Op-Ed | Instagram & Late Capitalism

[Nomadic Planet]

Hey everyone, I haven't seen a thread about Faust's last collaboration with highsnobiety.

https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/bad-taste-fashion-late-capitalism/

Plenty of things to discuss !!!!

As soon as I have some time I'll post my thoughts.

PS: sorry if there's already a thread about this, I quickly searched but didn't find any.

[Faust]

I look forward to your comments.

[Jeroenr]

Yeah, good article. Couldnt agree more. We see this everywhere. Not only in fashion.

[DannyDagger]

Great read. Something mentioned in the article that had never really crossed my mind before was awful taste and disregard for context. I remember seeing and hearing about the noose hoodie and Columbine sweater when they were introduced and noting that they were awful pieces of clothing. Now that I think about it again, it never really hit me how appalling and worrisome it is that no-one down the line at Burberry/ERD thought twice about these items. This genre of clothing is beyond kitsch, if such a term exists, because I don't think edgy cuts it either.

What is, then, the solution? If anything, I have seen StyleZeitgeist's Instagram following increase from around 20k in December to 31.6k today (Faust can correct me on this one). I think it's a good sign, and that although mainstream fashion is huge, the avant-garde/underground crowd is not shrinking by any means.

[zamb]

great article, A LOT to touch on, gathering my thoughts to come back later......

[Anton]

Faust, great writing as always!

I completely agree, I think that there are a couple of additional factors in play that create this absurd reality. First, is the fact that today everything has to be immediate. People come in with the wrong intentions, they are not here to design, they are here to be successful and they want immediately, for that reason they just chose to do whatever will bring them success (popularity) quickly. They don't want to develop their skills and craftsmanship they just want to be popular.

Second, is the push for equality of outcome. In recent years there was a major push for equality of opportunity, which is a wonderful concept yet it changed to equality of outcome which is a terrible concept. No matter what is being produced it is being praised as long as you 'play the game'. Critiques barley write negative reviews, and if they do they write it about someone who is 'safe' to criticise. This is happening not only in fashion but in many other industries and aspects of life. People are praised simply because you don't want the backlash for saying the truth.

Third, is the fact that the entire marketing model has changed, what matters now is how something looks digitally and who is associated with it. Of course in the past people would notice what celebrities are wearing, but today it's on a whole different level. People are chosen as 'brand ambassadors' solely on their ability to generate profit and/or interest, meaning they are chosen simply based on the size of their social following.

I'm not sure whether it will change as it seems that the digital world is becoming more and more prominant in our life, with that being said you can see a certain push back as people start to realise that this is not a reasonable road to continue on.

[Faust]

/\ All good points. That's why I laugh when people keep saying that today's consumer is not susceptible to marketing. You've got to be joking when you say this. Maybe they are less susceptible to traditional advertising (a 30 sec spot on TV), but the average consumer is as much of a sheep as ever.

Lack of criticism is truly dispiriting. Today I received the New York Times magazine with the list of what they think are 25 relevant songs for today. Want to kill myself.

[applecrisp]

I agree that these new breed of "designers" are so very hurt to their core by any type of critique of their work, like they can just say, "I have 200k likes on the instagram post of this dope hoody so that critic must be wrong because that's only one idiot's opinion". But if 1% of the people that like that instagram post buy something from that brand, then that will amount to huge sales, so I guess they win in the end.

What about fashion darlings/critics diet_prada? I personally do not like what they do at all. Calling out D&G and other racists or assholes is great, and it's great that they have such a big audience that they can make some type of difference, however, their overbearing negativity and snark is not helping anyone. They are not doing any actual critique, hell, their bio is "people knocking each other off lol". That "lol" sums up to me their whole contribution to fashion critique. They're not real critics at all but people want to know what they think, and they take it seriously. It's scary. And they're clearly being paid by several brands to write good reviews. They liked the Tommy Hilfiger show?!? Really?!? That guy is a known racist and that show was god awful. And finally, the guy that is half of diet_prada released one of the worst mens collections I've ever seen in my life and he's supposed to be a taste-maker now? NO THANK YOU.

I would love to see this article expanded in the future, it's important now to have this discussion, and I think with proper historical references (for example the quotes from Jean Baudrillard really brought the article to another level) you could help guide a certain intelligent and curious group of consumers into the light.

[supercilious]

Yes I loved the Baudrillard as well! More fitting by the day unfortunately
I also find that Diet Prada is so ideologically driven that PC sentiment rules over the quality of work in their reviews. They applauded all the clothing in Valentino Haute Couture on the basis of having the majority of models be POC... Non Challenging, self confirming etc...

[Jeroenr]

But i love it, that Diet Prada is calling out the copy cats.

[Faust]

I agree that these new breed of "designers" are so very hurt to their core by any type of critique of their work, like they can just say, "I have 200k likes on the instagram post of this dope hoody so that critic must be wrong because that's only one idiot's opinion". But if 1% of the people that like that instagram post buy something from that brand, then that will amount to huge sales, so I guess they win in the end.

What about fashion darlings/critics diet_prada? I personally do not like what they do at all. Calling out D&G and other racists or assholes is great, and it's great that they have such a big audience that they can make some type of difference, however, they're overbearing negativity and snark is not helping anyone. They are not doing any actual critique, hell, their bio is "people knocking each other off lol". That "lol" sums up to me their whole contribution to fashion critique. They're not real critics at all but people want to know what they think, and they take it seriously. It's scary. And they're clearly being paid by several brands to write good reviews. They liked the Tommy Hilfiger show?!? Really?!? That guy is a known racist and that show was god awful. And finally, the guy that is half of diet_prada released one of the worst mens collections I've ever seen in my life and he's supposed to be a taste-maker now? NO THANK YOU.

I would love to see this article expanded in the future, it's important now to have this discussion, and I think with proper historical references (for example the quotes from Jean Baudrillard really brought the article to another level) you could help guide a certain intelligent and curious group of consumers into the light.

Couldn't agree more about Diet Prada.

[Faust]

Yes I loved the Baudrillard as well! More fitting by the day unfortunately
I also find that Diet Prada is so ideologically driven that PC sentiment rules over the quality of work in their reviews. They applauded all the clothing in Valentino Haute Couture on the basis of having the majority of models be POC... Non Challenging, self confirming etc...

Exactly. Another article addressing this coming your way.

[Nickefuge]

They liked the Tommy Hilfiger show?!? Really?!? That guy is a known racist and that show was god awful.

If the claim of racism stems from the remarks he supposedly made on Oprah’s show: this rumor has been proven false.

Awful collections? This has been proven right, haha. His taste in interior design is also questionable …

[supercilious]

Exactly. Another article addressing this coming your way.

Awesome-- The worst part about this to me, is that this is seen as progressive.
That being said, it just goes to show the genius of Mr. Small for being the only one in the game addressing this to any extent.

[mmsix]

Great article, Faust.
everybody just follows the (like/follower) numbers and accepts this aesthetic, instead of developing their own taste dig deeper. Which is contradictory as a lot of those people claim at the same time to be individual.
Look at the Berghain line on a Sunday in summer. Everybody of those standing in line would claim to hair their individual taste yet 90% percent wear their black adidas short and t-shirt to fit (and hope to get) in.

It's not just garments, it's about following cool & popular opinions formed by influencers or things like diet_prada too.