By its nature, fashion is a restless business. Borrowing often from eras past, jerking ahead with nanosecond technology and exuberance, the style history of the last 50 years constitutes a jumpy dialogue between what is and what's gone before. As Cyndi Lauper once said, 'We all dress in versions now.' | | | | | UMBC's Art Week screen printing demo. Baltimore, MD, 2012. (viviandnguyen_/Flickr) | | | | |  | “By its nature, fashion is a restless business. Borrowing often from eras past, jerking ahead with nanosecond technology and exuberance, the style history of the last 50 years constitutes a jumpy dialogue between what is and what's gone before. As Cyndi Lauper once said, 'We all dress in versions now.'”
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| | rantnrave:// This piece from the NEW YORK TIMES, 1993, by GERRI HIRSHEY is a definitive must-read. Enter a time when ANNA WINTOUR’s VOGUE was being eyed as “too downtown.” Read, and be happy that MTV’s HOUSE OF STYLE existed. Read, and ask, “How progressive are our sentiments about the fashion industry, moving in to 2017?” In 1993, “democratization” was a watchword of the industry. The conglomeratic swelling of fashion houses seemed to loom over every creative decision. Does this ring familiar, and why? We’re far from any time in which a 555 SOUL beanie is a badge of cool and the term “channel-flipping” could be convincingly used as a metaphor for anything. TV got sucked into something called omni-channel, and no single type of screen can claim cultural supremacy these days. We’ve got #internet for that now. When I look around, I do see experimentation and (dare to say it) hope. How can we cover it? There’s no answer, it’s more an open question. Finally, read the NYT article for the best brief on twentieth-century fashion I’ve come across in a long time. Whip-smart history, should that be a podcast?… I always thought the best fight against mediocrity was to not chatter on about it, in any medium… Shoutout to MATTHEW LINCOLN and ABRAM FOX for this fantastic study of LONDON’s auction scene from 1780–1835. It brings together data sourced from the GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE with some refreshing and nuanced discussion about how timing is key. Quite relevant for fashion. How often do you see research on seasonal flows backed by quantitative analysis, combined with nuanced interpretation of primary sources? Congrats to the authors. The presentation’s sleek too… A fashion photographer is using a large-format camera to document individuals holding strong at STANDING ROCK. This piece, which pairs images of people at Standing Rock with their respective voices, is a great way to see past the headlines. There's also an AMAZON wishlist to support them. Now that's 2016. | | | - HK Mindy Meissen, curator |
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 | The New York Times |
| We are Where America Shops -- at Sears, in Glendale, Calif. And Americans -- college students, Hispanic moms with toddlers, old people -- are gawking at a striking apparition poised on the stairway to the women's fitting room. Cindy Crawford, supermodel, Hollywood wife and hostess of MTV's fashion program "House of Style," is calling out her bra size -- off camera -- above the racks of industrial-gauge corsets. | | |
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 | The Atlantic |
| Until the 19th century, hardly anyone recognized the vital role everyday buyers play in the world economy. | | |
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 | Hypebeast |
| Will Spectacles breed the next generation of 'Glassholes?' | | |
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 | Racked |
| Often, the word “flattering” simply boils down to camouflaging your body’s flaws. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| When Emma Willis met some of Britain’s most severely injured soldiers, she didn’t stop at making them a new shirt -- she turned their lives around. | | |
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 | Dazed Digital |
| This weekend, the son of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren controversially torched his collection - we watched it happen. | | |
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 | Bloomberg |
| A stroll from Tiffany to Dover Street Market revealed active shoppers but retailers reluctant to highlight sales. | | |
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 | Quartz |
| Gap won't save itself by embracing data at the expense of design. | | |
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 | WWD |
| Palais Galliera is to install key silhouettes by the Spanish couturier - all in monastic black - at the Musée Bourdelle next spring. | | |
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 | British Art Studies |
| Matthew Lincoln and Abram Fox investigate the temporal dimensions of the nineteenth-century art market in London using data from the Getty Provenance Index Sales Catalog Database. | | |
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 | The Telegraph |
| Yoox Net-a-Porter has struck a €130m (£110.9m) joint venture with Dubai-based tycoon Mohamed Alabbar as the online luxury retailer sets its sights on big spenders in the Middle East. | | |
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 | The Huffington Post |
| Chris Callaway is hoping to push back against stereotypes. | | |
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 | Business of Fashion |
| Fashion’s unique pressures can leave its workers vulnerable to mental health issues, impacting employees and employers alike. What can the industry learn from other sectors? | | |
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| The New York Times |
| A self-described former “slacker” who once sold mobile phones for AT&T has made himself into India’s rising fashion star. | | |
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 | Artsy |
| Oskar Schlemmer premiered his Triadic Ballet in 1922, reflecting on the industrial revolution. Now, some 30 creatives are restaging it for the digital age. | | |
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 | 1 Granary |
| What do clothes look like from a bird's perspective? This CSM BA final collection explores precisely that concept. | | |
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 | WSJ |
| The Chicago History Museum profiles native son Main Bocher, who as Mainbocher was the first American admitted to the closed world of Paris couture. | | |
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 | The Fashion Law |
| In the mid-1970's, a group of famed European luxury brands decided to tap into the resurging globalization of the post-World War I and World War II economy to grow significantly beyond the pool of their existing customers. | | |
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 | South China Morning Post |
| The US fashion retailer is seeking to ramp up sales of affordable luxury clothing for women in China with a little help shareholder Fosun. | | |
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 | The Calvert Journal |
| On the legacy of Brian Griffin’s iconic photo series, "Mother Georgia." | | |
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 | via YouTube |
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