futures in which automated shopping and VR have reached critical mass. There's JOHN WATERS' brilliant profile of REI KAWAKUBO, and GARY SHTEYNGART's telling of his experience being pulled in to the world of mechanical watches. There are keen observations on style habits influenced by a nation and a sunny golden state. And finally, a wonderful essay by LEWIS LAPHAM, on home. They all stuck with me, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. Happy holidays to all. | | - HK Mindy Meissen, curator |
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| On the South Side of Chicago and around the U.S., memorial T-shirts are a way to remember, to celebrate -- and to indict. | |
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In 032c's Issue 20, we devoted a 40-page section to Rei Kawakubo at COMME DES GARÇONS. Here, in a candid personal essay, American filmmaker John Waters shares his life with the label and its designer. | |
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My year of getting deep into perlage, three-quarter plates, and micro-rotors. | |
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Twenty-five years after luxury labels sued his Harlem boutique out of existence, Gucci looks to him for inspiration. | |
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Ivanka Inc. | by Matea Gold, Drew Harwell, Maher Sattar... |
The first daughter talks about improving the lives of working women. Her father urges companies to “buy American.” But her fashion line’s practices collide with those principles – and are out of step with industry trends. | |
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It’s 2036. We’ve automated ourselves out of shopping and shipping. Here’s how it happened. | |
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It’s your dystopia, so dress to kill--or be killed! | |
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A few months ago, while dining at Veggie Grill (one of the new breed of Chipotle-class fast-casual restaurants), a phrase popped unbidden into my head: premium mediocre. The food, I opined to my wife, was premium mediocre. She instantly got what I meant, though she didn't quite agree that Veggie Grill qualified. | |
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032c visited Hypebeast and Highsnobiety’s headquarters to take a closer look at the anatomy of fashion’s two leading content machines. | |
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When his year went to hell, Zach Baron started to wear weird clothes and wonder: Can you fix yourself on the inside by changing what you wear on the outside? | |
| How the Golden State dictates what we wear, from Venice Beach to Silicon Valley. | |
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True craftsmanship can inspire and be sustenance for a culture. | |
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Almost alone in today’s fashion industry, he understood the value of time to the creative mind and the struggle it took to follow his own direction. | |
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ASOS stocks 85,000 styles on its site. Boohoo turns around collections in two weeks flat. And competitors are freaking out. | |
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On the strange afterlife of the goods we return to the store. | |
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You might think geopolitics and your sheet mask aren't related, but you'd be wrong. | |
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The late, great style icon reflects on the sartorial history of his home country. | |
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For decades, the Belgian designer has created sumptuous fashion for thinking women. In an age of tattered luxury, he has also come to stand for independence. | |
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We’ve been dressing up as birds since the Stone Age. Eric Charles-Donatien has brought the craft of featherwork into the twenty-first century. | |
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What we lost in the casual revolution. | |
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The American democracy and dream are the building of castles in air. Whither goeth the one so goeth the other, these days up in smoke and the spout. | |
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