For me to say I wasn't a genius, I would just be lying to you and to myself. | | | | | Jasper Johns' 'Flag.' (Maurizio Pesce) | | | | |  | “For me to say I wasn't a genius, I would just be lying to you and to myself.”
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| | rantnrave:// Rumor had it that KANYE WEST's working relationship with ADIDAS was strained. Not strained enough, evidently, to prevent them from partnering on a whole new project on a much larger scale. ADIDAS + KANYE WEST, announced yesterday, is an ongoing collaboration that will produce apparel, footwear, and accessories to be sold at "distinct hubs" as well as traditional retail channels like FOOT LOCKER. WWD suggests that the line will target the performance sector as well as lifestyle, which is going to be a tough nut for ADIDAS and KANYE to crack. ADIDAS has a ton of momentum in the lifestyle category, with staples like the STAN SMITH, the SUPERSTAR, and new classics like the NMD selling like hotcakes, but convincing a lifelong jogger to try out a new pair of running shoes is a different game than getting a sneakerhead to camp out overnight for an exclusive model. No one -- well, almost no one -- hoops in YEEZYs, and the success of the collaboration depends on that changing. I'm cautiously optimistic. KANYE has as much cultural capital as anyone on the planet, and while he did more for ADIDAS' social media buzz than its bottom line last year, we've yet to see what kind of sales he can drive on mass-produced product range. For years, KANYE's been begging for a backer to help him realize his fashion dreams, and it looks like he's finally found one. As industry expert NEIL SCHWARTZ so timorously puts it, "This might be a mistake, or it might be genius.” No secret what KANYE would say to that... COMPLEX proposes that KANYE might be ADIDAS' new STAN SMITH, but the two couldn't be more different. People buy STAN SMITHs because they're great sneakers, not because of the man they're named for -- no offense to STAN, but I would be surprised if half the people who bought a pair last year could tell you who he is. KANYE, on the other hand, sells sneakers precisely because of who he is. The next YEEZYs could be utter abominations and still sell out within minutes, and that's a big potential problem longterm -- if KANYE falls out of cultural esteem, do sales of ADIDAS + KANYE WEST products follow suit?... A decade of consumer electronic design captured in PARIS HILTON's cell phones... HEDI SLIMANE is receiving a nice parting gift from KERING... FashionREDEF is taking an extra long weekend in observance of U.S. INDEPENDENCE DAY. We won't be publishing on FRIDAY or MONDAY, and will resume TUESDAY. If anyone needs me, I'll be prepping myself for couture week, poolside, wearing one of these. | | | - Adam Wray, curator |
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 | The New York Times |
| But there is a fine line between giving consumers a voice and facilitating cacophony. Before everyone gets carried away and rushes down to seize power for themselves and start decorating, it is worth pausing and acknowledging that there is a risk to all this. | | |
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 | Business of Fashion |
| With data science at its core, the San Francisco-based startup aims to offer fashion that’s ‘just right’ for every customer. | | |
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 | Pando |
| Today, I became a Postmates Unlimited customer. For $10 a month, I get free delivery on all my Postmates orders over $25. In addition my orders are instantly accepted and never "surged." (In Postmates own email it forgot that "blitz pricing" is what it calls it, not surge pricing.) | | |
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 | 032c |
| Within a couple of years, the fashion label Vetementshas attained something houses that have existed far longer strain hard to regain: credibility. Along with it, a surreal level of hype has almost drowned out the young brand’s idealistic rationale. | | |
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 | Vogue |
| How to characterize the scrambling visual assault of three weeks of menswear shows? By the notion we're going somewhere, but haven't quite made it yet. That isn't a reference to the rippling air-staff strikes that have ground Europe to, well, the ground across the month of June. | | |
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 | Fast Company |
| In 2013, when Scott Gabrielson was in his early twenties, he was deeply shaken up by the news that the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh had collapsed, killing 1,130 people. "It was on the news a lot," he tells Fast Company. "It gave me the first glimpse into the reality of the fashion industry." | | |
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 | WWD |
| The sporting goods giant and the artist are launching an entity creating footwear, apparel and accessories, including performance. | | |
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 | Bloomberg |
| An Amazon warehouse is a flurry of activity. Workers jog around a manmade cavern plopping items into yellow and black crates. Towering hydraulic arms lift heavy boxes toward the rafters. And an army of stubby orange robots slide along the floor like giant, sentient hockey pucks, piled high with towers of consumer gratification ranging from bestsellers to kitchenware. | | |
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| The New York Times |
| How the Lo Lifes, a crew of Brooklyn shoplifters, set hip-hop’s high-fashion obsession in motion. | | |
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 | The Globe and Mail |
| In the mid-1960s, fashion designer Claire Haddad's elegantly feminine creations were adored by Hollywood's top stars, including Elizabeth Taylor, who was possibly the most famous woman in the world at the time. During a visit to Toronto in 1964, Ms. Taylor sent her assistant in search of a gown by Ms. Haddad. | | |
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 | Motherboard |
| Over the past year and a half, 1.2 million refugees have arrived to Europe by the Mediterranean Sea. That's not to say everyone who sets out on the journey makes it. This year, 2,510 people are believed to have drowned in shipwrecks and capsized boats on the Mediterranean, according to the UN Refugee Agency. | | |
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| Bloomberg |
| By voting to leave the European Union, Britons have delivered a potential windfall to tourists eager to snatch up Burberry trenchcoats, Harrods Stilton and Liberty scarves on the cheap. The outcome of Thursday's referendum sent the British currency plunging, making the country's goods and services cheaper for foreign buyers. | | |
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 | Mother Jones |
| The war on pubic hair is over, and pubic hair lost. | | |
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 | Digiday |
| In the Snapchat era, Instagram still rules for fashion bloggers Fashions come and go, but style blogger Mary Orton is a believer in Instagram's continuing utility for fashion mavens. | | |
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 | Dazed Digital |
| Ronald Stoops photographs the famed university’s up and coming talent, who take inspiration from prison romances and cult cinema. | | |
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 | via YouTube. |
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