Feature and Op-Ed articles

Op-Ed: Is the Era of Primacy of the Brand Over the Designer Coming to an End?

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

In 2004 Gucci was flying high. Tom Ford, its designer, and Domenico De Sole, its CEO, were on top of the world, having turned around a flailing brand in the mid-90s and making it one of the hottest tickets in the world of luxury fashion. The pair seemed untouchable; after fighting off a takeover attempt by Bernard Arnault, the founder of LVMH, and having found its perfect white knight in François-Henri Pinault, they formed a rival conglomerate. Who in their right mind would fire them? Pinault did, sending a very clear message across the industry that was in the throes of corporatization – no designer was as important as the brand, even the one who brought it back from the brink.

Paris S/S 2025 Women’s Fashion Week Report

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

The City of Light welcomed this edition of women’s fashion week with pouring rain; proof that god hates fashion. No matter; the influencers influenced, and I am convinced that a tsunami could not stop the fake dressing for the cameras — mother nature is no match for late capitalism. At Dries Van Noten without Dries Van Noten the change in the makeup of the audience was palpable. The editors were mostly relegated to the second row to make room for “content creators.” In front of me sat a girl who must have been in her early twenties. She was armed with an iPhone ensconced in some gizmo that allowed her to record the show on video in a semi-professional way. Preoccupied with filming, she did not look at the clothes once. And what did she miss? A definite change.

Op-Ed: It’s Time to Stop Calling For Young Designers at Top Fashion Jobs

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

Over the last several years the generational-divide-as-culture-wars has penetrated fashion. The narrative goes that it’s the same handful of old people who keep juggling for top creative director positions and that those positions should go to younger designers who could bring fresh blood and new ideas, and rejuvenate the stale fashion establishment. That narrative is…

Boris Bidjan Saberi: Human Scale

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

“I am at a stage in my profession where I have expertise, like a tailor or a mechanic. I know something,” Boris Bidjan Saberi, the German fashion designer, said during a preview of his collection on a recent morning in June. It was a rare interview that, as someone who prefers to let his work speak for itself, Saberi agreed to. He paused a beat, “I mean, in the end, I don’t know anything,” laughter all around. “I love to work and get better and make things different. My whole life I have worked with my hands.”

THE CONTROLLED ANARCHY OF JUN TAKAHASHI

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

“Jun is the only designer from the Ura-Hara scene who knows that true creation comes from and with pain,” Hirakawa

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TOKYO – The offices of Undercover, the cult Japanese fashion brand, are located in the maze of the Upper Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. Undercover occupies the entire building, whose front is a repurposed shipping container that floats above ground, a window cut into its front end. On a recent visit in March, just after the end of Tokyo Fashion Week, I found the brand’s operations spilling out in front of the office, where boxes bearing the Undercover logo lay on the ground, its signature motorcycle jackets that retail for thousands of dollars spilling out of them. A middle-aged man with long silver hair wearing a coach’s jacket that said “Undercover Records” on the back milled around the boxes.

EVERYTHING IS MERCH

Culture, Features/Op-Ed

Is Millionaire Speedy a luxury bag or merch? What about the Balenciaga Maxi Pack? Some people’s idea of merch is Trump’s gold high-tops. Merch as a status symbol. Merch as a subgenre. Merch as a style statement. Merch as an identity marker. Merch as something of waning cultural relevance.