NEXT

[fncyths]

Think we ( or me ) was going on about the new aesthetic of global capitalism was the NEXT thing.

Not to get on the hate train but that image is crap! Next isn't some sort of over vectorized neofuturistic deodorant pizzaz. Maybe you're pointing that out and I've overlooked it...

Next to me is incorporating a sound diet so your body takes in less toxins and is able to flush them out without creating an overly malodorous environment for yourself and those around you.

I've been recently vibing out on Aesop. Love what they're doing right now. To me this is NEXT :

http://www.beautysnob.com/2011/06/aesop_deodorant_the_sweet_smel.html

[Jin]

pierce, you fucking killing me

[pierce4]

I'm going to melt your head with this one Gin:

Stanford Persuasive Tech Lab - Machines Designed To Change Humans

http://captology.stanford.edu/

They released a paper on the steps needed to influence the masses for your own ends. Some choice quotes below

http://www.bjfogg.com/mip.pdf

"In my work and my lab, we focus on topics that benefit people, motivating them toward better health, more responsible environmental behavior, and so on. But the persuasive intent could be frivolous or it could be downright evil.

Mass interpersonal persuasion matters because this new phenomenon gives ordinary individuals the ability to reach and influence millions of people. This is new. Over the past century, mass media has been the primary channel for persuasion. These channels were controlled by powerful people and organizations. They used mass media largely to achieve their own goals. Now, the landscape is changing.

If human nature were fundamentally bad, I would be worried about MIP. Certainly, this new power could have a dark side. But I believe we humans are fundamentally good. I believe that, for the most part, we will create vehicles for MIP that will benefit society—that will enhance education, improve health, and help to bridge national and cultural divides."

[PoubelleMaBelle]

[worth watching in their entirety---all parts]

now and then.


---




^ also by adam curtis (& tangentially related to the tangent).

[zamb]

I

If human nature were fundamentally bad, I would be worried about MIP. Certainly, this new power could have a dark side. But I believe we humans are fundamentally good. I believe that, for the most part, we will create vehicles for MIP that will benefit society—that will enhance education, improve health, and help to bridge national and cultural divides."

Yea........

keep dreaming
the history of human civilization is the history of mankind doing injustice to his neighbor..........and even in the "collective good" some selfish ends must exist that people realize can only be achieved by working together, so..........yea, keep dreaming

[the-orb]

I think it's been mentioned a couple of times already in this thread, but I really find the concept 3D printing quite interesting and hope it can be discussed further. Unfortunately, I don't have any experience with it myself and also don't have insider knowledge of the fashion industry. Still, I'm wondering if any designers have tried this approach and whether it would bring some new ideas. For instance, assuming that some material is used where the whole piece is built in microscopic layers, could it be used to create completely seamless pieces? Kind of like m.a+, but one step beyond. I could see some label like Arcteryx Veilance, combining very technical materials and techniques with decent tailoring and designs, trying this out. And if this does take off, fashion degrees could become much more technology-oriented than they are nowadays.

[525252]

oh my I've missed so much discussion

I did read through the whole thread just now, there's been some very good points, others veering off into irrelevance. I find the zeitgeist currently is the insecurity of knowing everything is fucked without having any solutions. eg. Occupy Wall St, education reform, global warming, plastic surgery in South Korea, nuclear arms in North Korea etc ad infinitum.
So following on that vein I think many have given critiques of fashion today, in reference to the past, with no suggestion for the future.

Here's a list of things which I think are fundamental changes that need to take place in fashion:

SUSTAINABLE PRACTICE AND ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITY
is ideal, but much like how charity often "helps" with well meaning ignorance and accidentally make things worse, "eco-fashion" "anti counterfeit" "anti slave labour" are complex issues which can't be made fashionable for a mass bandaid solution. Not territory worth wandering into if you don't know what the hell you're doing ie. people need to know what the hell they're doing because their actions have massive implications

eg. used clothing donations to 3rd world countries became popular in the 90s, resulted in increased poverty and ruined local economies, added pollution, waste of everyone's time and money

http://goodintents.org/in-kind-donations/toms-shoes

PEOPLE BUYING LESS AND SPENDING MORE PER ITEM
Faust said this before, I agree with everything that was said.

http://stylezeitgeist.com/forums/showpost.php?p=378010&postcount=52

edit: wait! no, I don't! I kind of covered this in another thread, http://stylezeitgeist.com/forums/sho...8&postcount=61
mass-education-rhetoric-programs don't work quite as well as "being the change you wish to see in the world." excuse the cheese


NOBODY SHOULD WORK FOR FREE
I don't even mean the poor people who stitch rags for H&M. For some reason the fashion industry seems to be free to exploit more than most, down to unpaid internships, assisting etc.
Only a select few can afford to work for free as students/graduates/interns and it very commonly becomes a case of "daddy helped me get here", lowering the standards and expectations of work, typically as such when nobody is getting paid. It ruins the economy, industry, makes life hard for errbody.
The portfolio/critique model WORKS: as in an employer as mentor being ideal, if not, at least there's rent earned. Employees being selected by portfolio, (not friend circles or CV) results in low employee turnover, higher efficiency (less re-training), a nice fucking work environment.
If you can't pay your staff, maybe you aren't in a position to have any.


ADVERTISING SHOULD BE REGULATED
Aggressive marketing, especially when directed towards children, adolescents, vulnerable folk, is the bane of my existence and #1 on my list of reasons why I hate humanity
When children continue to grow up thinking owning lots of shit is the pinnacle of existence, it gets a lot harder to undo the irresponsible work of bad parenting/evil corporations
On that note, in the words of Tavi Gevinson more or less, people need to stop fetishising youth, the most subversive thing a young person can do is just grow old. (She said this in response to John Waters' critique of youth culture today.) If youth didn't have the pressure of needing to create a counter-culture in the impossible conditions of post-post-modern overload society, hipsters, or anti-capitalist consumers in general, would not exist. Expectations of youth are outdated, irrelevant, unforgiving, isolating and create epidemic environments for hipsters.

I don't know why the hell people have said things about new silhouettes, next technology. I'm pretty sure many a time it was concluded on SZ forums that design is a balanced dynamic between innovation and craft, always has been. The moment someone mentions "aesthetics" we know we're no longer talking about clothes, instead pure novelty, soon to be kitsch, FASHUN

In conclusion to my magnum opus of a list, here's a quote from a commenter on an article posted on Business of Fashion

http://www.businessoffashion.com/2012/05/is-fashion-ready-for-a-new-aesthetic.html

(first comment, its more valuable than the article itself IMO)

Fashion’s innovation is simply suffering from over exposure and plagiarism. Too much available product and accessibility has rendered the discipline a passive and dumbed down obsession. However, fashion will always spurn new movements, designers, directions and sub-groups. There is a school of thought to take fashion ‘offline’, creating an offline network of serious, real life players. This movement would explore tactility, exclusivity, non-mass, 1 of 1 culture and would absorb more experimental creative, business models.

Anyway, much to be said that was left unsaid for the sake of being concise, hope it wasn't too vague.

[pierce4]

Agree 100% 525252 about advertising.

Just on 3d printing, I'm doing alot of reading about it at the moment

Neri Oxman at MIT's structures:





Computer generated patterns and fashion

http://www.continuumfashion.com/D.html

charlotte becket, cyclops. Love this so much, pretty much sums up the current zeitgeist


The eye/mouth actually opens and closes freaky shit.

http://www.charlottebecket.com/video/Cyclops.mov

[525252]

you're missing the point

Pierce, its all very interesting and such, but everything you've said so far is either decrying the sad state of this world using sensationalised examples or suggesting novelty gimmicks as solutions (or so I think, I've found your posts quite difficult to understand)

[525252]

oh man I totally missed the discussion train.

[the-orb]

That's intriguing, but I'd be interested to hear if any SZ related brands have tried this. Who knows, maybe one day you could go to Atelier, pick some item you like and then have it custom fitted and printed on the spot using source materials and blueprints provided by CCP. Or have a model of yourself that you can send to the designer or shop, who can then deliver an exact fit. That would alleviate one of the biggest concerns with online shopping: improper fit. More interestingly, it would allow creating some shapes and patterns that are very difficult or impossible to do by hand.

Here is some more reading:

http://thecreatorsproject.com/de/blog/modern-silhouettes-3d-printed-wedges-from-hoon-chung

http://www.atcrux.com/2012/07/27/3d-printed-shoes-that-use-innovative-technology-for-style-and-comfort.html

Just on 3d printing, I'm doing alot of reading about it at the moment

Computer generated patterns and fashion

http://www.continuumfashion.com/D.html

[Faust]

I think it's been mentioned a couple of times already in this thread, but I really find the concept 3D printing quite interesting and hope it can be discussed further. Unfortunately, I don't have any experience with it myself and also don't have insider knowledge of the fashion industry. Still, I'm wondering if any designers have tried this approach and whether it would bring some new ideas. For instance, assuming that some material is used where the whole piece is built in microscopic layers, could it be used to create completely seamless pieces? Kind of like m.a+, but one step beyond. I could see some label like Arcteryx Veilance, combining very technical materials and techniques with decent tailoring and designs, trying this out. And if this does take off, fashion degrees could become much more technology-oriented than they are nowadays.

Perhaps you've missed our coverage of Iris van Herpen's work. Some info on the forums and in the first issue of SZ magazine.

[Faust]

OT: Fncyths, could you elaborate on your love of Aesop - perhaps in the "men's grooming" thread we have here? I tried to get into it, but to me it just looks like a more expensive alternative to Khiel's or Malin+Goetz. I do like their earthy esthetic.

[Burlingame]

I don't know why the hell people have said things about new silhouettes, next technology. I'm pretty sure many a time it was concluded on SZ forums that design is a balanced dynamic between innovation and craft, always has been. The moment someone mentions "aesthetics" we know we're no longer talking about clothes, instead pure novelty, soon to be kitsch, FASHUN

Yes, why would anyone discuss "aesthetics" when talking about clothing? The way it looks is irrelevant. When we discuss different periods in fashion history, we mostly focus on the way the garments were produced, not the way it looked, right? When I get dressed in the morning, I'm putting together various methods of production that work together. SZ, after all, is such a diverse collection of aesthetics united by an overarching philosophy governing how garments should be made. And designers, of course, give little thought to the way their products look.

Let's cut the bullshit. The way clothing looks matters. I'm not saying everything else isn't important. It definitely is. New technology and methods of production can have a huge effect on the way people dress. But what technology is really capable of having that effect right now? Issey Miyake has some fascinating ideas, but I don't see them being used except by Miyake. Aitor Throup's way of creating would never work on a large scale (I don't think he'd even want it to). What's really going to change things? Well, if global warming causes the price of cotton to skyrocket we may see a vast shift in what most clothes are made of. Now THAT would be a change. But of course that won't be happening for years, if it does at all. What's NEXT is likely more of the same, just with a slightly altered appearance. I, for one, think that appearance is worth considering.

[525252]

Okay, I had a feeling someone was going to hit me up on that one. I was conscious of that dubious sentence, if anything the word "aesthetic" should have been written ""aesthetic"".

There was a point where topics were on the verge of trend forecasting which is exactly what we don't need. I made a rushed and pretty much bad attempt to address that.

I'll write up a bit more about aesthetics when I get back from preschool.