A little primer on the man and his sense of the future (http://www.businessinsider.com/r-in-the-rearview-mirror-car-designer-warns-on-google-game-changer-2015-10), but the real joy is this video where Okuyama discuses design with Jay Leno. It’s about the recent car he has built but his comments transcend just cars. Super interesting comments from a man with a design legacy second to few.
Contenders for the Best Dressed Award are companies that meet the definition of Max Scheler’s estate (see V&R Chapter 5). Top spot is a real possibility for a firm with the axiom: “If you manufacture somewhere else, you lose a sense of belonging to a territory.” For insight into Italian house Ermanno Scervino, where craft…
So very Max Scheler: https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/video/les-petites-mains?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=5b93d65fac-the-trouble-with-topshop-nike-launches-flyleather-&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d2191372b3-5b93d65fac-417297929 A lovely video about the seamstresses who make Dior haute couture.
V&R Chapter 1 discusses Hume’s theory of business. Boiling things down: it is not money that makes the world go around but beauty. The economy’s dynamism is a function of fantasies about luxury. Luxuries are refinements of the arts and sciences and those who want to afford them must themselves become combinations of the arts…
A celebration of Scheler’s estate: https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-bites/architectural-digest-indias-craftsmanship-issue?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=1b627e3e8e-friday-nl&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d2191372b3-1b627e3e8e-417297929
Lately, I have been writing about the moral nature of the money that supports the high end of the fashion industry. This is the money of the hyper wealthy held in trusts, typically offshore. Here is a most interesting article on the money-no-object weddings of the hyper rich (https://www.racked.com/2017/6/7/15740564/luxury-weddings). The hyper wealthy, like most…
Etro is a quirky family run business that matches well Max Scheler’s model of the estate, a requirement for being a contender for the Best Dressed Company Award. Here is a charming article about the company and some of the family (https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-colorful-world-of-etro-1502805602)(apologies if this article is behind the paywall at WSJ). The company makes clothing…
There is massive contemporary interest in Darwin and ethics. I have finished the book I mentioned a few posts back (http://www.ethicsoffashion.com/courting-birds-huizinga-right/). The author’s argument is that evolution develops along two fronts, and one of these is aesthetic. Though Darwin himself argued this, contemporary Darwinism does not agree. It is scientific orthodoxy that biological…
Anyone who follows the fashion pages knows that since Brexit it has become axiomatic that fashion is global and that means fashion is on the side of the angels. For this axiom fully on display, see: https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/wjjjay/an-interview-with-maria-grazia-chiuri-dior. Of course, I have seen no fashion page defending this idea philosophically. In an earlier post, I point…
A little while ago over at the Law & Liberty website, I published a moral analysis of trusts. In the background was a wish to flesh out the moral character of high fashion. I do not know the percentage but I presume almost all haute couture is bought with monies disbursed from offshore trusts. Alta…