Controversial Opinions on Fashion

On the other hand, I don’t think the rant that sank his career was THAT awful? (see, Salvatore, this is where you don’t want to hear my hot takes and feel more like ‘why don’t you just.. keep it to yourself, honey?’ :lol:). The man was drunk, most addicts behave in disgusting ways, and he was clearly trying to piss the s*it out of that person.. most people are like that because their ‘sensitivity’ and ‘acceptance’ is performative, especially nowadays, they tolerate and try to keep up with buzz words but sooner or later, they break character…

Hahah, I actually agree with you on this. I really hated his Dior output during the time leading up to that moment and his subsequent firing so I was not super upset when he was let go. In that same breath, I didn’t find it to be something so bad considering he was drunk and belligerent and that he really just needed some major help. He’s not a racist, just drunk, dramatic, and stupid at that time.
 
^^ I know you said 'most' and that you added a disclaimer that it comes from your bitterness based on personal experiences, but I think there's something problematic in thinking that anyone in academia/research with a focus on fashion is only doing that because they are mediocre, failed to make it in fashion, sought validation by pursuing further education and because the fashion industry was too exclusive to let them in. Someone like Pierre Bourdieu, who taught in schools and clearly never made a single career move that suggested he wanted to be a fashion designer of all things (lol), has contributed way more to understanding key concepts fashion's survival depends on than the technical and social impact most (if not all) living designers will ever have.

Not long ago (about a week or so?) I read someone in the Designers area saying something about how a dress code had nothing to do with misogyny, 'it was just fashionable'. Personally, in my short stint in fashion school (which had little to do with fashion design and I quickly learned was a gigantic mistake and exited TFO), that was the default cognitive process of my peers, fashion just happens, way more spontaneous than a natural disaster, it's like fashion just.. blooms and floats above political events, development stages, a socioeconomic context, zero relation with each society or traditions or remotely affected by class or the roles we assign with different level of force to different groups of people. Some things are either fashionable or they're not, desirable or luxurious, the 'moment', iconic, hot.

That disdain towards education and critical thinking (which is what theory stimulates) brings us to where we are now, 'design' that could hardly compete with other creative fields in terms of output, innovation and substance. People don't know how to question, critically think, nurture their curiosity through rigorous research and study, even fashion history seems so dull when all you want is to make a hot dress that maybe Natasha Poly can open the show of your dreams in. That is the pathetic level of true, unadulterated mediocrity predominating in fashion these days. Fashion designers with nothing to say, who next to musicians, architects, painters and industrial designers, are always the last to find out about a movement and by far the least capable of capturing it without making it so cringe they practically kill it just by laying their eyes on it.

Even the idea of fashion designers being socially 'comprehensive' to mingle with everything from outcasts, the politically subversive, critics, experimental musicians, painters, philosophers to the socialites and celebrities is unheard of anymore, they're down with the illiterate influencers, the instagram stars, party promoters, the celebrities, pop singers and reality show stars. That's what they can handle, they're unable to.. expand, let alone be curious enough to dive with their creativity into the unknown and see what comes out of it. They just dream of one day heading fashion's McDonalds (aka. Givenchy, Chanel, Dior) and hanging out with Kourtney Kardashian.

There should be a balance with technical knowledge and theory. You don't want someone who can't sew to save his/her life but you're also not just educating a seamstress or the fashion equivalent of a construction worker, and certainly not 'exclusively' educating fashion designers the way studying architecture doesn't necessarily mean you will work as an architect.. plenty of architects working in industrial design, fashion, art, so fashion design should be strong enough as an academic foundation to prepare students to do more than just fashion, informed by a fashion background, should they decide to pursue opportunities elsewhere.
 
in my experience-
most people who work in the fashion industry aren't very bright, aren't very stylish and aren't very original...
most are very insecure and, subsequently, not very friendly or nice...
the flip side of that is many of these people with little brains and little to no talent, have enormous egos which makes them absolutely intolerable...

don't know if that's controversial, but it is what i have observed and experienced first hand...

it's a lot of very unpleasant humans who care very little about anyone/anything but themselves...
it's not cute...
 
^^ It definitely is built on personal biases and also hearing about other horror stories from other places too. I do believe that academia can be very rewarding when it comes to fashion, and I probably upped the ante on my negative attitude towards it in my posts, but there are many wrongs in the way different places teach it based on lecturer's biases that they don't own up to. Some do own up to them, and that's fantastic because you know what you're working with and what they expect as an outcome. Those that don't make it such a mental mind field that it really gets in the way of doing your work and learning about the field due to their inconsistencies. Not everyone wants to be Rei Kawakubo, nor should they be, but when you make that clear as a student you often get invalidated very quickly.

I clearly have and still get a lot out of academia as studying and working there has been really fulfilling. The way I see it, my job is like a high paying internship where my technical skills are put to good use and my point-of-view is appreciated most of the time to offer a different take. Some students have said it is handy having someone that isn't so far out of having done the degree helping there alongside the lecturers because the latter can often be very out of touch. So my biases have more to do the lecturer's lack of adaptability to actually teaching the degree. Many places still have had the same structuring for years (where I work included), so the same lectures/powerpoints, same book references, same methodologies built in the degree it often feels lacking in other areas so you don't get as much out of it as you would think because it was built on the lecturers/unit coordinators strengths. They're obviously hired because of their subjective views on the area because that is how you develop your strengths, but it also means they won't budge or actually listen to constructive criticism themselves. So many are happy to dish it out to the students highlighting their insecurities and weaknesses with their work, yet they can't handle it themselves as they sit on their high horse.

Again, this is purely focused on the area of teaching fashion and textile design as a core degree from a more practical point of view. The degree teaching in a lot of places don't set it up in a way so that you actually feel adequate in the area/s as the conceptual reasoning and critical thinking are pushed too far to the forefront that the technical side gets lost. It is hard to be critically thinking when you don't know how to make the thing that you want to be using as part of your critique and all the lecturers can do is notice that but not actually help. Makes it more difficult to figure out what pathway to go down when things aren't lining up right repeatedly.

Now on another note, I think Platos Atlantis S/S 2010 is a very weak collection. Strip away all the bells and whistles and you have a series of micro-mini cocktail dresses that washed out a non-model wearer completely with an odd fit that isn't intentional. This comes from a very big Alexander McQueen fan.
 
stop so hard life-prolonging treatments. if the essence is like what cocteau says below.
( or if the designer is called an artist, the brand name should not transgress their lifetime, even though the company name could be possible. and if the company doesn't want to be the obsolete universe. their spirit will be kept alive less by glorification than by question, even rebellion. it devolves more upon what scorns the heritage. )

"fashion means premature death. It is such passing that gives that heavy lightness to fashion."

"james dean is a sort of archangel of rebellion against custom: was not death his finest act of disobedience, in its terrible rejection of his promised fame? it is as if he left the world like a schoolboy escaping from the classroom through the window and poking his tongue out at his teachers."
 
stop so hard life-prolonging treatments. if the essence is like what cocteau says below.
( or if the designer is called an artist, the brand name should not transgress their lifetime, even though the company name could be possible. and if the company doesn't want to be the obsolete universe. their spirit will be kept alive less by glorification than by question, even rebellion. it devolves more upon what scorns the heritage. )

"fashion means premature death. It is such passing that gives that heavy lightness to fashion."

"james dean is a sort of archangel of rebellion against custom: was not death his finest act of disobedience, in its terrible rejection of his promised fame? it is as if he left the world like a schoolboy escaping from the classroom through the window and poking his tongue out at his teachers."
what?
 
:lol:

did that go over your head?

:rofl:...

just proved the point i made earlier...
:rolleyes: ... :ninja:...

basically-
brands need to stop trying to bring the dead back to life...

*speaking of that... i am so so sad about the passing of Issey Miyake but he really did build a legacy that will continue without him since he stepped back awhile ago...
truly exceptional...
 
Okay, I'm ready to get flogged for this... but in 2022... I'm kind of "over" 90s supermodels being constantly brought back (as I type this with an avatar of Nadja). Intellectually, I totally get why people are losing their minds for Linda's Vogue UK cover shot by Meisel, I get it! But when I look at that cover it just reminds me that the party is over and it has been for a loooong time. It actually makes me a bit sad (nothing to do with Linda herself, or her styling), but you just can't re-create the past. The magic is gone.. I guess I should be happy we're getting something passable, but it doesn't satisfy me.
 
I hate young designers' obsession with Margiela. It's so obvious that they're in love with the idea of his "subversion" and "rebellion" that they all have the exact same design references. Only Glenn Martens seems to live up to him.

I think that Jacquemus is a good designer, but has sh*tty technical skills and I feel the the huge surge in popularity has somewhat hurt him as a designer.

I'm thankful that models don't show personality (or just outright extraversion) on the runways anymore. Every time I watch a 80s/90s show, it feels like I'm a beauty pageant full of mean girls. 00s shows are infinitely better produced.

I feel that purely genderless fashion isn't going to fully catch on outside of the artsy fashion diaspora, purely because of how overtly queer it is for most men.

I enjoy Nicolas Ghésquire's work for Louis Vuitton. The Historicism mixed with the Brutalist/Futuristic elements reads as actual genuine high fashion. It's often ignored since it doesn't appeal to the large fashion crowds (highbeasts, instagays and the core girls).
 
Maybe not “controversial” but I miss Peter Dundas at Pucci. His work was by no means groundbreaking but the collections were fun, the clothes looked luxe, and the casting was fierce. I appreciated that he stuck to his niche of straightforward, fun, sexy party attire and never got too ambitious and tried to expand the brand, even though that’s probably why LVMH let him go.

Looking back it’s sad how good we actually had it back in the early to mid 2010s, before social media took over and completely ruined the fashion industry.
 
Men's-fashion influencers are the epitome of cringe. Men's-fashion YouTubers even more so. Whenever I see their videos on Instagram (and the occasional TikTok), I click on the "don't show me content like this" fast.

(There's a female stylist whose claim to fame is that she styled celebrities that's why she's "better" than others, but I actually hate her aesthetic.)

GQ is a terrible magazine under Will Welch's direction. I want him replaced.

Mobolaji Dawodu is an overrated stylist.

Burberry is an uninteresting brand now that they've become another clout-chasing, hypebeast-feeding, brand-name-screaming-at-your-face kind of clothing.

In the same vein as Burberry, every brand that changed its logo to the staid and tired Helvetica font is equally boring.
 
Forgot to add one more thing:
Hedi Slimane has just one aesthetic. Whether it's YSL or Dior Homme or Céline, you can put the clothes side by side and not know from which design house they came from because they look exactly the same rocker-chic he's done forever.
 
Macqueen's early collections were much better.
Plato's Atlantis was horrible. Lee at his worst.

Phoebe Philo's Celine is overrated.

I love 80s. Everything was more joyful and less pretentious.

The greates (Avedon, Penn, Newton, etc) had it much easier. I am not denying their talent and knowledge but they were born just in the right time.

Digital is killing everything.

Steven Meisel should retire. His work is pure photoshop now.

Fashion illustration should come back to magazines. It's so much more interesting than today's photography.
I liked the illustration issue of VI or to be more precise - the idea behind it. The choice of artists was questionable though. Only Amano was great and giving Manara a cover but no pages inside was dumb.
 
I love Philo's Celine, but I despise all of its spinoffs. They all reek of "gIrLbOsS eNeRgY".

I like Galliano's work and he's obviously a good designer, but I can't connect to his Margiela.

I don't get why Telfar is considered "luxury" when the pricing, the materials and the aesthetic reflect NONE of that.

Belgium seem to the only country capable of consistently producing consistently good designers. I cannot name one Belgian designer who work I don't love. It's almost as if Antwerp threatens castration in case of underperformance.

I hate how every designer is also trying to be a pseudo-activist, when the actual clientele obviously gives no f*cks. Just give me remotely creative clothes that don't r*pe the planet.
 
Fashion illustration should come back to magazines. It's so much more interesting than today's photography.
I liked the illustration issue of VI or to be more precise - the idea behind it. The choice of artists was questionable though. Only Amano was great and giving Manara a cover but no pages inside was dumb.

Yes!! Fashion illustration, while I've always thought it was a nice thing, is something I've really come to appreciate lately! I've been ordering a few vintage issues of Elle France ("a few" ok I'm obsessed) and I was quite charmed to see an issue with an entire editorial illustrated by Antonio Lopez! It really is a lost "art." I've actually just ordered books about Joe Eula and Kenneth Paul Block, too. ^_^

tumblr_lxc0skZPZF1qaxe9co1_500.jpg
teen-witches.tumblr.com
 
Yes!! Fashion illustration, while I've always thought it was a nice thing, is something I've really come to appreciate lately! I've been ordering a few vintage issues of Elle France ("a few" ok I'm obsessed) and I was quite charmed to see an issue with an entire editorial illustrated by Antonio Lopez! It really is a lost "art." I've actually just ordered books about Joe Eula and Kenneth Paul Block, too. ^_^

View attachment 1214513
teen-witches.tumblr.com
That looks beautiful! It's a shame that this art has been mostly banished to Instagram...
 
I can’t, won’t and never will tolerate JW Anderson.

He was the beginning of the end of great fashion design: He’s absolutely one of the four horsemen of the fashion apocalypse that’s devastated fashion to the sad, sloppy state it is in today. HIs brand of cartoony, messy, cluttered Dr.Zeus fashion for women, and dressing men in creepy, pubescent, toddler clothes is heinous in every imaginable way— like a cartoony, caricature of fashion that out does Sasha Baron Cohen’s Bruno— but without any joy and lightness, not even humor.There’s no subtlety, no understatement, and no refinement: It all just desperately screams Insta faSHON! Alessandro Michele’s Gucci may be a bunch of witless cloned Edina Monsoon children playing dressup in their grandparents' trunk, but there’s still a whiff of nerdy charm. And Jeremy Scott is a basic b!tch, but there’s so much joy and charm in his Moschino. JW’s first-draft slop is just so cold and so utterly joyless.

The best thing from one of his current collection was Juergen in a Speedo.
 
I can’t, won’t and never will tolerate JW Anderson.

He was the beginning of the end of great fashion design: He’s absolutely one of the four horsemen of the fashion apocalypse that’s devastated fashion to the sad, sloppy state it is in today. HIs brand of cartoony, messy, cluttered Dr.Zeus fashion for women, and dressing men in creepy, pubescent, toddler clothes is heinous in every imaginable way— like a cartoony, caricature of fashion that out does Sasha Baron Cohen’s Bruno— but without any joy and lightness, not even humor.There’s no subtlety, no understatement, and no refinement: It all just desperately screams Insta faSHON! Alessandro Michele’s Gucci may be a bunch of witless cloned Edina Monsoon children playing dressup in their grandparents' trunk, but there’s still a whiff of nerdy charm. And Jeremy Scott is a basic b!tch, but there’s so much joy and charm in his Moschino. JW’s first-draft slop is just so cold and so utterly joyless.

The best thing from one of his current collection was Juergen in a Speedo.
Who are the other three horsemen?
 
I dislike the current state of fashion where people are so overly concerned about race/ gender/ body shape etc. Whilst I respect everyone who is big sized/ gay or straight/ white, black, asian, latino etc.

I feel that if a designer thinks that the theme suits an all white or all black cast, then so be it. And if he also think that only skinny boys or girls can better represent his particular runway collection that season, then so be it.

He can do this one season and maybe something else another season.
Please don't be 'inclusive' for the sake of being inclusive.
 

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