Feature and Op-Ed articles

Rick Owens Spring Summer 2024

Notes on Paris Women’s Fashion Week Spring / Summer 2024

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

This fashion season has been one of going through way too much effort in terms of just being at the shows. Invitations went missing or showed up at the last minute or even after a show. Editors and buyers are increasingly being relegated to second row in favor of celebrities and influencers, of whom there is an ever-increasing number. Some said that this could be because of the Hollywood strike, but I think we are seeing a permanent shift, in which the only metric that matters is your Instagram following. It looks like many brands just want amplifiers of their image, and don’t care for, or are actually afraid of engaging in a conversation about their output. If it’s the latter, they are not wrong, considering what a parade of mediocrity the fashion month has become. But not in Paris, at least not yet. This season virtually all of the brands that I hold in high regard delivered – it was an uplifting fashion week and a wonderful reminder that fashion can still evoke emotion, create beauty, and make one think. And if it’s the PR agencies that spoil everything with their lack of professionalism, then, well, even though I still absolutely love being at a good show, in 2023 I can do this from the comfort of my home.

Op-Ed: Phoebe Philo Does Not Exist

Culture, Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

In his seminal 1981 book Simulacra and Simulation the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard posited that in our postmodern world we no longer live in reality – meaning, we do not process our world directly and immediately, but in hyperreality – a world created by and mediated through a system of signs and symbols. In other words, we live in a simulation – via screens, through social media, soaked in a semiotic system created by the vast leisure industry – entertainment, news, advertising, and so on. The simulacrum of reality makes the direct experience of reality impossible because our brains are so full of received messages that we are only able to process and reference reality through them – like a twenty-four-hour Disneyland (or the Matrix), or like a 1:1 scale map overlaid onto the real world.

Op-Ed: The Next Act of the Gvasalia Brothers Circus

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

When in 2014 Vetements burst onto the scene with their updated take on Margiela, it billed itself as a collective in a nod to the master of self-effacement. Soon enough though, the Gvasalia brothers decided that it was their show after all – Demna became its creative figurehead and Guram its business one. Just a year later, the hype surrounding the brand landed Demna a creative director position at Balenciaga, where he quickly proceeded to ruin the its reputation as a storied couture house by pumping out logoed hoodies, logoed denim jackets, logoed sweaters, logoed sneakers, and even logoed tailoring. Soon enough, what with Demna getting all the spotlight, the two brothers fell out. In 2019 Demna left Vetements, and in 2021 he dropped his last name, without offering a compelling reason for doing so. (Could it be that the brothers’ hatred for each other ran so deep that it extended to Demna’s desire to drop his family name?) He also moved from Zurich to Geneva

OP-ED: IS DRESSING BADLY A SIGN OF PRIVILEGE?

Culture, Features/Op-Ed

Over the decades of watching how people dress in America, this question has preoccupied me. It returned to my mind with renewed intensity over the past several years, as aspirational consumption in this country has kicked into overdrive. This observation comes from various directions: watching kids on the streets of SoHo strut in their logoed gear, looking at my daughter’s boyfriend who spends his hard-earned money on Moncler and Yeezy, reflecting on my own dress habits since I immigrated to America at the age of fifteen. We are all disparate, but we have one thing in common – we have known what it’s like to be poor and we are from ethnic minorities. We have something to prove, namely our worth, to each other and to this country. In other words, we are aspirational.

OP-ED: IS HAUTE COUTURE MODERN?

Culture, Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

The haute couture week that just ended in Paris took place amidst the riots caused by police killing an Arab youth. In such a setting, showing ultra-expensive clothes to a bunch of ultra-rich women who descend on Paris twice a year for the haute couture week to throw money around felt a bit like the last ancien regime masked ball before the guillotines are rolled out. Only Celine displayed some sensitivity towards Paris, its people, and its own staff and canceled its show. For the rest, evidently, the show must go on.

NOTES ON PARIS FASHION WEEK, SPRING / SUMMER 2024 MEN’S

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

Thinking back on this past Paris menswear season, I realize that it held few surprises. This is not a criticism. Lately, I have been thinking that as fashion increasingly becomes driven by celebrity and hype, the only thing left to do is to support those who produce genuinely creative work. This season they unanimously delivered strong collections, work that was strong in expression and full of conviction that they must stick to their guns as the world around them grows increasingly coarse and cynical.

Speaking of which, let’s get the gross spectacle that Louis Vuitton put on to celebrate Pharrell’s coronation as the new creative director of its menswear. To be fair, there were actually few cool looks in there – I, for one, was not mad at the Minecraft print. But most of it was exactly what Louis Vuitton wants, logo-driven drivel, the kind of lowest common denominator stuff squarely aimed at the masses consumed by conspicuous consumption.

The clothes, however, were not the most off-putting part; the cabaret show with which they were presented was. It was a pure power exercise; power over Paris, power over the fashion industry, power over its media, power over contemporary culture. For half a day a private company closed Pont Neuf, a major Parisian public bridge in the city center, so it could put on a celebrity-fashion industrial complex circus, bringing attendees to the show by boats, and essentially keeping them hostage for four hours. Perhaps in Louis Vuitton’s opinion everyone craves to be at a private Jay-Z concert, and considering the number of the blurry I-WAS-THERE! pictures of the rapper – taken in the hope that celebrity pixie dust will rub off – they weren’t entirely wrong. But they weren’t entirely right either. In the next few days I spoke with more than one editor who was quietly angry that Louis Vuitton simply assumed that they had no better place to be. What the brand signaled, I told them, is that they own them, and so the editors are expected to kiss the ring.

Op-Ed: Is It Time to Separate Fashion and Luxury?

Culture, Features/Op-Ed

“Fashion brands are like toothpaste brands now,” the fashion journalist Lauren Sherman told me in a recent conversation on our podcast. I understood what she meant even before she launched into a car market analogy, that many brands today offer similar products, with the logo being the primary differentiator. What the luxury consumer has to decide today is not what garment to buy, but what brand to buy into, because their wares are increasingly interchangeable.

Op-Ed: New Media, Old Problems

Features/Op-Ed

The likes of social media-first media entities like Style Not Com and I Deserve Couture are hailed as upending the status quo, but what do they actually say, if anything?

“It’s literally NOTHING,” fumed an established street-style photographer on our shared taxi ride during this past men’s Paris fashion week, echoing a sentiment I had heard more than a few times from fashion insiders over the past several months. He was referring to Style Not Com, an Instagram account that documents fashion. Founded by Beka Gvishiani, a Georgian native living in Paris, it broadcasts fashion commentary to its 181 thousand followers. Though to call what Style Not Com produces “commentary” would be a stretch — for the most part the account provides a retelling of what most people with Internet access can see with their own eyes. To wit, on Rihanna’s recent Super Bowl appearance — “Rihanna, Loewe, Alaia.” Such snackable content comes in an attractive visual package — white san serif font on a cobalt blue background. The blue, repeated ad nauseam, has beсome a trademark; whenever Gvishiani is out and about fashion events, he is easy to spot by his ever-present “Style Not Com” baseball cap that advertises him to others.