random fashion thoughts

[Faust]

Thanks for the thoughtful post. A lot to address, so I will just cover one aspect. I resent the word "geek" - because I think it devalues and reduces what we do here. Actually, let me not speak for everyone but for an ideal SZer I envision. Geekdom is based on obsession with technicality and details ONLY. It does not address cultural and philosophical connections. If in people's view there is no difference between someone who loves limited edition Nikes and someone who loves the work of Carpe Diem, then we might just shut this place down.

[eleves]

The reason I brought up the potential volume of product for these brands is that I noticed the RO HF video only has about 3,500 views on youtube, and the Sphinx show only has about 100,000 if you look at all the different versions.

That seems incredibly low for the "most popular" niche brand designer's social media offerings.


I know there are many factors that go into more "wearable" pieces, but I was just surprised by how low the views were on things that RO has promoted so extensively on tumblr, instagram, and etc. like that RO HF video, and it made me think that maybe the production is lower than I imagined if the audience is potentially that small.

the strength of a brand's social media presence has nothing to do with its production volumes.

Exactly, it's hard to gauge any volume based on social media. Rick's online presence is fairly new in general and so is his growing popularity with the mainstream consumer. 100,000 views on any site/through any medium is still pretty big (even if the amount is the sum of views from multiple videos)! I guarantee a few years ago, an upload of his fashion show probably would not have cracked 10,000 views (being generous here) and even with that, 100,000 views for Rick who is still "niche", is beyond amazing.

Rick's heavy promotion may seem that way to you who is someone who actually follows what he's doing but his push is miniscule when compared to the other shows. If Rick didn't have the penis power on full display at his show, his views probably would have been a decent amount less as many people (such as many of the people I work with) only followed Rick after that "controversial statement".

[Quiet]

if rick wants to keep making carry over shoes that encompass his "staples" (geobaskets, geos, ramones, etc..) then why cant he bring back the regular thin shaft sidezips from 09-10 as a staple item? the ones that just arrived for ss2015 are not cutting it and look like julius and dbss shit out a rick baby.

[stagename]

I really believe postmodern societies of leisure are creating a new way of interaction with culture and consumption and generating new forms of "obsessive" consumption that work by temporary phases. We obsess over something for a while then we move on to the next thing of interest.

A friend and I have been discussing this idea a lot over the last few years. We have also come to the conclusion that after having invested time, effort, and money, we dis-invest, but not completely: we settle for a "good enough" style of consumption in the field we have developed an expertise in. So instead of spending countless amount of time and money in this fashion niche, I stop here every week and reduce my consumption to a few staple items (i.e. uniform) that have come to determine my field-related identity. That becomes an efficient mean to objectify my cultural capital and maintain my field-dependent position. We could also see very similar patterns in coffee, denim, fixies, and motorcycling.

This development is indeed contingent to our post-modern ways of consuming/being: as our self fragmented, we started to make identity investments in a number of (consumption) fields, which came to define us but also position us relatively to others (see bourdieu, for example). Developing an expertise in a field, then exiting and doing the same in another field seems like an adequate strategy to acquire symbolic power in life more generally. I could add something about field-congruent consumption here (e.g., hipster lifestyle: coffee, craft beer, denim, fixies, indy music) but you see the point, I'm sure.

[Faust]

if rick wants to keep making carry over shoes that encompass his "staples" (geobaskets, geos, ramones, etc..) then why cant he bring back the regular thin shaft sidezips from 09-10 as a staple item? the ones that just arrived for ss2015 are not cutting it and look like julius and dbss shit out a rick baby.

You mean the creepers? I'll sign that petition.

[eleves]

You mean the creepers? I'll sign that petition.

Seconded. No matter what footwear I choose to pair with my outfit, I always leave my home knowing that I would feel better if I were wearing my 2010 creepers. NYC salt and grime kill them everyday in the winter but I just can't stop wearing them!

[trentk]

Thanks for the thoughtful post. A lot to address, so I will just cover one aspect. I resent the word "geek" - because I think it devalues and reduces what we do here. Actually, let me not speak for everyone but for an ideal SZer I envision. Geekdom is based on obsession with technicality and details ONLY. It does not address cultural and philosophical connections. If in people's view there is no difference between someone who loves limited edition Nikes and someone who loves the work of Carpe Diem, then we might just shut this place down.

It is difficult to pull off, but I think one can engage with only technicality and details in a non-geeky way, so long as:
a. one does so with a certain fluidity or sinuosity that you find in eg proust's highly detailed prose.
and/or
b. one engages with technicality and details such that new, previously unfathomable, "sense/meaning" emerges out of the technicality and details. The parallel I have in mind here is the philosopher of mathematics Albert Lautman who, while he accords philosophical oppositions like infinite/finite, local/global, continuous/discrete etc... a privileged place in mathematics, acknowledges that it is not sufficient to look for existing philosophical oppositions - mathematicians can uncover new philosophical oppositions.

On the topic of b, does anyone have thoughts on how artists in a particular modality can explore things that are apparently so technical as to be specific to that modality, but a "semantic core" is then discovered which expands the structural/affective realm uncovered into a full blown artistic movement? (John Waters' quote about music needing corresponding fashion and fashion needing corresponding music for either to profoundly take hold is, I think, about this phenomena.)

[Nomadic Planet]

A friend and I have been discussing this idea a lot over the last few years. We have also come to the conclusion that after having invested time, effort, and money, we dis-invest, but not completely: we settle for a "good enough" style of consumption in the field we have developed an expertise in. So instead of spending countless amount of time and money in this fashion niche, I stop here every week and reduce my consumption to a few staple items (i.e. uniform) that have come to determine my field-related identity. That becomes an efficient mean to objectify my cultural capital and maintain my field-dependent position. We could also see very similar patterns in coffee, denim, fixies, and motorcycling.

This development is indeed contingent to our post-modern ways of consuming/being: as our self fragmented, we started to make identity investments in a number of (consumption) fields, which came to define us but also position us relatively to others (see bourdieu, for example). Developing an expertise in a field, then exiting and doing the same in another field seems like an adequate strategy to acquire symbolic power in life more generally. I could add something about field-congruent consumption here (e.g., hipster lifestyle: coffee, craft beer, denim, fixies, indy music) but you see the point, I'm sure.

If you manage to find a way to maintain a "healthy" relationship with your subject of interest with time without it being obsessive that is something I really admire. I won't say it's impossible and I probably manage to do it myself too, but I really think our postmodern society of leisure pushes us to this obsessiveness (mostly via the internet).

Post modern configuration pushes us to "make identity investments in a number of (consumption) fields" as you say, but I add the obsessive form which I ignore if it has been describe by any authors; That's just out of my own observations.
I too have been discussing this (at work with a colleague) this past weeks. (on a side note, I find it rather humorous that you mention Bourdieu while speaking about postmodernity - he is the opposite!)

what would be the difference between say, an intellectual, a poet, artist., mathematician... in 1950 per ex., someone with a high investment in a field of interest by hobby or passion, or for personal reasons, VS a contemporary individuals just like you or me ? I sense the answer is that before those were isolated cases, and now the social configuration has extended this model of behavior to lots of people (and not in an identical form => add the "personal meaning to life" dimension, being oneself, expressing oneself, etc).

I know with time I have had different subjects of interest that have implied a form of obsessive implication : first there was electronic music, I spent huge amounts of money in CD's or audio equipment, then it was skydiving, I spent huge amounts of time and money jumping out of airplanes, then there was TV shows on the internet, countless hours of binge watching, a few years later I don't know why I was so curious about hipsters, I spent days reading about hipsters on the internet (god knows why....), until I found SZ (no connection at all :p ), and the subsequent hours of browsing on here, Sufu, Grailed, etc. Not to mention the huge amounts of money that went away in amazing clothing

I don't know if it's just myself, an obsessive personal trait that I have, or if there is something about how consumption is now shaped mostly via the internet that changes our relation to the social world.... I stil think there are plenty of people like me, particularly around here, spending lots of time on these forums (no criticism whatsoever).

also, to clarify, I'm not saying these are temporary "fashions" for me, that I just throw away once"fed up". I still have a passionate relationship to the genre of electronic music I invested so much in, I still have a passion for skydiving (even if I haven't been able to do it in a while), and I feel I will have a passion for SZ related universe for years to come, hopefully all my life!

My question here is : is this just a bunch of people converging around a common passion or is it something else? is it just passion or is it also enhanced by this particular XXI century way of obsessive interaction and consumption ? (that's what I was aiming at when using the term "geek", although I don't know if that term is the right one).

[stagename]

(on a side note, I find it rather humorous that you mention Bourdieu while speaking about postmodernity - he is the opposite!

I'm pretty sure this is not the forum for this genre of discussion, but (as a side note) if you disregard Bourdieu's own position towards post(structuralism/modernism), he is easily reconcilable with a postmodern view of consumption, identity, knowledge, and power, and scholars of consumption have done just so (e.g., Holt 1997a, b). In his influential review of postmodern sociology, Lash (1991) also distances Bourdieu from modern sociologists. Likewise, a great number of scholars prefer him as a post-structuralist rather than a structuralist.

We might come from different definitions of postmodernism.

Although it might be possible to defend the contrary position, but I don't see how this is analytically productive, and I'm more of a pragmatic than a theoretical purist.

We can continue this in private.

[nobody1]

I made a thread on this

I'm interested in hearing some people's opinions/thoughts on this.

[Faust]

Stagename, Nomadic_Planet - there is nothing new in corporations creating meaning and emotional connection in order to sell products. It's a story as old as the first advertisement.

I think the key difference is that here - again, I refer to the ideal SZer - the products happen to have meaning that the creator imbues it with and that the consumer recognizes and can relate to. When I fell in love with fashion, I already came in with my own meaning, and I just happened to find designers that shared it.

Again, Ann Demeulemeester did not set out to make rock'n'roll clothing with a marketing plan. She just did what she loved and found others who could relate to it. As opposed to, say AirBnb that is now preaching that they are a "community" of people that makes you feel at home anywhere in the world and that somehow we will find brotherly love, bury our cultural differences, and sing kumbaya under their corporate stewardship.

As Naomi Klein wrote in her essay no matter the corporate message, we don't find community at Starbucks, only subpar coffee and some plush chairs. But I hope we find community on SZ.

[Latoya Sizemore]

I have some fashion thoughts in my mind and I know most of the people may like this idea.
I have seen in some sites that models are wearing T-shirts of nice prints and this type of clothing was looking like a chill clothing.
It would be great if one cane wear little bit loose T-shirts with some great prints like marijuana leaves, cannabis, weeds etc.
Most of the youngsters will like to wear fashionable and chill clothing, which give a great looks to youngsters.

[bukka]

^
Fantastic post

[Nomadic Planet]

^
Fantastic post

you beat me to it, was gonna comment the same!!

[Nomadic Planet]

At some point the spam will become entertaining enough that we'll just let it slide in the interests of our continued amusement.

yah... although this one seems "too good to be true" and makes me wonder if it's not intentional trolling... kinda have a hard time believing that post genuinely came out of someones head as something authentically naive...