Inherently there’s always been a bigger mission than just fashion. We’re slowly figuring out the different ways to activate those things. Personally, I’d think of myself as active in terms of being politically and socially conscious. Sometimes I’m torn about how much of that should roll over into the brand. And sometimes I’m like, f*** that, this is our platform, this is what we built to be able to have a bigger voice and reach. | | | | | Men's suit, Europe, c.1800. Silk cut and voided velvet with supplementary weft-float patterning and silk embroidery. (LACMA) | | | | | | “Inherently there’s always been a bigger mission than just fashion. We’re slowly figuring out the different ways to activate those things. Personally, I’d think of myself as active in terms of being politically and socially conscious. Sometimes I’m torn about how much of that should roll over into the brand. And sometimes I’m like, f*** that, this is our platform, this is what we built to be able to have a bigger voice and reach.”
| - | Dao-Yi Chow, Public School cofounder, 2016 |
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| | rantnrave:// Categories persist, like a drop-down menu where nothing fits. No one seems to want the baggage that comes with “women’s interest” in publishing. After publishing an op-ed on the forthcoming US administration, TEEN VOGUE is still plagued with astonished reactions that it covers political issues. Which is met with equal astonishment from people who know better. Love that SADY DOYLE puts Teen Vogue's political coverage in a historical framework… What if publishers wore that "women's interest" baggage like a badge? The way VIRGIL ABLOH, in 2016, says he wears streetwear "like a badge." I suspect publications like Teen Vogue already do. It's the rest of the world that needs to catch up. The tension between owning and obliterating difference has been at issue all year, and let’s face it—no one likes having pre-determined labels pushed on them (except maybe ALESSANDRO MICHELE’s GUCCI haha). Don't miss this HIGH SNOBIETY piece on political streetwear... In this candid interview with DAO-YI CHOW and MAXWELL OSBORNE, the PUBLIC SCHOOL designers talk about what it was like working for a multinational. They address the stark contrasts that came with going back and forth between DKNY and Public School, which employs 14 people. On their account, they tried hard to bring their values to a huge network of operations, licensing, design, manufacturing, and branding, and it’s great to see they’ll continue that with their label (and a radio station)… CHAMPION has been subject to a multiverse of interpretation this year. AVA NIRUI, known for her embroidered interpretations of the Champion logo, has faced the reimaging of her own designs. Ripoff or recontextualizing? Depends on who you ask. She calls it, “Bootlegging my bootleg of a bootleg.” Values instead of stable symbols, and community instead of propriety. I’d look to HENRY JENKINS and his thoughts on participatory culture… Speaking of embroidery, check out our latest FashionREDEF Set, Emboidery: Haute Couture to Automation… And speaking of logos, PIERRE BERGÉ has unveiled the logo for the YSL MUSEUMS… WENDY ZOMNIR, co-founder of URBAN DECAY, has this to say about mekeup's vault concept: “Vault means something large and valuable and it’s exclusive, it’s locked up," and, "A lot of people use the pieces they buy and don’t touch their vault. It’s a collector thing.” It’s not exactly the global savings glut, but is the impulse the same? You decide… Will NET-A-PORTER founder NATALIE MASSANET join FARFETCH?… CHINA MACHADO has passed. Read VANESSA FRIEDMAN on Machado’s influence as a woman of color, and read this 2010 profile for Machado in her own words. | | | - HK Mindy Meissen, curator |
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| In their first official interview since exiting DKNY, Public School’s Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne discuss what they’ve learned and where they’re headed in 2017. | | |
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| We take a look at whether streetwear is returning to the more "no fucks given," outspoken, dialogue-setting form it used to take in decades past. | | |
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| Femininity is not a form of stupidity. | | |
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| Sportswear from the longstanding brand has become a blank canvas for creative appropriations, homages and critiques. | | |
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| Ms. Machado, who died Sunday at age 86, was the first nonwhite supermodel, and it’s a legacy the fashion industry has to wrestle with. | | |
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| A 2010 profile of legendary model and Avedon muse China Machado, who passed away on Dec. 18, 2016. | | |
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| Urban Decay started a movement. | | |
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| For those who want to vote with their dollars for a better world. | | |
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| Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech |
| New technologies are impacting a wide range of Americans’ commercial behaviors, from the way they evaluate products and services to the way they pay for the things they buy | | |
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| The mastermind behind Kith talks about selling Timberlands to Jay Z, his burgeoning retail empire, and why he looks up to Ralph Lauren. | | |
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| Trump's "Make America Great Again" hat was pervasive, potent, and deeply misunderstood. | | |
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| The company's giant recycling facility in Germany receives hundreds of tons of old clothes a day. Can it find a way to turn those old clothes into new... | | |
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| From Gucci to Vetements, Barneys, Bergdorf’s, and other top department stores discuss their 2016 best sellers. | | |
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| As they attempt to make data-driven decisions, fashion brands and retailers are increasingly relying on in-house data analysts and engineers. To get a better idea of how brands are integrating data and analytics teams into their day-to-day workings, we asked three to share how theirs operate. | | |
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| It is possible to have more than one beginning. Indian fashion has had at least two, and its history can’t be strung together like memory-pearls in a single strand. The story starts with Rohit Khosla, whose intangible legacy, even though he has been gone for 22 years now, continues to impact Indian fashion. | | |
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| Coco Chanel is famous for a number of things; one of them is her famed quote, “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.” While the legendary designer’s underlying sentiment is accurate in theory, in practice it is not quite as simple, and with the rise of fast fashion retailers, copying appears to be at an all-time high. | | |
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| Indigenous women fight for collective intellectual property rights over traditional Mayan textiles. | | |
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| Few companies have been able to keep Amazon at bay after it decides to target a new market. Zalando, Europe’s biggest online fashion retailer, is the latest to try. | | |
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| The online ‘fast fashion’ sales model is doing wonders for a new breed of northern-based online boutiques targeting teenagers and young women. | | |
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| Menlibayeva states that her educational background is in the Soviet Russian, avant-garde school of Futurism, combining the nomadic aesthetic of post-Soviet, contemporary Kazakhstan that she continues to explore through her photographic and video work. Her focus is on contemporary nomads. | | |
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| © Copyright 2016, The REDEF Group |
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