Don't forget! Interesting stuff happening on a specific date on the calendar below this is just filler text to get the idea across.
All in Essays
In an industry that doesn’t like to talk about race (let alone blackness), it’s rare for designers, who identify as black, to readily insert identity politics into their brands. The fear, perhaps, emerges from the fact that doing so could pigeonhole them into a singular narrative of blackness – one that could result in them being unattractive to customers, investors, and the media.
Painter Alex Katz is so closely attuned to the fashion scene, specifically to the New York fashion scene, that it could be said that he has at times created or at least anticipated major shifts in it. Even his "sweet, unassuming" paintings have a predictive quality to them. Indeed, Katz and fashion form a kind of symbiosis.
As one of the culture industry’s principal soothsayers, Edelkoort certainly looks the part: with her cropped, grey-streaked hair, red lips, and signature 80s minimalist attire, she exudes a kind of “arty” knowingness in her daily uniform that her clients have come to conflate with her trend forecasting ability.
Unpacking how masculinity is embodied in images from HIV prevention material targeting a gay male audience, this essay explores how, through their streaming and modulation with the viewer’s body, such images become affective, thereby potentially informing our ideas of and identifications with the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
In New York City, there exists a small community of heterosexual men who seek to learn flirting and dating skills in self-help communities called “seduction communities.” Playing a key role in their social construction of identity, fashion makeovers aim to help these sexually-frustrated men embody charismatic masculine identities.
My bouncy curls that were the product of a mixed heritage and symbolized a forward-looking world were seemingly not to be celebrated, at least not by the media and fashion industry. The fleeting moments of praise were shrouded in fetishism, and the sense of “otherness” was consistently present. Ironically, however, I continued to respect a system that did not respect me back.
To say 2016 was a big year for America would be a drastic understatement. The events of the year pushed our nation into an intense period of self-reflection and re-evaluating. With the shocking success of a businessman’s run for president, our culture was obsessed with exploring what America stands for and who gets to define contemporary patriotism.
This essay looks at advertisements that appeared in three turn-of-the-century fashion magazines — exploring how the fashion industry in some ways participated in the perpetuation of normative gender roles, but in others created a more subversive counter-narrative.
Debating and dissecting Westbrook’s style has become a tradition and an ongoing concern for a wide swath of sportswriters, broadcasters, journalists, and fans. In general, however, whereas the sports media has often seen Westbrook’s style choices as a sign of inauthenticity, the fashion industry has almost unanimously embraced these same choices as sign of authenticity.
Sabyasachi Mukherjee sells aura over object, lifestyle over product. He de-emphasizes the commerce of his business to a point where it is not even visible anymore. But conversely, the images used to advertise the products create a perceived sense of cultural authenticity that I call his “Colonial Dreamscape.”
When I reflect on luxury fashion, one of the last things I tend to think of is sustainability. This is not uncommon though, as while luxury fashion organizations commonly seek visibility and attention, sustainability is often not part of their raison d'être.
Possessing a peculiar manner of epistemic functioning, an invitation made out of a fabric sample, a press release written in the shape of a poem, or a blurred image of a garment printed in a catalogue can trigger sensorial knowledge about fashion.
With the word “cool” completely drained of meaning — used today in an excessive, inflationary way — it seems extraordinary that coolness can still be linked with specific garments and characteristics. Indeed, no other garment has been so continually associated for so long with coolness as the black leather jacket. At once, it is part of the fashion industry’s mass-market repertoire yet, barely having changed form over the last century, it stands as a classic symbol of affectlessness, individuality, and non-conformism.
