I have been traveling and it’s time to post again! My friend Chris Wojtulewicz will post a super reflection on the Met Gala soon. Reactions were what you would expect: some horrified that fashion would lend credence to the Catholic Church given its position on gay sex (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5702785/Christian-fury-Met-Galas-blasphemous-Catholic-theme.html) and some dismayed that the Church…
This link to BMW’s customization unit includes a video synthesizing clothes, jewellery, design, and bespoke service. Worth watching: https://www.bmw.co.uk/discover-bmw/bmw-individual. In this video, a car enthusiast explains how she came up with modifications herself for her vintage 2002: https://petrolicious.com/films/1973-bmw-2002-a-tastefully-modified-treasure.
Andrew Bolton hails from Blackburn, Lancashire, not far from where I grew up. He is responsible for the upcoming exhibition on fashion and the Church at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It promises to be quite the event. Here is an excellent profile of Bolton and some of his motivations: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2018/apr/29/divine-inspiration-how-high-church-led-to-high-fashion. It’s…
Hermes nearly tops V&R’s Best Dressed Company Award. This articles explains the ethos of the company nicely: http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/39885/1/in-fashions-hype-driven-era-hermes-shanghai-veronique-nichanian-fast-forward. Impressive.
This is an extremely interesting article and a bit different from what one typically finds in the fashion pages (https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/bof-exclusive/antwerp-academy-student-suicide-calls-teaching-methods-into-question?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=45e5bef93e-antwerp-academy-student-suicide-calls-teaching-met&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d2191372b3-45e5bef93e-417297929). It’s prompted by the sad case of a suicide at the highly prestigious fashion school in Antwerp, Belgium. What is says about Belgian university culture is spot on, as I know from my years…
Here is a good read: https://aeon.co/essays/why-does-philosophy-hold-clothes-in-such-low-regard. It’s nice to see philosophical accounts of fashion and this one goes some way to correcting — as does V&R! — the oft-repeated claim that fashion and commerce is about hedonism (https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2018/04/why-anti-liberalism-fails/). Both articles are well worth reading but the first stands as an important corrective of the second.…
In 3 years, the 1981 Granada TV adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel, Brideshead Revisited, will be forty years old. It’s hard to believe that TV from forty years ago can look so fresh and remain psychologically so acute. In Indianapolis recently, I picked up the dvd set of the 25th Anniversary edition and…
We’ll see a lot more articles like this one in the next months and years (https://fashionista.com/2018/04/what-is-blockchain-explained-ethical-fashion-supply-chain). The article explains what blockchain is, how it relates to cryptocurrencies, and adds the interesting detail that the technology could generate ethical markets: the idea is that those interested in ethically sourced clothes — producing and buying —…
My latest on the Scottish theorists, most of whom appear in V&R. What Was the Scottish Enlightenment?
I do hope to post but will be in England these next two weeks and not doing much original writing. I am milling over a book on Andy Warhol and the Scottish Enlightenment: let me know in the comments whether you think this is a good idea. In May, I hope to give readers…