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Why Fashion And Politics Need A Divorce

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

Last week marked the fourteenth anniversary of 9/11, a tragedy that radically changed the political landscape of the world. There were memorial services held in New York and across the United States. The Givenchy Spring/Summer 2016 show was another unlikely place where 9/11 was invoked. The show was held at pier with a view of the new Freedom Tower, and was art-directed by Marina Abramovic. The presentation was supposed to pay respects to 9/11 and celebrate the spirit of human unity. The entire thing – from having an Italian designer who works for a Parisian house preaching to New Yorkers to Givenchy offering special guests tours of the 9/11 memorial – was tone-deaf, if not insulting. There was not a shred of the political in the clothes he presented, making the show’s art direction even more jarring as mere trappings.

Haider

Haider Ackermann

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

Several days after his Spring/Summer 2016 men’s show Haider Ackermann was in his showroom, which was buzzing with buyers. Ackermann came down from the top floor of the building where he was already shooting the looks for his e-commerce platform, to be launched soon.

White Walking

Veronique Branquinho: To Be Free

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

I meet Veronique Branquinho on the 21st floor of a high rise in Chelsea where she’s showing her pre-Spring 2016 collection. She’s in a corner suite with floor-to-ceiling windows that glance out over the Hudson, where industrial barges and cruise ships coarse by in clouds of spray and vapor. The evening is pearly grey and the room feels weightless, suspended up here in a box of steel and glass. Weightless, too, is the effect of the collection: dresses, all white and long, draped on a sparse cluster of forms with a lone live model at their center. Her dress is black with leather straps and falls to the floor. I think of Greek columns and their counterpart in ancient draperies, where the cloth is suspended simply from the shoulders and takes shape only with the moving body.

eKoeun’s Portrait

Forme d’Expression

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

This past January during the men’s fashion week in Paris I, as is my habit, visited the showroom of forme d’expression. The label, which recently celebrated its tenth year anniversary, is designed by Koeun Park, who quietly works in Perugia, Italy on her men’s and women’s collections.

1990s

Op-Ed: Why The 90s Matter

Culture, Features/Op-Ed

Everyone who goes through his formative years in a certain decade considers it the golden age. Obviously, the 90s were the best decade ever.

But let’s go beyond facetiousness. In terms of cultural production it is obvious that every decade has the good and the bad. What is more interesting is how much of the good and how much of the bad the zeitgeist of every decade produces, and what gets to hit the mainstream. Why 90s matter is that it was the decade when culture, and fashion as part of culture, took the last stand before succumbing to pure, unapologetic commerce.

McQueen

Op-Ed: Fashion’s Postmodernist Phase

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

New York – From the numerous editorial reports underscoring the end of the fashion season in Paris one of the leitmotifs was the lack of originality on designers’ part.

Paris is usually the cherry on the cake in terms of creativity, a critic’s reward for having to sit through the commercial blandness of New York’s shows, the campy antics of London’s, and the vulgar luxury of Milan’s. Not this time, at least according to Angelo Flaccavento and Robin Givhan, two of the most powerful fashion commentators.

DSC_7113

The Last Conspiracy

Fashion, Features/Op-Ed

These days when fashion increasingly seems to be on one continuous treadmill, it is becoming increasingly difficult to slow things down, to approach craftsmanship with care that a well-made product demands.

On a recent journey towards the historic ateliers of The Last Conspiracy, a Denmark-based footwear company, tucked away on a hillside just outside Porto, the second largest city in Portugal, I got a glimpse into how things can still be made the traditional way. The story of Roald Nore, a creative nomad and the brand’s founder, begins with his desire to make something genuine and lasting.