High-street brands started to get the capacity to copy instantly what’s happening at Paris Fashion Week, while high-end brands still take three months for production. And now Gucci and Vetements are starting to borrow from high-street fashions. It’s a never-ending game, like cats chasing each other. | | | | Models wearing Pierre Cardin, 1969.
(Bettmann/Getty Images) | | | | | | “High-street brands started to get the capacity to copy instantly what’s happening at Paris Fashion Week, while high-end brands still take three months for production. And now Gucci and Vetements are starting to borrow from high-street fashions. It’s a never-ending game, like cats chasing each other.”
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| | rantnrave:// Authenticity has been a flashpoint for debate in fashion as long as the word "fashion" has been in use. Yet the boundaries between inspiration, homage, copying, and fraud have been complicated by the ease of spreading and copying information online. Calling out design similarities in fashion has become something of a spectator sport, with INSTAGRAM accounts dedicated to showing side-by-side comparisons. At what point does this becomes a zero-sum game for both imitators and the imitated? Really enjoyed this roundtable from VESTOJ and SHANGHAI-based LABELHOOD on what it means to be authentic when nearly everything is accessible online. The conversation features designers from three emerging labels in CHINA—PRONOUNCE, SIRLOIN, and YIRANTIAN. Love that their comments defy the easy assumptions often made in debates about authenticity. YUSHAN LI, co-designer of Pronounce, had this to say about e-commerce platform TAOBAO, where real and fake goods surface alongside each other: "Now that we’re in an age of full sharing and very fast communication, people send you a screenshot or tag you. So you see the copies, and you think that it’s happening more, but actually probably it happened before. It’s just the rate of communication which changed." So does calling attention to copying create a culture of responsibility? It's been a source of ambivalence in fashion for a long time. GABRIELLE CHANEL famously said that being copied is "the ransom of success" despite taking legal action against some (but not all) copyists in her lifetime. Li said she and her partner feel honored when they see their images reposted online despite the fact that they'd rather be credited. When it comes to directly representing China in their work, the two designers not originally from the country were the ones referencing Chinese culture, saying people connected to those elements of their designs despite their view of themselves "as tourists." Given recent reports from BOF and MCKINSEY that project emerging economies will exceed growth in the US and EUROPE for fashion and luxury, it will be interesting to see how media keeps up with the change... In brief: The UK's DOGWOOF is back with another fashion documentary (after "Dior and I" and "Dries") on VIVIENNE WESTWOOD. "Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist" will debut at SUNDANCE in January 2018... LI & FUNG divests from furniture, sweaters, and beauty... JD.COM's plans for smart stores. | | | - HK Mindy Meissen, curator |
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| This September, Labelhood, the Shanghai-based design incubator, teamed up with Vestoj to host a roundtable on digital authenticity with three emerging labels, each of which carves a different niche within the Chinese fashion landscape. | | |
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| Naomi, Christy, Gisele, Gigi, Versace: a surprising trend of the year reaches its apogee. | | |
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| This past August, Miguel Caballero shot his wife, Carolina Ballesteros, for the second time in nine years. Since 1993, the Colombian designer has literally pulled the trigger on more than 230 people to prove the efficacy of his bulletproof clothing. (All participants were volunteers.) | | |
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| As a new exhibition dedicated to his life’s work thus far opens at the Milan Triennale, we present an interview with the designer from AnOther Magazine A/W17. | | |
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| A millennial himself, the 25-year-old CEO knows how to reach that all-important generation. | | |
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| The DRC not only lost a part of its economy, but also part of its culture when it stopped printing its own fabric. | | |
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| Founder and chief executive Yael Aflalo will use the Series B round of financing, led by Stripes Group with participation from 14W andImaginary Ventures, to open more tech-enabled retail locations. | | |
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| But really, why do we stand in lines for hours to buy stuff? | | |
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| In Paris, it was Birkins at dawn, and under the gavel. | | |
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| The brand's latest collection is an ode to Black Americans in the Postbellum South House of Aama, a fashion house led by Rebecca Henry, 50, and her daughter, Akua Shabaka, 20, is doing something quite marvellous. The duo-currently on their second collection, BLOODROOT, released in November-began crafting the brand as a labour of love. | | |
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| They're not at all worried. | | |
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| Erika Houle considers how our desire to wear lopsided hems and single sleeves is a sign of our times. | | |
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| Koché’s excellent pre-fall show puts an exclamation point on the year’s most enduring trend. | | |
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| In 1993, the Gap was a dominant player in fashion retail, and their khakis ad campaign foreshadowed menswear blogging by showing your favorite artists and writers (Dali, Kerouac, James Dean, and Warhol above) in archival black-and-white photos, in plain ol’ khakis-a Gap specialty. | | |
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| A first look at the new atelier from the luxury house and the legendary Harlem designer. | | |
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| James and Lawrence break down the ways they’ve schemed on getting rich quick, including the recent cryptocurrency boom and selling condoms to children. Then, former jock/model and cerebral writer Chirs Wallace joins FU to talk being BFFs with Rick Owens, fashion’s pervert problem, and finding out his dad is gay. Plus, “Captain’s Log/Letters to Home” previews a few holiday treats for the Fail Gang. | | |
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| Consumer campaigns have existed for more than a century, but the Trump presidency has galvanized activists and accelerated their work. | | |
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| The Federal Communications Commission will vote on the future of net neutrality on Thursday (Dec 14), an issue that Scott Latham -- CEO of Philadelphia-based e-commerce company Flagship -- said is largely being ignored by the retail industry. | | |
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| An independent monitor could help give the fashion work force a voice and help hold top executives accountable, Ziff said. | | |
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| Lindsay Jones never planned to speak publicly about her experiences with prolific fashion photographer Terry Richardson. The New York City-based designer and model considers herself a private person. She never wanted to harm anyone's livelihood or hurt her own career or "cause drama" by divulging her story, she says. | | |
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