random fashion thoughts

[550BC]

daou0782 well said!

[apathy!]

I don't understand what you mean by the thrift shop analogy.

I think a designers aesthetic would certainly endure. Maybe it would be harder to appreciate outside of its original context though. If someone found a whole lot of Rick in 100 years, there would still exist a very cohesive aesthetic.

Also, I would say that fashion is one of the least inclusive forms of expression.

[Faust]

Fair enough. What designs/designers can you show me that transcend aesthetics?

Dude, if I have to show that to you, I wonder what are you doing on SZ?

[Faust]

I'd like to chime in here only because a friend said almost the exact same thing the other day in a similar discussion we were having. My retort was that while I do prefer music I enjoy, can released to and find the lyrics to be insightful, I by no means dislike everything that isn't all three. Have you never heard music you enjoy despite disagreeing or perhaps even not understanding the meaning, or likewise found the lyrics delegates from the song beautiful but sung horribly to terrible music?

I have enjoyed music without knowing the words before I learned English, yes. Did I enjoy it more after I learned the words? Absolutely. Profoundly more. Never experienced a song where I found the lyrics terrible but liked the song enough to listen to it solely because of the music. Maybe that's why I can't stand most pop and hip-hop.

But that's just me. I'm a writer, not a musician. If I want to enjoy music without words I listen to classical music or techno.

Anyway, that was an analogy and not music analysis, and I think the analogy stands. But when you will find that perfect Dolce & Gabbana black leather jacket, enjoy it by all means.

[apathy!]

What I'm talking about is that I personally don't look for anything more than aesthetic values in clothing. Do you think of your clothing as political or philosopical or something? I'm not trying to be confrontational, I just find that surprising.

I'm sure ill get a lot of these:

But when you will find that perfect Dolce & Gabbana black leather jacket, enjoy it by all means.

I think he was saying that he can appreciate some work without enjoying every possible aspect of it.

[malaesthetique]

If you reduce aesthetics to a technical discourse, or only use the weak sense of the word, then of course its apolitical or depoliticized. Following Ranciere I would argue that aesthetics is first and foremost a mode of experience, not to be confused with escapism and mimesis, that fundamentally disarms ideological processes. Thus inherently political, not in terms of its content but in its ability to desubjectify.

What I'm talking about is that I personally don't look for anything more than aesthetic values in clothing. Do you think of your clothing as political or philosopical or something? I'm not trying to be confrontational, I just find that surprising.

I'm sure ill get a lot of these:





I think he was saying that he can appreciate some work without enjoying every possible aspect of it.

[casem]

But were do you think these aesthetic values come from? They certainly aren't innate and no one lives in a cultural vacuum. I don't see it possible to divorce the "designer's story" from from their aesthetic. They're one and the same and one becomes illegible without the other.

What I'm talking about is that I personally don't look for anything more than aesthetic values in clothing. Do you think of your clothing as political or philosopical or something? I'm not trying to be confrontational, I just find that surprising.

I'm sure ill get a lot of these:





I think he was saying that he can appreciate some work without enjoying every possible aspect of it.

[apathy!]

But were do you think these aesthetic values come from? They certainly aren't innate and no one lives in a cultural vacuum. I don't see it possible to divorce the "designer's story" from from their aesthetic. They're one and the same and one becomes illegible without the other.

It's a good point and reading back over what I posted it was poorly considered.

[daou0782]

Also, I would say that fashion is one of the least inclusive forms of expression.

Well, there's "weak" fashion which refers to something everyone participates in whether consciously or not, and then there's "strong" fashion or Fashion which refers specifically to the fashion "world" or the fashion "industry."

In my original comment, where I appreciated fashion's inclusiveness/diversity I was referring to lower case fashion. In regards to your comment--which I assume refers to upper case Fashion--I'd say there are a few other "forms of expression" or fields of cultural production more exclusive than fashion. For instance, architecture.

[Fuuma]

I think this question can be approached at least from two different angles: one ideological and one pragmatic.

Ideologically, I think this is a matter of personal preference. It is like believing in the myth of progress. When I have this discussion with friends, I propose the following hypothetical scenario: A Ugandan thrift shop in the year 2070. Young people scourge the racks finding "vintage" pieces from names that mean nothing to them: McQueen, Miyake, Margiela. Their worlds long gone, dissolved in time. How could one possibly "showcase a designer's aesthetic" when it's all stripped back to raw fabric?

This is an absurd way of looking at things and typical of the personal/collective subjective/objective binary debate that often rages in various academic disciplines because it tends to align with dominant political parties in western market democracies ( the right wing ones who speak in terms of individuals versus the left-wing ones who utter their own nonsense about the collective).

Pascal once said something to the effect of "I am in the world and the world is within me." (I am heavily paraphrasing).

To make it simple you experience clothing from a subjective, situated place within the social space. This is the place where the narrative makes sense to you through an historicized perspective. It should be obvious it cannot be transported through time, place and context to another subjective position (someone else thrifting in 2070 Uganda) and still have the same meaning. This is no way negates your own experience. If the Ugandan wanted to understand your own relationship to a designer's narrative/whatever he would have to aim at objectivization through a double historicization of your respective positions (his matters as much as your own). This is what researchers in social sciences attempt to do.

[Fuuma]

If you reduce aesthetics to a technical discourse, or only use the weak sense of the word, then of course its apolitical or depoliticized. Following Ranciere I would argue that aesthetics is first and foremost a mode of experience, not to be confused with escapism and mimesis, that fundamentally disarms ideological processes. Thus inherently political, not in terms of its content but in its ability to desubjectify.

Aesthetics here being seen as a transcendental form that allow you to shed your status as subject and experience "beauty" at an objective, non-personal level. Narratives though live in history and nowhere else, hence my previous post.

Good to have you back man, hope everything is well.

[andrew]

I have enjoyed music without knowing the words before I learned English, yes. Did I enjoy it more after I learned the words? Absolutely. Profoundly more. Never experienced a song where I found the lyrics terrible but liked the song enough to listen to it solely because of the music. Maybe that's why I can't stand most pop and hip-hop.

But that's just me. I'm a writer, not a musician. If I want to enjoy music without words I listen to classical music or techno.

Anyway, that was an analogy and not music analysis, and I think the analogy stands. But when you will find that perfect Dolce & Gabbana black leather jacket, enjoy it by all means.

And I still agree with the analogy in terms of the above, its better when the things align but they can still be good when divorced of context or in spite of it.

Maybe the writer not musician thing is also apt. As someone who works in the fashion industry making clothes, including for designers who are popular here I am more skeptical of how much context goes into any given garment. I think many people on this board (and that's not directed at anyone in particular) would be surprised to learn how little involvement a designer and their ideals can actually have to do with a particular garment, and equally how much it can have to do with another garment you wouldn't necessarily expect it to have had.

I feel I'm rambling a little given that ultimately I agree with your original point in theory, but I simply feel that sometimes too much weight can be put on the idea of the designer as philosopher or something rather than simply someone who makes clothes to look good. I guess it could easily be argued that their "message" just has to exist within certain parameters but to me its not a given, which is, I guess, the unresolvable point.

If rick makes a vest because the collection needs another vest, it will be made in the same way, by the same factory from the same fabrics as his other jersey pieces and will ultimately be indistinguishable from the rest of the collection theoretically, even if he and his designers had nothing at all to do with it and the factory just made a direct copy of a d and g vest. (I'm not claiming this happens happens its just a hypothetical example)

[550BC]

this discussion sort of belongs HERE correct?

[casem]

I wish I had never found out about Pyrex and Been Trill, my brain still hurts attempting to comprehend it which makes me feel old.

[unwashed]

Appears to be a whole movement wearing bandana's, black clothes with huge big white logo's/stripes/blocks with logo's/vomit while combining/associating with Rick Owens and writing V's instead of A's.

I tried to understand this movement, but failed. Some of the silhouettes are not to bad, but these giant fucking logo's...

hashtagrickowens on instagram will make your eyes bleed shit.