The (buyers) secondary market

[casem]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market

Yea, and fashion is one of the greatest institutions at manipulating our constant desire for new things. I admit I succumb to it, sometimes I look into my closet and, despite an abundance of nice clothes, I feel totally uninspired. At the risk of derailing this thread, I find this topic very interesting. I'm always fighting against falling into the pitfalls of capitalism and fashion is my one weakness in this respect. My boyfriend and I have huge debates about this, he's completely anti-capitalist while I think it's an amazing system in some ways but needs to be severely tamed by the government/people. Today's American economy is incredibly scary and unsustainable. We need a situation where corporations are afraid of the government and the government is afraid of the people. Instead we seem to have a government afraid of corporations and a people afraid of the government (while getting screwed by both). (End rant)

[Fuuma]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market

1) Clothes are consumer products and therefore infused by the modernist idea of progress. At its heart, just like with democracy, is the promise of better things to come, of a future that shines brighter. So out with the old, on with the new.

2) Consumer products are utilitarian and their prolonged usage deteriorates their integrity, therefore lowering their value.

3) The fashion world itself is, as noted, enamoured with the idea of seasonal change, which grandly affects the odds that a specific piece will stay wearable for a long time. I have a hard time imagining a suit jacket that could still look interesting 50 yrs from now, although a few may do that, chances are I may not be able to accurately predict which ones will.

4) Some consumer products may stop and even reverse their fall in value as they change in status to become full fledged art objects, where scarcity is high and the mark of the artist so important that they may be no possibility of equivalence offered by another artist/designer. This is always coupled with historical relevance as that?s pretty much how we value art in the long run.

5) In case of the loss of a specific technology and scarcity value may rise but this is rare, a good example would be violins made by the Italian masters.

[gerry]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market



I immediately thought of this article when I began reading this thread: http://www.portfolio.com/culture-lif...ket-Appraisers (how do I create links?)

There are very definite differences between art and fashion that prevent you from putting them in the same category ? well, fine art, anyways.

For the most part, fine art is perceived a unique object, whereas garments generally are not. I would say the distinction lies first and foremost in the "aura" (as Walter Benjamin defined it) that fine art holds. Why that aura continues to be there is still up in the air.

[PrinceOfCats]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market

You'll find Marcel Duchamp or Andy Warhol &c. in the world's ten largest 'fine art' collections. Buy a stash of MA+, become the world's most renowned art historian and then bang on about how Martin Margiela is the new Cubism. Within a few decades, you'll be sitting on a goldmine and flogging that crap off to the Musee D'Orsay. High culture or consumer pulp orginally, doesn't matter. Value of art: created, perpetuated, masturbated by the education system. Michel Foucault, The Functions of Literature, innit...

[grazza54]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market



I am enjoying the excuses people give to their partners and parents. I always tell mine that I traded with somebody on SZ to get my new purchases so they don't moan about the amount of money I spend.

Graham

[Faust]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market

[quote user="grazza54"]

I am enjoying the excuses people give to their partners and parents. I always tell mine that I traded with somebody on SZ to get my new purchases so they don't moan about the amount of money I spend.

Graham

[/quote]

You own a store, man - it's your professional obligation!

PrinceOfCats, please stop giving away my secrets.

[Johnny]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market



Fuuma hits nail on head, as is so aften the case.

Despite the grand ideas of some producers, fashion is fashion, and pretty soon it will start to look old (in terms of bothutilitarian use and in respect of it refelcting the current aesthetic). (Continues didn't, erm, continue for very long.)So long as that is the case, I can't see how fashion will hold its value as a general rule, rather than in the case of the odd exception.

[philip nod]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market



some interesting ideas about aging and deterioration, wear and tear. most mounted photography is expected to last no more than 30 years before it rots away. doesn't stop the market. i think people have begun to embrace the notion of a contemporary art as a status symbol in perpetual decay, which, ironically, is how i've heard people describe fashion.

and fuuma, i really hope my ccp suit looks good in 50 years, i can't imagine what would outlast it although i'm betting raf simons will have some future line carried by his avatars.

yes, the crux of this discussion lies in the everyday consumer vs. elite consumer of the art world. but as prices rise in fashion and designers begin to think like artists w scarcity of product and innovation, what will fashion be like in 50 years, will suits cost 100k?

[Fuuma]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market

[quote user="philip nod"]


some interesting ideas about aging and deterioration, wear and tear. most mounted photography is expected to last no more than 30 years before it rots away. doesn't stop the market. i think people have begun to embrace the notion of a contemporary art as a status symbol in perpetual decay, which, ironically, is how i've heard people describe fashion.

and fuuma, i really hope my ccp suit looks good in 50 years, i can't imagine what would outlast it although i'm betting raf simons will have some future line carried by his avatars.

yes, the crux of this discussion lies in the everyday consumer vs. elite consumer of the art world. but as prices rise in fashion and designers begin to think like artists w scarcity of product and innovation, what will fashion be like in 50 years, will suits cost 100k?

[/quote]

Deterioration is a negative factor in clothing because the articles have equivalents and are utilitarian in nature, in the art world the effect is reverse, with the possible deterioration if items increasing scarcity and thus value. There's only a finite number of Picassos and as time advances there will be less of his works, not more.

Your CCP suit will most likely not last 50 yrs and its relevance will probably be null at that point as it relates to your own life (if you're still alive). It doesn't matter because more items will come out and other interesting designers will come along.

Do you mean 100K in constant money? I don't see that being anything but a totally marginal and non-lucrative alternative.

[BECOMING-INTENSE]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market



Is it possible, or even advisable, to make these distinction between

"true art" and fashion? Would such a distinction coincide with one between

"High culture" and "popular culture"? Or is it possible, on the contrary, for

fashion and popular culture to overlap the immanent plane of aesthetic composition?

I do think overlapping is possible, because the important distinction to draw is not between molar high culture centred on a canon and molecular popular culture centred
on diverse cults, trends, and fashion, nor is it one of the cultural status of the author,
nor of whether the product has mainstream or "cultic" popularity; by contrast, it is a question of whether a cultural product expresses a constant or a becoming. Within consumer culture, many products reterritorialize on the same few kinds of heroes,
stories, stars, rhythms, forms, colours, fashions, etc. The territories expressed by
many
marketable products have a reassuring familiarity that is intended to
guarantee
their economic success and constitute a safe investment.
consequently, such constant reinforce the stratification and segmentation of society. For constant territories have nothing more that they can do; they can only be conjugated for extrinsic purposes, lending themselves to the operation of an economic base. Cultural products that express becomings
work directly upon desire, and can therefor cut across social
boundaries.
They effect a deterritorialization, a change in the current
state of social presuppositions. They are the dynamisms of intensive difference, the work of desire upon desire.

On a side note, the work of art discloses its singularity and discrete existence,


even when reproduced many times by technical means. It exceeds the combination
of material variables from which it is composed, deteriorative or not.

Moreover, there is a difference in kind between the materials that support a work of

art, such as paint, canvas, film, stone, sound-waves, etc. and the work itself.

Art only attempts to fashion a material object, having a finite duration, so as to create

being of sensation, which is preserved in itself for an eternity that coexists with the

short duration of material. This bloc of sensations, standing up alone
or positing itself, contains the working, sensation, and forces of the
work.

[nycd]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market

some of the posts in this discussion remind me of:



Tigersprung: Fashion in Modernity
By Ulrich Lehmann



Anyone read this?



Time for a book club?

[Fuuma]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market

[quote user="nycd"]some of the posts in this discussion remind me of:

Tigersprung: Fashion in Modernity By Ulrich Lehmann

Anyone read this?

Time for a book club?[/quote]

Sounds interesting, in fact as weird as it may sound the book club idea looks pretty good to me.

[laika]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market



I have the book. It's a very good (and very long and dense) reference, particularly on the Frankfurt school, but sort of odd to read for its own sake, as it is a secondary source. It would probably be more interesting to read (or re-read, for some) the original convolutes in Benjamin, or some other primary text, and then use Tigersprung as a companion. [51]

SZ book group....[8-|]

[BECOMING-INTENSE]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market

[quote user="gerry"]

I immediately thought of this article when I began reading this thread: http://www.portfolio.com/culture-lif...ket-Appraisers (how do I create links?)

There are very definite differences between art and fashion that prevent you from putting them in the same category ? well, fine art, anyways.

For the most part, fine art is perceived a unique object, whereas garments generally are not. I would say the distinction lies first and foremost in the "aura" (as Walter Benjamin defined it) that fine art holds. Why that aura continues to be there is still up in the air.

[/quote]

I would like to oppose to this distinction, because it somehow entails that an object
reproduced or repeated looses its ability to become art. As for any of these artforms,
literature, music, film, dance, theater, (and yes) design, etc., they all constitute a form
of reproduction ...

Yes a book club would be interesting! [8-|] ...

But I think I'm gonna skip the first book in question here,
as I find the Frankfurter School a too depressing read! [79]

[Faust]

Re: The (buyers) secondary market

Pnod, you can put this in your file - a pair of Ann Demeulemeester boots that retailed for $1200 a few years ago, just went for $2k+ on Ebay. I had these boots, bought them from Butter for $600 - I guess I should've held on to mine longer.