Carol Christian Poell

[MASUGNEN]

:-D

I think the dead end zipped leather jacket is a great piece.

Who worked so extensively with zippers in the 80's? Dolce & Gabbana?

[Pumpfish]

[QUOTE=poltergeist;290167]what u think of this jacket from the new collection??

Yeah, you really get to see it at its 3D best on a wire hanger........

[philip nod]

dude in a wonton

[copacetic]

And this??? ??

The images coming from this season are perverse, and I don't mean that as a value judgment. The pieces that I own from Poell are the ones that are, honestly, the most wearable and least distinctive in terms of his label's design. The Poell pieces that push the envelope are ones that I just can't wear in polite society, or wear without attracting too much attention. The more outrageous pieces from Ann, for instance, are still pieces I feel I could wear daily.

But I can't help seeing in this piece specifically a contempt for the wearer conveyed by the cut of the jacket. It's a parody of "designed" clothing in general. The neck is swallowing up the wearer's head, and the buckles around the neck rob the upper section of any elegance. The front pockets seem misplaced, and their shape is also like a cliche...a parody of a typical work shirt. The shoes too...the laces draw just a little too much attention to themselves...they flop down onto the shoe's toe and ruin the line the shoe would have created. And then the trousers...strictly tailored, and really unnecessarily so. This Little Lord Fauntleroy model is already gaunt and pre-pubescent enough...and then you slap some overly tight pants on him.

It's just sick, truly sick design. The contempt for the wearer doesn't seem like a critique though, because I think the wearer must be in on the joke. I think Poell assumes the wearer will choose to project such a contempt for himself and his own body.

[poltergeist]

ccp 2010

Sun will always shine on CCP!!

[MASUGNEN]

What is this piece, StrAngeRy?

[Chant]

What is this piece, StrAngeRy?

Check the message just before stangery's.

[kbi]

the thought that proclaiming this art would instantly rise the price is kinda naiv don't u think so? the root of ccp's success remains people wearing the stuff not the other way round.

[snafu]

dude in a wonton

Eating wonton soup right now :)

[Atom]

The pants are great, poltergeist - the fly reminds me of one of those polyester boxers with the ruler on the fly that are commonly sold in better stores in times for Valentine's Day.

True that. But still I find those pants to be one of the sharpest things in this collection. I'd probably get them if they weren't something like 170000 yen. Hopefully the European prices will be a bit more reasonable. Carol made this kind of selvage-ruler fly in 2009 collection as well, and one thing I regret is not getting them when I had the opportunity.

[AKA*NYC]

It's not naive to think so. If you read about signaling status with luxury goods. The people who are referred to at Patricians here are the ones that does not need to signal to people who're not in the know about what they consume, but they do enjoy nods from people on the street noticing their Bottega Veneta. This is often people with a great amount of what people like to call cultural capital. CCP is the opium for people with cultural capital.

For these people, they know they need to pay a premium for these quiet signals. If these signals can even be art, they know they need to pay a premium for it. Take LV as an example, if you take away the fact that materials are exclusive, you still need to pay more to get less branding. This is not a coincidence.

eternal i sort of get where you're going with this but i can't help feel like you're trying to apply your critical studies to your "actual" world where they don't really square up. to call ccp "cultural capital" is to really miss the point. you are forgetting the designer and his work - what is most important to all the carol fans i know - and looking at the end product. but even this? how can you write away the quirkiness and idiosyncrasies of his designs; the fact that his boots and leather jackets look sick as fuck when zipped all the way up; those funky shoes that everyone is discussing; and that entire list of qualities that fuuma so accurately identified as "fashion statements" purchased by the rich to signal to other rich people. there's probably half a soul in harvard and zero in oxford wearing ccp. if you wore it to a place steeped in politics such as washington, d.c. you would likely not be allowed into a single establishment. when a friend and i walked into an upscale boutique in head-to-toe carol we were nearly laughed out of the place. i can go on and on but the point is you won't find any actual examples of this in real life. if anything you could argue that ccp is the opium for a small handful of people with so-called cultural capital on sz but clearly it goes no further. in my experience expression via avant garde designer clothing is almost exclusively relegated to the fashion industry. it's first and foremost a way to signal one's taste - be it for something dark, whimsical, elaborate, minimal, traditional, quirky, etc. - and convey something of one's personality to his/her peers. perhaps you could argue that certain designers are the equivalent of "cultural capital" to fashion industry elites but that is so boring and reductive. this reduction of life energy, art, aesthetics, politics, and so on into capital has always struck me as bitter and myopic.

edit: having reread your post i can't tell if you're talking about moneyed or "cultured" people or both. if only the latter i still hope you catch my gist.

[Faust]

/\ Agreed.

Eternal, I find your rather quick progression from a dude who buys a dozen grandma items a week on a waiter salary to an anti-materialist amusing. I did not recommend you Veblen because I think he's 100% right :-) The theories are sound, but not all-encompassing, and sometimes outright wrong. It's just impossible to dismiss all of Poell's fans as elitists.

[gnow]

Minus the 3-5 other Singaporeans here on SZ, I'm pretty sure no one in my country knows about ccp. That didn't stop me from saving up for more than half a year to purchase a pair of derbies. I honestly think there is a real small, small handful of people who purchase ccp for the elitist status. Till this day, I still remembered how I spend hours admiring the details of the derbies when I first received em.

[magic]

the creases looks different from the 2009 derby.. does the construction changed for the 2010 derby?

[spiral jetty]

Good art does not need to be as technically accomplished as his clothes, but it does need to say more than "I'm pretty" or "I took a lot of time for some artisans to make".

Interesting discussion. But the latter because 'good', whatever that means, art has to challenge and push further art's intrinsic as well as historic standards. This might affect 'technique' as much as 'concept' and 'idea.' That we can understand art as autonomous and in that as kind of a free aesthetic playground where use value, function or just decorative quality is of no or lesser interest doesn't make it a better terrain which automatically provides you either with more creative freedom... or an audience fully up to your ideas and moneyed/educated enough to pay whatever price. In fashion (as maybe in architecture) an awful lot of challenging things happen just because of some visionary exactly has to deal with how the fucking feet come out of the trouser legs (or how the toilet is to be installed on 144th floor of steel and glass) because of his/hers vision to be adjusted to 'function' as piece of wardrobe. Lucky so, once succesful in both ways even if i as consumer have to learn myself into the new pair of trousers.