Three brief profiles of Englishmen at the peak of the fashion establishment. Each of them worthy expositors of Hume’s civilisational goal, the refinement of the arts and sciences.
I love this passage from an interview with Edward Enninful, editor of British Vogue:
“I used to spend all my money on books I couldn’t afford just so I could learn about the people who had been before — all the great editors, the great designers. You have to study. [Styling] is not just going to a party and thinking you’re fabulous because you know how to put outfits together,” he says, likening styling more to acting or singing. “You have to study your craft.”
Enninful is very much establishment: as the journalist jubilantly tell us, “he has the power to determine whose stories are told at all” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/lifestyle/edward-enninful-vogue-fashion-editor/). V&R Chapter 7 reviews Kolnai’s arguments for the moral positivity of privilege and establishment, and it is good to see an establishment figure so bookish.
Andrew Bolton is an establishment figure par excellence. He sets the themes for the Met’s annual fashion exhibition. He grew up in Lancashire, close to where I did, and studied anthropology at the University of East Anglia, in the lovely city of Norwich. Oddly enough, the Kolnai archive was housed there for a while. Again, it is good to see an establishment fashion figure with such a solid theoretical background (https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/11816/andrew-bolton-met-gala-anna-wintour-alexander-mcqueen-sarabande).
Sir Jony Ive has semi-retired from Apple and it is likely no person has shaped the beauty of our contemporary world more than him. Not only has the Queen made him a KBE, he is also the Chancellor of the Royal College of Art, and outgoing design chief at Apple. Sir Jony was instrumental in making Apple the establishment company it is today. This interesting article points out that the iPhone is a net benefit to the environment. It is a classic Humean example: even though the iPhone does require some unusual minerals, it has replaced a swath of other electrical gadgets that have all been rolled into the iPhone’s own functionality. Apple’s refinement of the arts and sciences has helped dematerialize tech and limited industrialism’s impact on our geography (https://www.wired.com/story/iphone-environment-consumption/).
