I do not know precise numbers but I’d bet the vast, vast majority — and maybe all — of fashion’s leaders (owners, designers, editors, etc) and the principal consumers have much of their money lodged in tax havens. Over at Catholic World Report, I have an assessment of a recent Vatican document’s arguments about the…
A recent innovation in advertising is the use of AI or predictive analytics to target readers via emotion. AI has learnt: ““sadness” ads are popular with “socially responsible brands targeting women.”” The NYT has been collating the data and selling it to advertisers so they can better key their product to the consumer (https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/5/21/18634323/new-york-times-emotion-based-ad-targeting-sadness). …
It’s been an amazing week for English footie. Both European cup finals will be fought by English sides only. Drama filled each of the semis, the last second winner for Tottenham a stand out. Liverpool’s victory is one for the history books, though. So it’s good to learn of a tiny maker of handmade…
Today’s op-ed from BOF is most welcome (https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/opinion/op-ed-notes-on-the-met-gucci-and-the-death-of-camp?). A typical op-ed about fashion invokes inclusivity and egalitarianism, democracy and subversion, globalism and the “voice of the street.” It’s a nice change to see the 2019 Met Gala has brought the aristocratic out in Eugene Rabkin. Dozens of pieces will be written about camp over…
Civilisation grows as play, contends Huizinga (V&R Chapter 6). One of his strongest examples is the play character of courts, judges, and trials. Here is an excellent article on clothing choices at recent trials in the US (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/fashion/anna-sorokin-elizabeth-holmes-card-b-court-fashion.html). Huizinga would think the defendants are entering into the spirit of the game.
V&R loves Roger Caillois! His work on games adds to the reflections of Huizinga (V&R Chapter 6), which I think analytically potent. Whilst Huizinga dwells on the attributes an activity must have to be a game, Caillois thinks about the classification of games. He identifies four: competition, chance, mimickry, and vertigo. These categories, respectively,…
Over at Law & Liberty, I explore how Smith would morally assess Patagonia’s new moral stance on making fleece vests for banking houses: https://www.lawliberty.org/2019/04/25/fleecing-the-bankers-patagonia-environmentalism/
Discussed at V&R Chapter 3 are the basic principles of Catholic Social Thought (CST), including the moral principle of subsidiarity. Don Quijote is a Japanese retail chain whose business plan is built on each shop having subsidiarity (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-17/the-cult-japanese-retailer-making-billions-breaking-all-the-rules). All hiring and management is local to ensure that the shops act like barometers to tastes…
A recent opinion piece at BoF argues that rapidification is necessary to bridge the gap between sluggish production and intensified consumer expectation: “Speed, tightly and newly coupled with data science, enables opportunity across each tier and partner of the supply chain” (https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/opinion/op-ed-fashion-needs-a-new-business-model-speed-is-the-answer). V&R Chapter 2 discusses Pope Francis’s critique of this ideology of technoscience…
The moral and political character of Smith’s thinking, and thus the meaning of the Scottish Enlightenment, is increasingly contested. My latest at Law & Liberty: Anxious Trade