What are you wearing today?

[BeauIXI]

Style is like a sense of humour. It can't really be bought, and it's usually achieved through a combination of pain, intellect and charima.

[Faust]

1.The problem essentially, is that people who think they are 'authentically cool' (or whatever) feel threatened by these so-called 'posers' who are trying to fit the 'role'. It implys that there is some sort of role to begin with. If you really are so confident in your identity and individuality, you would know that nobody can fill your shoes (literally, I suppose). Yohji Yamamoto said something along these lines in regards to knock-offs in that Wim Wenders film. There's no use getting all worked up about it; to me it suggests insecurity. Some people have it, some people don't, the world turns...


2.of course this happens, but so what? At least they are supporting good designers and giving them recognition. If somebody is wearing an outfit that perhaps doesn't match their personality, it doesn't make the clothes less repectable - just the person. Now that's fashion for you.

1. It implies nothing of the sort. You cannot tell me that a person who grew up poor, arrested and beaten by cops for standing on the corner, not being able to feed himself because minimum wage is not a living wage and a rich kid from the suburbs who never worked a single day in his life listen to Rage Against the Machine for the same reasons. One is not playing a role, because he can relate to that music, another one listens because it's a famous band. No way in hell he can relate to that music. Same with clothes.

Beardown is the last person to give a fuck about being cool. Being authentic is a different matter. I would not put those two words next to each other.

1. So what? So you said people put time and effort to walk into Atelier, and I just told you that they don't, unless by effort you mean taking a taxi there, instead of understanding and appreciating the clothes.

Authenticity is there, Casey - and no amount of not caring on your part invalidates it.

[Faust]

Hey look, clothes

who gives a fuck? we are having a discussion here.

[Ochre]

Faust, regarding your 1st point, how are people to interpret the likes of Paul Harnden? His aesthetic harkens back to a period/lifestyle none of us have experienced or ever could possibly experience since it's so transfixed in a particular point in history. Are those who wear that style simply playing a role?

*I'm not passing judgement on the matter. I think the clothes are beautiful and the people who wear them often look quite good. But when you frame the discussion of authenticity in terms of life experience, I'm curious where Harnden's style falls into the paradigm.

[Faust]

It doesn't matter who the designer is, Ochre. Only thing that matters if the clothes make you feel something, anything - the way Yohji's clothes made Wim Wenders feel - or if you wear them because it's cool shit.

[casem]

I don't doubt that in your example the rich kid and the hard times kid might listen to Rage for different reasons and get different things out of it, but I would never assert that one is listening to them for the right reasons over the other. Things just simply aren't that clear cut, right/wrong, authentic/fake etc. We all go through the gamut of human emotions no matter what our circumstances, fear, alienation, heart break, ecstasy etc. to the extent that I think the suburban kid can feel just as valid a connection with Rage Against the machine as the kid who went through hard times. I extend this view to art, we all experience enough internal suffering to have the potential to create great art, I don't buy the romanticized notion that good art only comes from hard times.

Authenticity is there, Casey - and no amount of not caring on your part invalidates it.

By the same token, I could say authenticity isn't there no matter how hard you wish it into existence. Anyway, I know you're a staunch modernist so we will never agree on these things But I have to interject once in awhile before the Faust/Beardown tagteam dominates the conversation.

1. It implies nothing of the sort. You cannot tell me that a person who grew up poor, arrested and beaten by cops for standing on the corner, not being able to feed himself because minimum wage is not a living wage and a rich kid from the suburbs who never worked a single day in his life listen to Rage Against the Machine for the same reasons. One is not playing a role, because he can relate to that music, another one listens because it's a famous band. No way in hell he can relate to that music. Same with clothes.

Beardown is the last person to give a fuck about being cool. Being authentic is a different matter. I would not put those two words next to each other.

1. So what? So you said people put time and effort to walk into Atelier, and I just told you that they don't, unless by effort you mean taking a taxi there, instead of understanding and appreciating the clothes.

Authenticity is there, Casey - and no amount of not caring on your part invalidates it.

[casem]

Again, what's the difference? Isn't feeling like cool shit feeling something?

It doesn't matter who the designer is, Ochre. Only thing that matters if the clothes make you feel something, anything - the way Yohji's clothes made Wim Wenders feel - or if you wear them because it's cool shit.

[gavagai]

Thankfully there are stores like Atelier (only a few) that carry these garments.

I don't really care who buys the stuff so long as they stay in business so they are available to me when I can afford or want them. I think i'm correct when I say that if there weren't many deep pocketed people buying these garments then there would be far less of the stores and it would be WAAAAAAY harder to find these garments.

Yes, I agree >>>Authenticity has nothing to do with being "cool"

[casem]

BTW, where is the French crew in all of this? Y'all own us when it comes to philosophical matters.

[BeauIXI]

Hi,

There is no authentic. There is only becoming authentic. Casem, I feel the good/bad distinction doesn't quite work here. Faust has introduced the concept of being able to attain a level of cool. Authenticity is never a milestone we pass or a throne we occupy, it's a constant state of becoming, never reaching anything easily defined. This concept presents itself as the most distinct aspect between the hard times kid and the rich kid...

The rich kid feels that once he's bought the Rick Owens leather jacket, that he can stop posting on SZ, that he can stop going to Atelier. The poor kid knows that one jacket is not enough, and doesn't really even care whether he gets it or not. All in all, I would say that specific authenticity is far more complex than any definition we could put forward because it defies definition. You might say that cool is the same way because it's always changing from year to year, but I disagree, because cool is only dynamic and mutatory on a macrocosmic plane. Authenticity is different from person to person, and it's something only you can learn to access.

You can be a cool christian by going to church and quoting the Bible. You can be an authentic follower of Christ through introspection and meditation, and there is no quitting and saying "well, I've found God".

EDIT: Funny you posted that before I posted this, Casem.

[Shucks]

i don't know about the rest of yous but i was drawn to sz because i saw it as an alternative to all the advertising bullshit i'm being inundated with by media, all the calculated retailing concepts i'm surrounded by, all the online social network marketing that keeps trying to grab a piece of my identity.

maybe i'm not authentic, maybe there is no authenticity - but the thought that it may exist or may be created, helps me make moral choices and keeps me from turning even more into a cynical and bitter nihilist than i already am. striving for an ideal tends to make us better people, whether we attain it or not.

ps. to me judging the authenticity of someone's style is difficult based on an image only. i mean, 'authentic' in this discussion means what? authentic as in 'true to one's value system' - right? so if i don't know the value system of the person, how can i know whether they are true to it or not? hence i chose to comment only on the esthetics of eternal's fit - a fit i liked - since i don't know the guy. and in fact, his follow-up comments seem pretty sincere and enlightened to me, so maybe he's even a pretty 'authentic' dude in some real nice pants. the thumb ring's gotta go though.

[cjbreed]

I don't doubt that in your example the rich kid and the hard times kid might listen to Rage for different reasons and get different things out of it, but I would never assert that one is listening to them for the right reasons over the other. Things just simply aren't that clear cut, right/wrong, authentic/fake etc. ...

spoken like a true upper middle class white american male.


just kidding around man keep me out of this.

[casem]

Beaux, now that is an interesting definition of authenticity. It reminds me a great deal of a paper I did on German Romanticism/Queer Romanticism and the music of Antony and the Johnsons (it was for a class on Schumann, and basically I didn't want to talk about Schumann). Anyway, the 19th C. Romantic view is nearly exactly as you describe, a constant searching, a yearning for the indescribable, a lack of dichotomies and fixed meaning, a dual self (I quest for my true self knowing the quest is impossible as my true self doesn't exist).

While I find these notions quite intriguing, I also realize it is this ever searching unfulfilled desire that is manipulated to make us consumers.

But, I'm not sure what this has to do with the way most people use authenticity. Authenticity is usually framed as something you either have or you don't. I would think the authenticity crowd would find the search for authenticity a rather inauthentic quest. A "poser" for example is one who is searching for authenticity but clearly doesn't have it.

Hi,

There is no authentic. There is only becoming authentic. Casem, I feel the good/bad distinction doesn't quite work here. Faust has introduced the concept of being able to attain a level of cool. Authenticity is never a milestone we pass or a throne we occupy, it's a constant state of being, never reaching anything easily defined. This concept presents itself as the most distinct aspect between the hard times kid and the rich kid...

The rich kid feels that once he's bought the Rick Owens leather jacket, that he can stop posting on SZ, that he can stop going to Atelier. The poor kid knows that one jacket is not enough, and doesn't really even care whether he gets it or not. All in all, I would say that specific authenticity is far more complex than any definition we could put forward because it defies definition. You might say that cool is the same way because it's always changing from year to year, but I disagree, because cool is only dynamic and mutatory on a macrocosmic plane. Authenticity is different from person to person, and it's something only you can learn to access.

You can be a cool christian by going to church and quoting the Bible. You can be an authentic follower of Christ through introspection and meditation, and there is no quitting and saying "well, I've found God".

EDIT: Funny you posted that before I posted this, Casem.

[BeauIXI]

I guess both "cool" and "authentic" in the sense that I've introduced them are both really "authentic". I think both concepts can appear similar on the surface (a cool looking guy can wear the same thing as an authentic guy) but that they both have totally different natures inside, ala

to me judging the authenticity of someone's style is difficult based on an image only.

[interest1]

Beardown is the last person to give a fuck about being cool.
Being authentic is a different matter. I would not put those two words next to each other.

Again, what's the difference? Isn't feeling like cool shit feeling something?

. . .Yes. Something quite empty.
. . . Because the latter feeds the ego – the former feeds the soul.
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