David Barrie

Cultivating a fashion for change

 

If you want to design ways for people to associate, innovate development or spread an idea, read a fashion blog. 

Fashion blogging is a fantastic online space, drunk on creativity, enthusiasm, networking - and yes, pushiness, careerism and an orgy of affiliate marketing and product placement too. 

But follow fashion blogs and you'll soon discover a treasure-trove of ways and means that like-minded souls express their interest, exchange and share enthusiasms and enlist slaves to their cause. 

As I've posted before, fashion online is a space full of amateurs turned pro/semi-pro who've assumed a status that gets them flown worldwide for fashion events and reserved seats on the front row of Fashion Week. 

One clue to the influence of fashion bloggers is how they associate with one another and are organized online.

Fans contribute in their thousands to user-generated content sites, like Chictopia and Lookbook.

They share knowledge and affiliations via community networks like Independent Fashion Bloggers.

Friends collaborate to bulk up content and reach - see Anywho.

And while websites like Freshnet foster and aggregate blogs to sell advertising, Bubbleroom hosts them to direct audiences to their online shop.

What you end up with is enthusiasts starring in their own shoots:

Brands and patterns spreading like wildlife, like Balmain - see MCM and Chicmuse - and most recently - see Studded Hearts and Belle de Couture - Miu Miu's swallow print:

Alongside fans winning careers, thousands of square miles of new online real estate - 'personalized surfaces' - are created for advertising.

It may offend sensitive minds - and now may be a difficult time to talk of things that invite excess - but this all now (weirdly) seems (to me at least) very relevant to the cause of increasing citizen participation, fostering local activism and seeding grassroots economies - an obsession just now in the U.K.

The scale and dynamism of fashion blogging shows what happens when people have the freedom and space to develop their passion.

The diverse ways in which bloggers organize and associate shows how individuality can be networked and collectivized effectively, so long as raw enthusiasm remains up front.

What's more, these blogs show that enthusiasts can grow in to communities, so long as there's a degree of permission to participate - in this case, granted by owners of intellectual property - and options available to make money, should people want it.

Some fashion bloggers earn money by associating with large and small company partners, others through advertising.

Flip this for a conclusion:

marketing people are starting to see some amateur enthusiasts and what they're up to as an effective route to market and valuable source of profit.

As ever, forget fashion at your peril. :)

Images courtesy of 1.Yvan Rodic. 2. Jak & Jil Blog. 3. Yvan Rodic. 4.Late Afternoon. 5. chicmuse. 6. fashiontoast.

Rodarte love

In January, Kate and Laura Mulleavy of fashion design company Rodarte scored a profile in the New Yorker by Amanda Fortini, a feat that took designer Karl Lagerfeld more decades of work to achieve than the sisters from Pasadena have lived, says the Wall Street Journal.

 

Rodarte is great because, as Fortini writes, it is where the beautiful meets the baroque:

Rodarte is great because the garments include a multitude of textiles and finicky ones, like tulle, organza, leather and lace), adornments (crystals, feathers, rosettes) and techniques (draping, pleating, dyeing).

Rodarte is great because the designers had no formal fashion training, learned basic sewing techniques from their mother and their creative vision is cinematic, inspired by horror movies and the work of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu.

A recent feature on the Mulleavy sisters in RVCA ANP Quarterly sourced inspirations as diverse as the Space Shuttle, Frankenstein, Star Wars, burning Klu Klux Clan crucifixes, Stonehenge and seminal works of European art like Rachel Whiteread's House and Joseph Beuys' I Like America and America Likes Me.

In case your avant-garde funny-bone hasn't been tickled enough by now, the New Yorker reports a scene in the Rodarte studio of the designers setting fire to a piece of polyster fabric and collections in which all the clothing had been burned, stained, shredded, sandpapered or in some way "ruined".

And the article snoops a bulletin board in the designers' studio carrying images of paintings by Robert Rauschenberg, California condors, testing of the atomic bomb in the Nevada Desert and Degas' ballerina sculpture - a wistfulness in the foreground of much of the imaging of their work...

...and explicit in their latest collection:

Until March 14, Rodarte have an installation at the The Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York - and if you are in the area, visit it.

But there's a moral in my tale (and it comes with a hat-tip to a comment made to me by Robert Hewison, a cultural historian and keen follower of the English art critic and social thinker John Ruskin). 

There's a reawakening of romantic anti-capitalism in culture and politics just now. In the U.K., you can see it in protest by the establishment against a third runway at Heathrow Airport, government endorsement of co-operativism, a policy rush on 'mass localism' and civic organizations like the National Trust turning sections of its property over to food-growing.

Rodarte is romantic, born from the obsession of two sisters brought up among the redwood trees of a small town near Santa Cruz, California, to quote Fortini. They burn stuff, love the spikey and fierce and are committed to beauty - albeit one that retails up to $25,000 a piece.

The two trends are worlds apart. But together they say something.

Romance and anti-materialism is an aesthetic. It has tradition. It is optimistic, often creatively destructive - a brilliant antidote to an age of disappointment or light at the end of a post-apocalyptic tunnel. 

But it can be expensive. No small part of the romance rests in the eccentric and the kinky. And if you work too hard to co-opt those values in to something consensual, you may kill the very spirit that you admire.  

Images: 1.Jillian0229 2. Interview Magazine 3.SavoirFlair 4.Fashionologie 5. NYC Art Style 6. Not known 7. Style.com via TeenAngster 8. Stardust and Sequins 9. Inside-out 

More Rodarte links here. And thanks to Dawn Danby. 

Amateur Innovation goes (beyond) Size 0

 

This is Rumi Neely, author of blog fashiontoast who describes her style as

One part grunge, one part Parisian influence, then rolled around in the San Diego sand and dipped into a giant jewelry box. 

And this is Jane Aldridge, author of fashion blog Sea of Shoes

who in Lookbook.nu says that

Lately I've been listening to Suicide, Japan, Boredoms, Ex Models, and Cocteau Twins. The last book I read was 'Kafka on the Shore' by Haruki Murakami and the next book I'm going to read is 'The Tipping Point' by Malcolm Gladwell.

A couple of weeks ago, I was with fashion designer Mark Ely of Ely Kishimoto and we talked a lot about Jane Aldridge. And here's a reason why.

First, Bruce Nussbaum of Business Week wrote the other day that:

I’m working with Parson’s grad Kelsey Meuse to build out a Gen Y Research Collaborative and she pointed me to Lookbook.nu. It’s a simple digg-type platform where Gen Yers around the world are posting their fashion creations and getting rated by their peers. It’s simple, beautiful and wonderfully innovative in a quietly disruptive way. 

Throw in that Rumi Neely of fashiontoast has signed for Next Model Management and is a designer for RVCA Clothing.

Add that American Vogue magazine featured Jane Aldridge's 'Most Wanted' back in July.

And then that streetstyle pap blogger Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist has photographed two seasons worth of DKNY campaigns, according to Fashionologie.

 

Now there's nothing new about (photo) journalists becoming celebrities - er, Norman Mailer.

But there is something materially different in these three bloggers - and there are many others - becoming models, designers and ad-men in one of the most brand-pure conscious parts of consumer culture.

Back in 2004, writers Charles Leadbeater and Paul Miller introduced to culture their idea of the Pro-Am Revolution:

...amateurs who work to professional standards. These are not the gentlemanly amateurs of old - George Orwell's blimpocracy, the men in blazers who sustained amateur cricket and clubs. The Pro-Ams are knowledgeable, educated, committed and networked, by new technology.

Now Charlie and Paul were writing principally about the emerging army of people using open source technology and innovation, flattened heirachies, knowledge and passion to make social, economic and cultural change. 

In fashion, there's loads of this passion about - Nussbaum cited lookbook.nu but my fave remains Chictopia - see a previous post.

But fashiontoast, Jane Aldrige and The Sartorialist and what's happening to them shows something more.

Amateurs are not just busy in online playgrounds, mish-mashing taste and sharing it in walled gardens.

Their values and skill are now starting to influence - and be commodified - in not just offline culture but the most brand-dilution-obsessed part of it all. 

Maybe it wasn't open-source-wash when Stefano Pilati of Yves Saint Laurent told the London Financial Times on the publication of the company's fifth 'manifesto' just a few weeks ago:

If they take my manifesto, go to a vintage store somewhere and are inspired to make their own outfit, I think that's great. Then we've helped them dream a new idea of themselves. Isn't that the point?

Maybe fashion, a key part of the creative economy, is going Pro-Am and genuinely changing its spots.

If so, it'll be interesting to see how the aesthetic changes - or not.

Images courtesy of fashiontoast (@fashiontoast), sea of shoes (@sea_of_shoes), Joe Ferrucci and Petronio Associates. 

(See good links here at Gawker on post that disses front-row bloggers as an old story, or "tired dead horse linguistic chicken bone?")  

Links for 2009-10-30

Kim Gordon Rodarte Exhibition Art [hypebeast]

Otis College-trained Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth's artwork on sale: Failing Lights, Noise Nomads, Dude War, and Pussy Galore. 

Yes, Anastasia [Superqueen]

"The shape of Kristina is reminiscent of the infamous Yves Saint Laurent Cocoon wedding dress, and the scale-like gold satin, with those black appliques as decorations, bring the Fabergé Imperial eggs to my mind."

Access to News Wildly Unequal in U.S. [Washington Post]

Walter Isaacson, President of the Aspen Institute and a former Time managing editor: "Nations that will succeed in the 21st century are those in which citizenry has access to the free flow of information."

Promoting Food Security and reducing carbon emissions through the London Orchard Project [ERM]

"The particular vision of the London Orchard Project is to create mini-orchards across London, thereby developing communities’ access to local food now and in the future; contributing to carbon absorption; reducing the carbon footprint of fruit consumed in London and supporting biodiversity conservation."

And one of the first films I ever made (!):

The Late Show on 8vo Design [Cerysmatic Factory]

"BBC2's The Late Show, 1990; this was a ten minute manifesto/profile of 8vo Design. They were approached by the BBC to do a piece about English type-based graphics and it developed from there. It was organised around a series of statements/themes such as 'Simplify Design', 'Design Not Craft' and these were introduced by titles (designed by 8vo) and film of the 8vo designers themselves speaking the statements in a layered glass stage set. This was interspersed with shots of 8vo's work (such as Haçienda 4, and Haç 7) and footage of them talking about their work."

 

Selfridges, Bergdorf Goodman and celebrating the social

Selfridge & Co is the U.K.'s pre-eminent high-fashion retailer in the U.K. 

For several years, it has sought to enrich cultural life by creating projects for its point-of-sale and direct marketing, commissioning or presenting work by visual artists, photographers, fashion designers and musicians.

Some of the most powerful, cutting-edge creativity today is linked to designing the social: creating places, experiences, services and technologies that celebrate, involve and empower people.

Think of microfinance, alternative local currencies like BerkShares, the recommender technologies of internet and mobile applications like Dopplr and Brightkite, the user-generation of video content sites like You Tube and Chictopia and the culture of sharing, not selling that drives online networking.

Then we live in an age when the President of the United States was once a community worker, rather than an oil baron; when celebrities like Jamie Oliver are admired for their social work, not just skill in the kitchen; when culture is created by a crowd swarming over a widget or a nation voting on X-Factor, not a loner locked in a room in West Hampstead or Manhattan or a late-might worker in the Academy of Fine Arts. 

Are there ways in which Palaces of Miu Miu like Selfridges, Bergdorf Goodman or Barneys - emporia that help set the tone and beat of consumer life - might celebrate or reflect these new social values? 

Take a look around and high fashion seems to be taking on some of the geist.

There's the direct populism of the likes of Star Wars-influenced, straight-to-Target designs of Kate and Laura Mulleavy at Rodarte.

There's the cult of the amateur teen fashion bloggers, their access to Fashion Weeks and the invitation of ordinary shoppers to meet stars like Christian Louboutin.

There are the High Priests of the industry like the Creative Director of Yves Saint Laurent and his new YSL Manifesto that appear to be not just positioning themselves but also seeing themselves as having a role in a more open - and open source - economy.

Take Stefano Pilati of YSL's comment in last week's London Financial Times:

If they take my manifesto, go to a vintage store somewhere and are inspired to make their own outfit, I think that's great. Then we've helped them dream a new idea of themselves. Isn't that the point?

And then there are stray eccentricities such as luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton commissioning artist Jeremy Deller to create a mobile vegetable garden for the opening of a new branch in the Westfield shopping mall in London.

You get the feeling that earlier debates on the role of luxury in an age of austerity - like the brilliant talk at the Hammer Museum back in February on Conscientious Consumption led by Sally Singer of Vogue - might be filtering through in to a new paradigm.   

Let's not run away with ourselves since fashion and ethics remains a mix of oil and water when high street shops are filled with a confused mash of real and faux fur and cash-tills ring with sweatshop wages. 

But how might these places - places that win vast attention and have an important influence - express the achievement and hope of a more social nation and inspire shoppers and Bobo-babes to express and enjoy a new, socially-minded form of luxe?

Fashion is...

, originally uploaded by mis_gabbana.

:)

An Architecture of Hope

Over the last few months, I've fallen in love(ish) with fashion website Chictopia and been lurking at networked fashion blogs like Devote.se.

These sites are brilliant.

Because whatever their commercial imperative and however cynical their wiring, these places are personal, bright and fun - and they network people and their passions smartly.  

I've picked up on the value of all of this in an article in this month's edition of design magazine Volume.

With a nod in the direction of the epic, the edition is subtitled Architecture of Hope.

In the magazine, I'm not confessing to a fetish for liquid leggings or multi-colored Heelys shoes - you'll be pleased to know - but sharing some first ideas on ways to capture and link the energy, commitment, enthusiasm and speed we invest in online social media to cities, their development and expression.  

Why bother? Because if you take a look around, you'll see cities full of extraordinary human diversity and energy turned in to identikit latte landscapes that are planned monotone or badged inert.

I've designed and am now starting to run two online social media initiatives in Russia (Moscow) and Wales (Cardiff) that try to link and apply the energy and brightness of one to the other. 

In Volume, I've set out the project in Wales, a nine-stage Road to Damascus in which

a multicultural community is not bounded by walls and windows.

It's a project that tries to engineer a process that allows for

improved flows and exchanges of experiences between people and existing groups and seeks to establish a platform for growth by supporting distributed activity and innovation. 

Here are some sketch steps in the project plan:

• research current use of online networks by local people on the net and mobile telephones
• identify sources of local knowledge on different aspects of the area's way of life, such as its environment, sports or shopping
• provide these people with training in writing and editing blogs and wikis
• create a homepage for the area that takes feeds from diverse digital content sources, such as personal blogs, photo blogs and micro-blogs
• encourage knowledge sources to upload and share what they know online
• share this web space with others and allow them to add to or edit its resources
• over time, re-position the site as a space to prioritize local issues and collaboratively action plan
• offer local government the services of this platform and its community to create strategies for the future public management of the area

Arjen Oosterman writes in his introduction to Volume 19 that:

The inclination to see the current crisis as merely passing and the tendency to say "take cover, then we can get on with it" is great. Yet every day makes is less likely that this will be sufficient.

Arjen suggests that one answer is to advance contemporary practices of communication development.

He's right.

Advancing communication development in cities is a precondition to enabling a new architecture of hope.

Images courtesy of crazybeautiful and VanityMale at Chictopia, "the people's fashion destination".

The Return of Gustav Klimt

Is there something Belle Epoque going on?

Here's a portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1907) by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt:

And here's a photograph by Camilla Akrans of Mariacarla Boscono in the latest edition of Vogue Nippon:

 

Here's Klimt's Fulfillment (1909):

And here's an image from a recent edition of Vogue Italia featuring Siri Tollerod:

 
Now I know there's been a Neisha Crosland decorative wallpaper thing going on for some time. The stagey formality of photographers Mert & Marcus is influential. And fashion likes grand gestures (doh).

But there are other things around, like Prada's Spring -Summer 09 ad campaign:

And Lanvin's campaign for the same season: 

Isn't there something Byzantine in all of this?

Something with no movement, no intimacy and flat rhythmics?

In Klimt's day, exoticism gave way to the First World War.

Hopefully in our era it's just a flier for a car boot sale at Harvey Nichols.

Camilla Akrans image via Alexandra's favoriter. Siri Tollerod via Childhood Flames. Ad images via Frillr.

Doom Fashion by Vuitton

Last month, Andy Bond, the Chief Executive of UK food and clothing superstore Asda said:

We are moving into an area of the frivolous being unacceptable and the frugal being cool.

Now Bond may have been thinking of his share options - not just consumer trends - but similar messages are emerging all over the place.

At Dazed Digital, there's Sunshine Caulkner (15), a new devotee of 1940s evacuee style in a picture by Michael Thomas Jones:

 
And Sunshine thinks

There’s definitely some satisfaction to be found in making a meal out of some leeks, some potatoes, some stale bread and a cup of water, or knitting a scarf and wearing it until it falls apart.

Over at Dwell, there's an appointment to view metals broker S.J. Sherbanuk's house in Blue Mountains, northwest of Toronto:

 
New steel and concrete is faux-bodged(not) together with used I-beams and recycled hardwood to create what's called

a dream home...of irregularly shaped "sheds".

Now all of this is starting to make the Saltersgill allotment gardens in Middlesbrough, North East England that Debra Solomon of Culiblog and me visited back in 2007 look way ahead of the curve.

 
And turn Sid, the owner of one allotment, in to an important early adopter.

 
But more than that.

For as the market capitalisation of banks has shrunk from $8,540bn in August 2007 to $3,586bn in January 2009, frugal 1940s-House culture has definitely seeped in to the culture. 

Know why I know?

Because Louis Vuitton is now promoting pre-Fall 2009 and showing...

...Pop-socks!

Welcome to the frugal world of Doom.

With more Vuitton at Spintos Guru here. More houses made from trash at luxury realtor International Listings here. And an application form for Saltersgill Allotments here.

Photography: Old Money Wanted by shpank. Sunshine Caulkner courtesy of DazedDigital.com. Scrap House by Lorne Bridgman.  

Sci-fi Bling

First it was my totally drop dead drum and bass favorite of the moment Spor that did it.

Then it was designers Laura and Kate Mulavy of Rodarte talking on Style.com about the influence of Star Wars on their Spring 2009 ready-to-wear collection at London Fashion Week.

Reinforced up by the look Hussein Chalayan showed at the same event:

Then to seal it, there's the opening titles sequence to X Factor:

There's a sci-fi bling thing going on...

...the dark, spiky turn-on of "somewhere else".