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  • BSR
    Senior Member
    • Aug 2008
    • 1562

    Originally posted by fenrost View Post
    huh, in what sense? buying clothes online/without touching is the future?
    certainly not, and i am totally for trying before buying as a rule. i agree with you on the need for physical stores, but i'm just saying again that it applies to any kind of clothing. i think i misunderstood your post about the reason why he doesn't want to sell on the internet.

    i was talking about something else. about a form of systematic allegiance to the designer's so-called 'state of mind' that i feel here and there sometimes... you know, all this talk about authenticity, sincerity, spirit and so on, it just bores me to no end!
    pix

    Originally posted by Fuuma
    Fuck you and your viewpoint, I hate this depoliticized environment where every opinion should be respected, no matter how moronic. My avatar was chosen just for you, die in a ditch fucker.

    Comment

    • todestrieb
      Senior Member
      • Mar 2009
      • 239

      I was merely providing an explanation, albeit speculatively, for the manifest eccentricities of Harnden's personality, particularly in his dealings with the so-called "outside world" or the "industry" itself; and not, on a personal level, as a wearer and admirer of his work, espousing a specific imperative as to how his clothes and vision should be ideally represented. There is a significant distinction here. I'm not too considerably bothered by the way his garments have been represented thus far, (my issues with the photographs has nothing at all to do what was trying to say in the main. it's a separate point all together - a bit more mundane) but maybe he does, in a very strong way, hence the "eccentricities", the recalcitrance, the difficulties, the reclusion (perhaps), the deemed unconventionality of his ways/behaviours, and the resistance/defiance to forms of representation prevalent within the "industry" - how ever niche, marginal, and apparently kindred in spirit, some sectors of it may be. Furthermore, it just seems too simplistic, and tired, to explain and de-mystify all of this by way of a "cheap psychology": that the man is intrinsically a curmudgeon luddite living in a "modernised" world, or something
      to that effect, -- and consequently, this often becomes a cue for most people to romanticise him and his ethos as some kind of "anti-hero/heroism" of Fashion, or a perfect resemblance or exemplar of Authenticity --.

      On the other hand, perhaps, there is an "external" explanation: something broader and wider than the individualised elements at work. It could very well be that there exists a radically distinct "cultural gap or distance", something so utterly irreconcilable, between Harnden's worldview and the world that he deals with, and has no choice but to deal with, maybe more so than the other designers celebrated in this forum. After all, it does seem like the other designers don't encounter as much problems dealing with, or are as reticent with, the "industry" as much as PH does. Of course this is all pure conjecture. And of course I have no idea what precisely his worldview may be - it could very well be a belief in a facilely bucolic and luddite universe, or a form of "future primitivism", or something as boring and derivative as being a "nostalgic Dickensian", or perhaps something as interesting as pulling together a (conscious and unconscious) constellation of ideas, values, imageries, pathos, that remains wholly unrecognisable and uncategorisable by most not privy to his world. Whatever the case may be, the irreconcilability does exist and this sometimes shows up conflictually as episodes of so-called "eccentricity" - as "symptoms" of that irreconcilability, as it were, rather than something intrinsic to the man.
      Last edited by todestrieb; 06-13-2010, 12:55 PM.

      Comment

      • BSR
        Senior Member
        • Aug 2008
        • 1562

        Fine, but what is the status of these hagiographical / biographical elements then? Honestly i don't care at all about the details of a designer's lifestyle, either Paul's eccentricity or Rick's bodybulding or Maurizio's weed. But biographical elements are sometimes mentioned in order to prescribe how one is supposed to understand (and not necessarily to wear properly) the garments. I think it is highly questionable, as it is for any work of art. Art works have a meaning that is never reducible to or explicable by the creator's life.

        My 2c on this: the lifestyle of designers is a marketing tip. A very good one, indeed. Think of the deep reasons why most people buy RO or Harnden. It is easier to buy an old-fashionned jacket when you learn that an eccentric guy in a small workshop blablabla... you all know the following. Of course my point has nothing to do with Harnden's true personality (he's certainly very sincere), but, again, i don't think this aspect is relevant.
        pix

        Originally posted by Fuuma
        Fuck you and your viewpoint, I hate this depoliticized environment where every opinion should be respected, no matter how moronic. My avatar was chosen just for you, die in a ditch fucker.

        Comment

        • todestrieb
          Senior Member
          • Mar 2009
          • 239

          Sorry if I wasn't clear but it has little or nothing to do with anything biographical, life-style related, psychological, etc., but something far more systemic. I quote myself:

          "The irreconcilability [...] shows up conflictually as episodes of [...] "eccentricity" - as "symptoms" of that irreconcilability, as it were, rather than something intrinsic to the man."

          Comment

          • Faust
            kitsch killer
            • Sep 2006
            • 37852

            Well said, tod. I don't understand this postmodern desire to cheapen everything. I say, keep riding on your high horse, Mr. Harnden - be as romantic and high-minded and spirited as much as you want.

            BSR, ease off Barthes.
            Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

            StyleZeitgeist Magazine

            Comment

            • Chant
              Banned
              • Jun 2008
              • 2775

              Fashion business theorem n° 2 : "The more expensive one's clothes are sold, the more people who buys them need to be convinced how authentic/righteous/etc. the designer is".

              Alternate proposition : "[...] the more people who buy them convince themselves how [...].

              Otherwise, les gens n'en auraient pas pour leur argent.

              But, as BSR stated, you don't buy the designer, but the clothes only. The genius idea is to found the (amazing) surplus value on nothing but a mythology.

              I disagree as well with the "touch them, feel them" fetishist argument. There's no reality per se, what you want to buy - you desire, you wish - is what you imagine. And marketing is there to help you this way - even though its fantasies are often very poor ones - agree again with my poto.

              Fashion business theorem n° 2 [for poor customers] : "Work on your fantasies, and save money".

              Comment

              • Chant
                Banned
                • Jun 2008
                • 2775

                Originally posted by Faust View Post
                BSR, ease off Barthes.
                Good that you're coming soon. BSR and I will lock you up to update your references.
                Yes, sorry, no showroom for you.
                Last edited by Chant; 06-14-2010, 04:31 AM.

                Comment

                • Faust
                  kitsch killer
                  • Sep 2006
                  • 37852

                  I don't need any updates, Christian - I stick with the originals ;-)

                  There is nothing fetishist about touching the clothes. The fabric and the fit are paramount to a garment. That's like saying that you should buy a CD based on the album art and not the music.

                  As far as authorship - all I am saying is that the author exists and (s)he is a real person that has points of view and there is nothing wrong with them wanting to bring their points of view across.
                  Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                  StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                  Comment

                  • BSR
                    Senior Member
                    • Aug 2008
                    • 1562

                    @ Faust: sorry, but there was no reference to any postmodernist conception (i don't even know what postmodernism is) in my posts, and nothing barthesian either... I was just saying that biographical elements are of little value if you want to say something aesthetically relevant of any artistic work (like designers' clothes). It is a very widespread rule to consider that the task of the critic is to focus on the meaning (either intrinsic or extrinsic, depending on the preferred method, which can rely on semiotics, sociology, history, philosophy...) of the work rather than on the aspects of the creator's life... I of course appreciate to hear of anecdotes or stories of the heroic accomplishments a designer or an artist has made, but in this case it has nothing to do with a careful discussion of what makes one's style (and isn't it the purpose of SZ?).

                    @todestrieb: i agree with Christian, i don't see how the out-of-this worldiness character that you link to PH's clothes can be abstracted from the PH's personality (i could quote your last messages, but mine is already too long and i sense everybody here is already bored ).
                    pix

                    Originally posted by Fuuma
                    Fuck you and your viewpoint, I hate this depoliticized environment where every opinion should be respected, no matter how moronic. My avatar was chosen just for you, die in a ditch fucker.

                    Comment

                    • Mail-Moth
                      Senior Member
                      • Mar 2009
                      • 1448

                      This discussion is pretty interesting. I really can't chose my side here.

                      I understand Christian and BSR's point of view : when buying Paul Harnden you shouldn't have to pay for Paul Harnden himself ; garments should ideally be considered apart from the designer's mythology, which indeed goes as far as impregnating the appreciation of the pattern and fabrics he's using. Right : this white noise, amplified by those, including the designer, who have some interest in having these clothes sold, keeps the potential buyer/wearer from making an objective choice - which is likely to be possible only in front of anonymous racks in a white cube, and after a due brainwashing :)

                      However, I don't see the point of working on one's fantasies, as you're half in jest stating it, Christian, since this aptitude to appeal to one's fantasies is obviously one of the strongest attributes in Harnden's work. Some designers mainly work on forms, some others seem to favour references to historical/fictional universes. Maybe the first ones look, in a sense, more honest, more serious than the latter, who can easily be accused of playing with representations to embed in their productions a value those might not deserve per se. Well - let's say then that the tremendous pricing of a Harnden jacket has something to do with paying for the dream of a garment, the deepness and interest of which partly depending on the designer's aura, and partly on the buyer's aptitude to dream on it. In that sense, trivias about Paul Harnden's character are completely part of the process, since they're clearly echoing what I'll naïvely chose to call the man's sensibility as it shows in his work.

                      Of course it is still possible to consider the garments in themselves, for what they are as forms, and completely forget about the man who designed them. But there are certainly people here who like the idea of nourishing a link, through a piece of fabric, with that man and his conceptions - even if the whole thing may be, at the end of the day, a big pack of lies forged to sell stuff to supposedly gullible priviledged. People are free to deliberately ignore that and to prefer this sweet delusion to the cruel truth of fashion business.
                      I can see a hat, I can see a cat,
                      I can see a man with a baseball bat.

                      Comment

                      • BSR
                        Senior Member
                        • Aug 2008
                        • 1562

                        @moth: there is a significant difference between the fantasies you can elaborate when you see/buy/own a PH jacket and the more or less subtle marketed pack of stories that is sold with the same jacket. In one case you have something that may either be close to what Kant (to quote my source ) casts as a reflective aesthetic judgement (ie a free universalization of a sensitive perception to a concept / idea that you come to through a reflection of the sensitive perception/emotion) or a free connection of images that lie in your mind and you spontaneously associate with your original perception of the object (qui a dit attention flottante?), in antoher you have a pre-formed schematic fantasy that is imposed on your mind.

                        PS1: i'm not at all against marketing stories, it would be too simplistic, i just say that you should be careful to distinguish between the official introduction of a brand or a designer with the development of your own original point of view on it. It's sad if the latter is to be a simple copy of the former.

                        PS2: I Harnden, and I plan to buy a full outfit for my sins, very soon, with the oversized cropped pants the suspenders and all.
                        pix

                        Originally posted by Fuuma
                        Fuck you and your viewpoint, I hate this depoliticized environment where every opinion should be respected, no matter how moronic. My avatar was chosen just for you, die in a ditch fucker.

                        Comment

                        • Mail-Moth
                          Senior Member
                          • Mar 2009
                          • 1448

                          I understand your point. But the distinction between those two kinds of fantasies - the one proceeding from your own perception and the one conveyed by marketing tricks - may not be that simple to make - since as you say it, if I get you clearly, an approximative and clumsy image d'Epinal drawn by the retailers is likely to make a quite acceptable starting point for a more personal elaboration. It would be hard then to decide what is theirs and what is yours in the result. Even more when nobody lacks self-esteem to the point of being able to freely admit that his perception of a brand is just an unpersonal copy-paste from its marketing package.

                          Next step is judging people's motivations, or authenticity. I don't think we're allowed to make that one.

                          Now I can hardly wait to see you in PH head-to-toe. I'll even come with you the day you're ready and help you carry the bags from l'Eclaireur.
                          Please chose oversized stuff
                          I can see a hat, I can see a cat,
                          I can see a man with a baseball bat.

                          Comment

                          • fenrost
                            Banned
                            • Mar 2009
                            • 623

                            Originally posted by Christian View Post
                            I disagree as well with the "touch them, feel them" fetishist argument. There's no reality per se, what you want to buy - you desire, you wish - is what you imagine.
                            So, you're saying clothes for imagination rather than self-conscious? There should be a balance, because fantasy in reality = costume/fashion victim, no?

                            PS: I am in dire for a beautiful silk organza PH jacket myself. : )
                            Last edited by fenrost; 06-14-2010, 08:36 PM.

                            Comment

                            • Faust
                              kitsch killer
                              • Sep 2006
                              • 37852

                              BSR, what I was trying to say is that maybe some creators do put their souls into what they make and that they are not marketing stories. One of the hallmark casualties of consumerism/marketing culture is that an intelligent consumer, such as yourself, becomes so cautious as to chuck everything under marketing. It's understandable, but ultimately tragic.

                              And I was referring to this.
                              Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                              StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                              Comment

                              • Faust
                                kitsch killer
                                • Sep 2006
                                • 37852

                                Originally posted by Mail-Moth View Post

                                Now I can hardly wait to see you in PH head-to-toe. I'll even come with you the day you're ready and help you carry the bags from l'Eclaireur.
                                Please chose oversized stuff
                                Sorry, no such thing as a Jewish peasant. We are city creatures. Although, if you take the line of the late C'est Fini, than BSR has one thing in common with Fagin. But I doubt he'd want to play to Dickensian antisemitism.
                                Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                                StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                                Comment

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