Fashion Week Ramblings - S/S 2015

[Faust]

Spoken like a true Westerner. Everyone in Russia knows what Gosha is about.

[Fuuma]

Spoken like a true Westerner. Everyone in Russia knows what Gosha is about.

Non-argument. It is also irrelevant, my interpretation is as good as any Russian, unless he starts explaining it. I mean 90s clubbing is Soviet Nostalgia to you?

note: I know some Russian fans/friends of GR and they don't really see a full-on Soviet referential field either. See I can do that.

[Faust]

Non-argument. It is also irrelevant, my interpretation is as good as any Russian, unless he starts explaining it. I mean 90s clubbing is Soviet Nostalgia to you?

Soviet"/Russian" - did you miss that part? And no, it's not as good, because you did not grow up there and you have not lived it, so you don't have the same insight.

If you need me to extrapolate - everything in the 90s/00s was still influenced by Soviet Union, even though technically it was not USSR anymore. Hence the Soviet part.

I am looking forward to you wearing the printed РАССВЕТ tees. I swear, sometime for all your bobo criticism, you display the same traits.

[Fuuma]

Soviet"/Russian" - did you miss that part? And no, it's not as good, because you did not grow up there and you have not lived it, so you don't have the same insight.

If you need me to extrapolate - everything in the 90s/00s was still influenced by Soviet Union, even though technically it was not USSR anymore. Hence the Soviet part.

I am looking forward to you wearing the printed РАССВЕТ tees. I swear, sometime for all your bobo criticism, you display the same traits.

I own a PACCBET longsleeve that I have worn a few times.

This one:

http://distilleryimage0.s3.amazonaws.com/54b81fa2bbc211e3822e12dafa26d970_6.jpg

[apathy!]

Definitely true, I get the shudder when I see these people running around in Rick Owens and skirts because it's all about "avant garde fashion" right now. I am acquainted with some of "these people". If people stopped wearing geobaskets and ramones because of their present rampant use in mainstream culture then I'm not going to hate or condemn. I distinctly remember the first time I saw a Rick Owens dunk (2008 on someone's feet shopping at Steven Alan) and how much I liked it, and how much that one moment changed fashion for me forever. A dunk still turns my head but for the most part, it doesn't garner the same kind of attention especially when I look up and I see hood by air and pyrex. It's more of a wistful afterthought, waiting for this "trend" to blow by so we can sink back into the shadows!

Unfortunately I feel like by the time the trend has blowed over a lot of the appeal will be gone.

note: I know some Russian fans/friends of GR and they don't really see a full-on Soviet referential field either. See I can do that.

[1994]

Want to chime in to say that I don’t think either of you are incorrect. But I also think there is a critical middle ground to approaching Rubchinskiy.

The Gosha line is an autobiographical home-grown account of post-Soviet youth. Gosha’s work is about opposite ends of a spectrum, forming a bridge between past and present.

For every Thrasher typeface set aflame there’s a color blocked reference to Soviet Constructivists. It’s as much about current Russian skate culture as it is 1990s NYC Supreme, or sportswear in contemporary Europe compared to Soviet-era Olympic uniforms, even punk and club kid scenes of the past and present such as Gabber. Gosha is interested in how subcultures grow, separate, and aesthetically reflect or build upon one another. This coagulates into a cross-generational sampling of youth culture.

And I do think that there is the fetishism of uniforms/uniformity throughout Gosha’s work. I think he's extremely critical of it especially from a subcultural level. The easiest comparison to Raf I can think of is in this quote from Redux:

“The jacket of Raf’s father still smells of smoke. It is not necessarily a thing of beauty, but as I took some pictures of a twenty-two-year-old boy wearing it, I found I could imagine Raf trying it on when he was a teenager, maybe sneaking in front of a mirror to secretly measure himself against his father’s history.”

He fulfills the same role for Comme as someone like Ganryu. I don’t see Gosha’s work being kitsch, as much as I simply believe it to be honest.

[Faust]

You are right somewhat, though I am sure you will get an argument from some in the Russian creative class about honesty in Gosha's work, but my point was that he is not a designer and the collection was atrocious and there is a difference between making tees with references and doing a collection. His ability to mine youth culture references does not make him Raf Simons.

[Fuuma]

You are right somewhat, though I am sure you will get an argument from some in the Russian creative class about honesty in Gosha's work, but my point was that he is not a designer and the collection was atrocious and there is a difference between making tees with references and doing a collection. His ability to mine youth culture references does not make him Raf Simons.

I like this take better, I have to say I bought another sweatshirt yesterday but then I got a supreme sweat at the same time. Right now Gosha is a DJ/photographer/high-end skate clothing designer, it is a little bit absurd he'd throw on a show but he's definitely a fine addition to a streetwear wardrobe.

[nqth]

May I ask you some questions as I find GR's works quite problematic.
What is the relation of Gosha's clothing and photography/video to Western's stereotypes about post Soviet Russia? Do Russian people think skate subculture in Russia is sort of an "imitation" of Western youth culture and is it seen as a "good" thing?
I have some problem when watching his video or photography of young boys who look like coming from a rather low economic status background. GR filmed/shoot them like in amateurish Eastern Europe gay porn. I don't know if he makes it against the stereotypes of he just reinforces those stereotypes. I know that it might be very different depend on how you read it but I'd like to know your point of views.

[Fuuma]

May I ask you some questions as I find GR's works quite problematic.
What is the relation of Gosha's clothing and photography/video to Western's stereotypes about post Soviet Russia? Do Russian people think skate subculture in Russia is sort of an "imitation" of Western youth culture and is it seen as a "good" thing?
I have some problem when watching his video or photography of young boys who look like coming from a rather low economic status background. GR filmed/shoot them like in amateurish Eastern Europe gay porn. I don't know if he makes it against the stereotypes of he just reinforces those stereotypes. I know that it might be very different depend on how you read it but I'd like to know your point of views.

The question of exploitation also comes up with photographers like Larry Clark or David Hamilton, to use magnified examples, and it remains, to me, unresolved. I don't look at it through an ethical angle but an aesthetic one, wondering how it shapes the nature of the work, the possibilities that open up, the ongoing dialogue with contemporary culture. In other words I am simply unable to answer that one from an overarching, objective point of view, relying on pure subjective, context-specific experience.

note: I don't need to ask myself these questions when looking at Terry Richardson's work because his work sucks so the investigation stops here, the ambiguity arises when the work bring both intellectual and sensory joy while at the same time creating a feeling of unease.

[1994]

May I ask you some questions as I find GR's works quite problematic...
-- I have some problem when watching his video or photography of young boys who look like coming from a rather low economic status background. GR filmed/shoot them like in amateurish Eastern Europe gay porn...

I think it's important to note the huge aesthetic, social, etc references and relationships centered around sportswear throughout Europe.

While we have streetwear in countries like the U.S. there isn't the same lad/hooligan/banliue/gopnik/etc culture and stereotypes around sportswear that there are in European nations.

Documentaries such as The Fall of Communism As Seen in Gay Pornography and movies like La Haine fall on opposite ends of the spectrum in visually presenting how these aesthetic signifiers are created, fetishized, and exploited.

[Faust]

/\ That is true. One thing I don't miss about Europe being in the US are the ubiquitous Adidas track pants, although now it's in the early stages of being co-opted as a fashion thing.



Photo by Nabile Quenum

[schemedream]

How does one even leave the house like that? I've had some bad days in fashion, but I at least own a mirror.

[schemedream]

It's like the male version of the Ugg boots and juicy sweats.

[apathy!]

obviously you guys have never been to Australia...