Random fashion thoughts - Part II (A New Hope)

[Baron]

I've done that before with prescriptions lenses, with vintage frames and with new frames over the years. Just take them to the shop and tell them what you need. I don't think there's a brand to look for in this space. A good shop working with the right suppliers should be fine. You will be able to specify the color and darkness of the tint. I'm sure there are several online providers as well. Actually, just googled "sunglass lenses online" and got a ton of hits.

 

[Krish the Fish]

Thanks for the info. I just didn't want to show up with a handful of frames and get a dumbfounded look when I ask about the third pair.

I looked online too and found a bunch of places as well, but I wasn't sure if there was something I should be looking for. Since I'm already going to get my eyes checked and drop off the two pairs of prescription glasses, it's probably going to be easiest to get the sunglasses done there/then too.

Thank you again

 

[double00]

sometimes it's not a bad idea to sniff for replacements on that site...

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odk...+only.TRS1&_nkw=tom+ford+lenses+only&_sacat=0

i'd expect this to be more fruitful with say RBs or more common/cheaper makes but ya never know. TF is getting pretty widespread these days.

and it goes without saying it's a buyer beware world out there

 

[100 yrs]

I'm probably wildly overthinking this...

Aren't we all.

While I generally like the update, I'll echo the sentiment on the white space to the right, browsing on an iPad really suffers. If someone has a signature of any length 1 post takes up the entire screen.

 

[LA Guy]

left

Aren't we all.

While I generally like the update, I'll echo the sentiment on the white space to the right, browsing on an iPad really suffers. If someone has a signature of any length 1 post takes up the entire screen.

View attachment 709338

We'll be trotting out a wider post area version of the forum design soon. There are a few more design changes I want to make before the updated version is put out. This version will also remain available. I really don't want to re-confuse people with continuous changes just as we are just settling in, is the only reason we're waiting a bit.

Incidentally, I don't know what zoom you are at but it seems pretty high - most of the top nav in your view is hidden! Might consider zooming out a bit. As designed, the forum should look, at 100%, like this:

 

[LA Guy]

What's the deal with the (mobile at least) watched threads page highlighting/status effects? There seems to be a mix of bold, blue background shading, and presence/colour of the dot to the left of the thread title, and I can't figure out what, if anything, they all mean.

Bold = unread
Blue background = pinned thread
Dot = go to first unread (this is redundant).

 

[whorishconsumer]

Apropos to our previous discussion, a search on Balenciaga brought me to this:

Is This $2,000 Fake IKEA Bag a Sign of the Apocalypse?

obviously written by an American Studies grad student. Not surprisingly, the article makes mention of Golden Goose.

I should note that the objections I raised previously were more pointed than this and related articles, which read as a general statement of "I don't get it" by the hoi polloi, semi-valid class arguments notwithstanding.

Edit: However, this statement does echo my position

Informal and imperfect clothes are considered “authentic,” individualistic and eco-friendly, while those who dress more formally and conventionally are seen as old-fashioned, conformist or simply trying too hard (though it’s hard to imagine a better definition of trying too hard than paying hundreds of dollars for pre-stained designer jeans).

 

[LA Guy]

Apropos to our previous discussion, a search on Balenciaga brought me to this:

Is This $2,000 Fake IKEA Bag a Sign of the Apocalypse?

obviously written by an American Studies grad student. Not surprisingly, the article makes mention of Golden Goose.

I should note that the objections I raised previously were more pointed than this and related articles, which read as a general statement of "I don't get it" by the hoi polloi, semi-valid class arguments notwithstanding.

Edit: However, this statement does echo my position

Sure, but it's a point that misses the mark completely. It's about adopting the symbols of a subculture for fashion reasons, and has nothing to do with authenticity. The writer is a dumbass.

 

[whorishconsumer]

Sure, but it's a point that misses the mark completely. It's about adopting the symbols of a subculture for fashion reasons, and has nothing to do with authenticity. The writer is a dumbass.

I think that's where the tension lies with all this stuff - "subcultural symbolism" can easily be read as flat-out appropriation, which, for a PoMo-philosophy-steeped populace is a big no-no. And I think to some extent they have a point. It's undeniable that class runs a vein through all of this. Where there is concentration of wealth there is class inequality, and luxury fashion is a concentration in wealth. It would be hard to argue that there isn't a degree of privilege baked into the ability to cherry-pick others' experiences, don them as garb and convince an entire population that they should aspire to do the same.

And not that fashion can't be bottom-up and subversive and this whole dynamic reversed. The drugstore skate punk rocker aesthetic appears to be a testament to that. But then I don't recall my local garage band trying to sell me their jeans for $600.

Like I said, I feel like a lot of these articles (clear-kneed jeans, mud jeans, entirely-clear jeans, beat-up luxury sneakers, DHL shirts and IKEA bags) are the equivalent of "I don't get it", and clearly most of the coverage of this is simply out of novel, passing interest and because news outlets know that temporary class-rage sells papers. But if someone is a little irked by homeless chic being sold to them for exorbitant prices while the tattered social safety net we have continues to dissolve, I can't fault them.

 

[double00]

i thought Chanel grew up parentless and poor as ****?

(or maybe was she just slumming?)

***

as far as the balenciaga bag, it's not as if the 'original' bag didn't draw from other cultures. here's an excerpt from an interview with designers Knut and Marianne Hagberg:

When IKEA opened its stores in Japan, Knut and Marianne were asked to come up with ideas that would help customers transport goods home from stores using public transport, not many customers owned cars. They came up with FRAKTA, a version of the blue bag with a zip that can be carried as a backpack. On top of this Knut and Marianne also developed the handy yellow trolley for the yellow bags that you find in IKEA stores.

Knut and Marianne were working at IKEA when the iconic blue bag first saw the light of day. The story goes, as told by Knut and Marianne, that Ingvar Kamprad came home from Asia with a new material with which he wanted to make a bag. The material was usually used to store rice. Ingvar and IKEA sales manager Lars-Göran Petterson made the first prototype which was designed to carry up to 50 kilograms. When it came to testing the bag, they needed something that weighed 50 kilograms. “Where in an office environment can you find something that weighs 50 kilos? Jennifer! She weighed 50 kilos.” Knut continues the story, “so in she jumped. If the bag could hold her, then it could hold 50 kilos.” So there we have it, the tale of how an icon came into being.

so... danish designers borrowed an asian material (originally for rice! - a literal staple!) for a japanese market big-box store. hey maybe balenciaga is really cribbing from asian culture.

 

[oulipien]

Incidentally, I don't know what zoom you are at but it seems pretty high - most of the top nav in your view is hidden! Might consider zooming out a bit.

at 100% I see it like this:

 

[oulipien]

as far as the balenciaga bag, it's not as if the 'original' bag didn't draw from other cultures.

Using a material is hardly "drawing from other cultures" in remotely the same way.

"subcultural symbolism" can easily be read as flat-out appropriation, which, for a PoMo-philosophy-steeped populace is a big no-no. … It would be hard to argue that there isn't a degree of privilege baked into the ability to cherry-pick others' experiences, don them as garb and convince an entire population that they should aspire to do the same.

Nothing to do with postmodernism at all (yer average bricoleur would see nothing wrong with catching as catch can), and I don't think "gigantic multinational corporation" is on anyone's list of entities people are concerned about being ripped off. People who shop at IKEA, maybe might be on that list, but then, that's not exactly a monolithic group (market research might belie that claim, I dunno).

But the cherry-picking thing is real, and of course it has to do with authenticity. That's half the reason the symbols that are adopted are adopted from the subcultures from which they're adopted! (The Balenciaga IKEA bag is just bizarre in this regard, IMO—what subculture even is this?)

 

[double00]

Using a material is hardly "drawing from other cultures" in remotely the same way.

in the case of the ikea bag the design cues are obv color and form, in fact balenciaga's 'contribution' was the change of material (which is what makes it so ostensibly outrageous, no?). my point is that these days little is designed in a cultural vacuum and there is always - if not appropriation - adoptive elements which inevitably come from yet somewhere else.

and anyways material is def at the heart of this appropriation disco.

also, this whole thing should be airlifted to the random fashion thoughts (at the risk of crowding out all the bitching from the platform changeover).

 

[LA Guy]

I think that's where the tension lies with all this stuff - "subcultural symbolism" can easily be read as flat-out appropriation, which, for a PoMo-philosophy-steeped populace is a big no-no. And I think to some extent they have a point. It's undeniable that class runs a vein through all of this. Where there is concentration of wealth there is class inequality, and luxury fashion is a concentration in wealth. It would be hard to argue that there isn't a degree of privilege baked into the ability to cherry-pick others' experiences, don them as garb and convince an entire population that they should aspire to do the same.

And not that fashion can't be bottom-up and subversive and this whole dynamic reversed. The drugstore skate punk rocker aesthetic appears to be a testament to that. But then I don't recall my local garage band trying to sell me their jeans for $600.

Like I said, I feel like a lot of these articles (clear-kneed jeans, mud jeans, entirely-clear jeans, beat-up luxury sneakers, DHL shirts and IKEA bags) are the equivalent of "I don't get it", and clearly most of the coverage of this is simply out of novel, passing interest and because news outlets know that temporary class-rage sells papers. But if someone is a little irked by homeless chic being sold to them for exorbitant prices while the tattered social safety net we have continues to dissolve, I can't fault them.

I reject the idea of "appropriation" in this particular instance. Sorry, but adopting the symbols of youth culture and rock and punk icons (none of which correlate with "poor") is not equivalent or analogous to the appropriation of cultures that were systematically destroyed. If you feel any guilt about wearing luxury sneakers that resemble beat up converse or Vans, the right course of action is probably to figure out where in your education or upbringing you were coerced into believing that Seattle garage bands were an oppressed class.

 

[whorishconsumer]

I reject the idea of "appropriation" in this particular instance. Sorry, but adopting the symbols of youth culture and rock and punk icons (none of which correlate with "poor") is not equivalent or analogous to the appropriation of cultures that were systematically destroyed. If you feel any guilt about wearing luxury sneakers that resemble beat up converse or Vans, the right course of action is probably to figure out where in your education or upbringing you were coerced into believing that Seattle garage bands were an oppressed class.

Valid. I was extrapolating our previous discussion - focusing on the Golden Goose/Hedi SLP aesthetic - to the broader discussion of fashion "borrowing" from the quotidian, and all that does or does not entail. At it's most contentious this would including wearing garbs intended to emulate that of the homeless.

I stand by my belief that class - and by extension, wealth - is inextricably wrapped up in all of this and can therefore understand the viewpoint of those who see such "borrowing" as a flexing of privilege and power, although I don't necessarily agree with that interpretation in all cases. In fact, I'm frequently exasperated by the the Continental-Marxist lens (which is what I meant previously by "PoMo") through which all our cultural artifacts are now processed.

I agree that the popular image of Seattle garage bands does not immediately connote economic disparity. However, countercultural movements, in music - of which Grunge would be one - and otherwise, often stem from conditions of income inequality. Now whether actors in these those movements were brought up in poverty, chose poverty, or both, is another matter. But recognizing that, it gives one pause to see these types of subversive expression reified as luxury goods, whether or not you then take the step of viewing it as appropriation, et al.