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  • tricotineacetat
    Senior Member
    • Aug 2009
    • 206

    I don't think it's of importance to keep in mind the reason that Lanvin probably wanted to boost fragrance sales when teaming up with H&M for their collaboration or that it gave H&M a certain excitement that they would normally never manage to generate from selling generic clothing basics... I don't take those points into account when I look at the clothes based on a purely quality-informed level - Which is precisely what I have been trying to point out: That when seen entirely from a sober, construction, fabrics and finish-informed point of view, they did a fairly good job on the clothing, which was a huge improvement on the designer's collections that were previously made with H&M.

    On the other side of the business, you can look at the quality from secondary lines manufactured by licensees such as Ittierre or .Sinv and you will know what I mean about bad quality marketed at a much higher pricepoint... So yes, getting back to the afore mentioned Lanvin collection, I found the tailored men's jackets (block-fused) were made of nice fabrics and finished better than, say, what Raf Simons' has made lately in countries such as Bosnia or whereever some of his mainline had been outsourced to, whereas the dresses were made of substantial silk gazar or technical taffettas not unlike those you would normally find in Lanvin's mainline clothing. The finishing on these was fine, down to the choice of zips and other accessories. I did notice the misstep in the footwear they made as well as the horrid plastic jewelry but among the entire line up of the range, there were a few great finds that were a really good deal far beyond the modest prices these were sold for. Production was also mostly done in Romania and not China - But even then, you have brands like Givenchy or Yohji that produce parts of their clothing in China and that doesn't even lead them to better price points...

    Of course I don't see these collaborations as being the answer to ever rising high-end designers prices, but with high fashion informing a much larger audience than it used to maybe 30 years ago, it is safe to say there is a significantly larger interest and awareness in designer's fashion that probably didn't exist to that extend before. I think these collaborations are first and foremost aiming at a customer that would love to buy a piece of Lanvin, Stella McCartney or whoever else is the designer but cannot afford the prices of their main lines, except for when there is a clearance sale. The fact that these clothes were worn also by people in the industry (similarily to the successful Christopher Kane for Topshop range) shows that the clothes had style and decent enough quality to be worn with other high end designers.

    Comment

    • lowrey
      ventiundici
      • Dec 2006
      • 8383

      Originally posted by Chilton0326
      And as for Jun's comments, he simply wants everyone to care about good design, and he was disappointed by the end product from other designers' past "fast fashion" collaborations (just as you have been). He criticized his fellow designers' past efforts, but in no way did he criticize the underlying principle that's supposed to be behind such collaborations...
      Jun has specifically criticized collaborations altogether by saying they are too business oriented and lack soul, and that he would not do one. Undercover has taken jabs at the entire mainstream fashion industry, even the consumers of it.

      This ‘unreal’ system is sustained by the fashion and marketing industry. On the other side mass produced and cheap clothes now determine fashion trends. But is there any passion embedded in this soulless mass production of cheap garments? Promotion and marketing consume most of the money the sales of these clothes generate. Ordinary consumers are attracted to fast fashionchain stores and even form long queues outside them. Money has become the new authority, this is the new trend. Everything has become associated to money. Is this what fashion is ultimately about?

      what part of this do you not understand?


      Originally posted by Chilton0326
      And lastly, is it really so offensive that some people can appreciate art and good design without knowing the names behind the works ? A person need not know Undercover or CdG, yet still have the intellectual capacity to appreciate a nice-fitting pair of pants, or a clever t-shirt design.
      this is incredibly naive. do you think those thousands of people lining outside a H&M or Uniqlo rushed in, punching other people on the way, for a fucking "nice-fitting pair of pants"?

      this is not about about whether or not there will be a nice pair of pants in the collection, or if 1 out of 200 customers will value them instead of queues and ad campaigns. we are talking about integrity and blind hype-consumerism.
      "AVANT GUARDE HIGHEST FASHION. NOW NOW this is it people, these are the brands no one fucking knows and people are like WTF. they do everything by hand in their freaking secret basement and shit."

      STYLEZEITGEIST MAGAZINE | BLOG

      Comment

      • Nikov
        Senior Member
        • Nov 2008
        • 385

        Exactly. What a few of us have been trying to say is that this argument is not about the success or failure of the clothes from a design point of view. It is about the hype-driven mindless consumerism of a fast fashion collaboration that Jun professed to be against.


        Originally posted by Chilton0326
        The only benefit I see to Jun is the pleasure of dressing more people, as well as the challenge of trying to succeed where other peers have failed. (It's also possibly just a case of him working more as a mentor to some of the young Japanese talent who joined Uniqlo as a result of his ad for them. He's at an age where working like Rei as a mentor to young designers might have some attraction.)
        Originally posted by Chilton0326
        Just name the profession -- law, medicine, theology, education -- and you can find people who don't work for the paycheck, but who work to satisfy an inner need. I personally put Jun in this camp. He would still create (garments, dolls, furniture) even if no one buys his work, and even if his 36 stores in Japan close.

        As for Jun's own motivation behind this Uniqlo collaboration, I have no idea. But I don't think all punks sell out. And I don't think it's bourgeois to genuinely want to dress "the ordinary consumer" too.
        You say that you have no idea about Jun's motivation for wanting to do this collaboration, but you keep going on and on about how Jun wants to do this because of the challenge. That he wants to succeed where others failed. That he wants to make good design available to everybody and so on. Why do you think so? Is there some interview where he states his desire to do such things? Or is it speculation?

        I agree with you that in any profession, there are people who don't work for the money. But let's be honest, these fast-fashion collaborations are about making a quick buck. You wouldn't find yourself in a brothel unless you're there to fuck.

        Originally posted by Chilton0326
        And lastly, is it really so offensive that some people can appreciate art and good design without knowing the names behind the works ? A person need not know Undercover or CdG, yet still have the intellectual capacity to appreciate a nice-fitting pair of pants, or a clever t-shirt design.
        No, it's not offensive at all, but please be realistic. That is not the case here. The people who lined up for the CdG collaboration and then bum rushed the store as soon as the doors opened had never felt the fabric or tried the items on to judge whether or not they were a nice-fitting pair of pants. Now, I'm sure there were some people who lined up for the potential of finding a nice pair of pants, ie.- they saw the pics online and thought it looked nice, but they weren't going to buy it unless it felt nice and fit well. But the videos showed that the majority of the people just grabbed everything in sight, in whatever sizes their hands managed to get a hold of, and bought them without trying. And then most of that stuff ended up on ebay the same night at higher than retail prices. That is just blind consumerism, and honestly, I don't know if it will be any different for an Undercover collaboration, regardless of how nice/crappy the items are from a design point of view.

        Comment

        • Nikov
          Senior Member
          • Nov 2008
          • 385

          Jun's collaboration with Nike is different. Nike is not exactly a fast-fashion store. Sure, they sell a lot of hyped items, but they also have the technical know-how to design items that enhance performance. Also, the gyakusou items were not that affordable. They weren't marketed for the masses.

          Comment

          • lowrey
            ventiundici
            • Dec 2006
            • 8383

            Originally posted by Nikov View Post
            You wouldn't find yourself in a brothel unless you're there to fuck.
            but perhaps the nice people of the brothel want to show that they don't really care about sex or money, and they are inviting people over for tea and lengthy intellectual discussions?

            no?
            "AVANT GUARDE HIGHEST FASHION. NOW NOW this is it people, these are the brands no one fucking knows and people are like WTF. they do everything by hand in their freaking secret basement and shit."

            STYLEZEITGEIST MAGAZINE | BLOG

            Comment

            • Faust
              kitsch killer
              • Sep 2006
              • 37852

              Originally posted by Chilton0326
              I simply read this differently. He is making a general criticism of "fast fashion" he has seen -- but he is not saying it does nto have the potential to be good.



              I see this as much a comment against his fellow designers as about the stores they've partnered with. When a designer commits to projects for the wrong reasons, then treat their job with less passion than they would their mainline collections, the end results are understandably sub-par.

              Jun's collection with NIKE was good, not merely sub-par, because he actually approached it with all of his design expertise, and tried to fix things that nagged him as a runner -- ie feeling change in your pocket, etc.




              Well, I agree with Tricotineacetat -- a lot of people, including many bloggers that seem disrespected by some here, know a lot about fashion these days -- and I also just think there are people who can appreciate a garment (received as a gift, or bought on a whim)
              as fully as someone else without actually knowing the name of the designer behind the garment...
              We can stop right there. This is like Republican politics. Who cares about facts, as long as we put our spin on it, it's all good. Chilton, the facts don't conform to your narrative.

              And Jun's collection for Nike was absolutely no different from what Nike does. Zilch. I couldn't tell a difference if it wasn't for the label.

              And, please enlighten us how fast fashion is going to ride out into the new glorious sunset. With Jun's designs they will magically transform from sweatshop running, consumerism promoting, resoruces destroying, shit-slinging conglomerates that only care about profits into paragons of design virtue? What a crock of shit.
              Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

              StyleZeitgeist Magazine

              Comment

              • interest1
                Senior Member
                • Nov 2008
                • 3351

                .
                These people think you people are nuts.


                The Queen ┈┄┅┉┈┈ Takahiro Miyashita ┈┄┅┉┈┈ Jun Takahashi
                .
                .
                sain't
                .

                Comment

                • genevieveryoko
                  Senior Member
                  • Sep 2009
                  • 868

                  Originally posted by interest1 View Post
                  These people think you people are nuts.
                  that's what I was thinking too
                  http://genevievelarson.tumblr.com/

                  Comment

                  • Servo2000
                    Senior Member
                    • Oct 2006
                    • 2183

                    Something this and the Alaia interview have had me thinking about is this term that we use - 'fast fashion.' What does it really mean? We seem use it describe Uniqlo, Topshop, All Saints, H&M, and others when their business practices, target markets and aesthetics are pretty disparate. As a result, the term 'fast fashion' seem like more of a pejorative term that describes the customer and frankly in a way that seems fairly classist - the implication of 'fast fashion' being that it's 'cheap, disposable.' This may be true of people who are also buying and can afford Rick Owens but what about (a good number of people) for whom a J+ jacket would be a major seasonal purchase, people who do most of their shopping at Macy's and maybe splurge on a better-fitting, slightly better made Uniqlo down jacket for winter?

                    I think one point chilton is making that I appreciate (and I don't agree with him across the board and certainly don't believe that many of the collaborations so far have actually done so) is that this is the potential for these collections - to make good, world-class design affordable. As he said, while the Undercover mainline, for instance, relies and is often good as a result of its fabrics it is not impossible to do good work with less. In fact, I feel it should be an imperative and in that sense J+ was successful. It's not, and wasn't, for people on SZ or even on Superfuture in my opinion. It's for people who want clothing that feels contemporary, who have a sense and desire for better design but can't afford more than a $60 button-down. It's not supposed to compete with Jil Sander or even anything at Barney's Co-Op, it's competing with Target and Men's Wearhouse in the sense that they hope that people are willing to spend $60 rather than $40 - just for the sake of design.
                    WTB: Rick Owens Padded MA-1 Bomber XS (LIMO / MOUNTAIN)

                    Comment

                    • cowsareforeating
                      Senior Member
                      • Jan 2011
                      • 1032

                      ^+1

                      at some point in time this thread shifted from undercover+uniqlo to

                      "Is exclusivity part of 'good' design', since apparently anything mainstream must be evil"

                      Comment

                      • Lane
                        Senior Member
                        • Aug 2010
                        • 988

                        discussion should've been ended after the following points were made by faust....No one said the mainstream is necessarily bad its the fact that its quite wishful thinking to be so optimistic about this.

                        1) We are in a market economy - designers and stores (both are complicit) will charge what the market will bear.

                        2) The recession wiping out a lot of middle class, the market is going back to how it actually always was, up until 50-60 years ago, super expensive and affordable.





                        You seem to be implying that somehow these designer collaborations will save the day. They won't, because the result is the same mass produced inanities with a different name tag on them. They are not designer fashion, no matter how many photos Lagerfeld takes of them. What MAY save the world is young talented designers exploiting market inefficiencies that are caused by greed and arrogance. The higher the prices of established designers, coupled with decrease in quality, become, which points to their disdain for the consumer and fuck-you-pay-me attitude, the more opportunity will be there for others to step in. This is how companies like Honda, Google, Apple, and Netflix are born - they come into a marketplace where the established players are so thick with the fat of their profits and faith in the status quo, that they become complacent and arrogant.

                        Comment

                        • Faust
                          kitsch killer
                          • Sep 2006
                          • 37852

                          Servo, that is quite romantic thinking on your part. To be sure, and I make this point in my lectures, ostensibly, Uniqlos and H&Ms of this world bring decent clothing to the less fortunate, and we know that's the majority of the people. But is it really the case? No. For most people cheap prices are an excuse to go shopping every weekend, because they can. I bet everyone here knows someone like that, merely shoppers, consumers, who throw clothes out with tags on them, unworn, and don't feel bad about it. You can extrapolate that yourself further - supporting sweatshops, being unsustainable, wasting, having no connection with the things you own and so on. I don't remember the exact statistic - you can look it up in the Eco-Fashion book - but people in Britain throw out something like 60,000 or 600,000 (would be even more mind boggling) tons of clothing every year. Imagine what it's like in the US. So, no, I don't buy that argument.
                          Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                          StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                          Comment

                          • Atom
                            Senior Member
                            • Sep 2009
                            • 310

                            I'd like to see some actual clothes from this collab line, and continue this discussion after that...

                            I'm actually looking forward to this collaboration. Not because I would buy that stuff cause I probably won't. But more like I'm genuinely interested what Jun will come up with this time.

                            ^^^^^And look at Jun, does he look like he gives a fuck.

                            Comment

                            • Atom
                              Senior Member
                              • Sep 2009
                              • 310

                              Originally posted by Faust View Post
                              supporting sweatshops, being unsustainable, wasting, having no connection with the things you own and so on.
                              These are valid arguments against collabs like this. Agreed.

                              Comment

                              • nqth
                                Senior Member
                                • Sep 2006
                                • 350

                                Originally posted by Atom View Post
                                These are valid arguments against collabs like this. Agreed.
                                no, against a part of people who buy cheap clothes and throw them away without wearing them.

                                Faust, the majority of people still buy these clothes bc they need them.

                                I still wear a HM pair of linen trouser i bought 4 years ago (after re-dyeing it). I wear white tshirts i bought from benetton like 6-7 years ago.

                                Comment

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