Random fashion thoughts - Part II (A New Hope)

[zissou]



It does to me.  972 items is just 10 pages, even at only 100 items per page, and these days, being about to scan 250 products at a time is pretty common.  It's worth my while a lot more than seeing a dozen new products.  At very least, the likelihood that I'll find something I'll actually be interested in is statistically much higher.

Maybe it's because I only care about a few brands, but a number doesn't do anything to excite me.

Because those emails are often their highest revenue generating campaigns, particularly when they're properly personalised.

That's just it, they aren't personalized. It's just a number, and I know some shops count all of the sizes as individual items.

 

[zissou]

And OMFG ORDERING FROM UNIQLO DURING SALE TIME IS SUCH A ******* NIGHTMARE.

For some reason, I had to go through six different credit cards before one would work. Meanwhile, items keep selling out from my cart. And none of it was even for me.

 

[LA Guy]

Maybe it's because I only care about a few brands, but a number doesn't do anything to excite me.

I only care about a handful of brands for personal wear, really, buy from maybe a half dozen more on an intermittent basis, and get half my clothing and accessories custom made, but I want to be excited by something new that someone else has found. Going to showrooms and tradeshows, I look through entire collections at a glance, Some stuff I will catch right away, and I will have my own little finds as well (though, in the case of the Ts(S) embroidered chore coat, for example, a few other people seem to have had the same discovery a the same time). At the same time, I am sure to miss a lot of good stuff, just because I am looking at hundreds, even thosands of pieces. over the course of a few days.

A good retailer, online or off, stops me, and says "Hey man, have you seen this thing that's really cool?"

 

[toothsomesound]

still not sure where you guys are finding all this seriousness and pretension in this brand.

the brand is mostly presenting pretty simple garments but I think there are a lot of fun ideas at play. i dunno try tapping through a show; a lot of the looks are 2 pieces, simple tops and pants with weird proportions or weird details. that doesn't seem like pretension to me. that seems like a pretty direct presentation of clear ideas.

do you guys think the collar embroidery tutrleneck, the antwerpen shirt and the sapeur pompier (firefighter) and securite shirt are meant to be extremely serious fashion proclamations? i'd say these are pretty clearly markers of, and a kind of deconstruction of the intersection between vintage and contemporary fashion, the kind that i see paraded around pretty regularly in new york. maybe that's what makes it boring or annoying for some. but perhaps the heavy metal styled vetements logo is at least a wink at if not a parody of the iron maiden inspired yeezus merch graphics?

another thing...early 2000's margiela was extremely romantic. strange and subversive but also extremely romantic and beautiful. vetements is not really going for that vibe. a lot of it is not particularly elegant at least in the classic sense of the word. the edges are rougher here and i think the tongue is a bit more firmly planted in the cheek. also completely different uses of color.

sip and fok maybe a part of the dislike for you guys stems from how styling/editorial driven the brand is? it's a lot about the look and the attitude and the feeling i think, a bit more than the garments in some cases.

i dunno i feel like a crazy person talking to you guys about this, i hope some people are enjoying my flailing. but seriously as i keep looking at this stuff I like it more and more. And I think it's pretty distinct from Margiela.

 

[toothsomesound]



Ok, nobody's saying that.

eh sorry, not really directed at you, i'm just railling against the anti-graphic/logo/branding sentiment.

already posted in music thread but guys: go listen to this new protomartyr album.

 

[LA Guy]

still not sure where you guys are finding all this seriousness and pretension in this brand.

the brand is mostly presenting pretty simple garments but I think there are a lot of fun ideas at play. i dunno try tapping through a show; a lot of the looks are 2 pieces, simple tops and pants with weird proportions or weird details. that doesn't seem like pretension to me. that seems like a pretty direct presentation of clear ideas.

do you guys think the collar embroidery tutrleneck, the antwerpen shirt and the sapeur pompier (firefighter) and securite shirt are meant to be extremely serious fashion proclamations? i'd say these are pretty clearly markers of, and a kind of deconstruction of the intersection between vintage and contemporary fashion, the kind that i see paraded around pretty regularly in new york. maybe that's what makes it boring or annoying for some. but perhaps the heavy metal styled vetements logo is at least a wink at if not a parody of the iron maiden inspired yeezus merch graphics?

another thing...early 2000's margiela was extremely romantic. strange and subversive but also extremely romantic and beautiful. vetements is not really going for that vibe. a lot of it is not particularly elegant at least in the classic sense of the word. the edges are rougher here and i think the tongue is a bit more firmly planted in the cheek. also completely different uses of color.

sip and fok maybe a part of the dislike for you guys stems from how styling/editorial driven the brand is? it's a lot about the look and the attitude and the feeling i think, a bit more than the garments in some cases.

i dunno i feel like a crazy person talking to you guys about this, i hope some people are enjoying my flailing. but seriously as i keep looking at this stuff I like it more and more. And I think it's pretty distinct from Margiela.

I can see where you are coming from, and certainly, something like the Antwerpen shirt I don't think could have been done by Margiela because things like the appropriation/ironic/whatever of iconic branding on shirts hadn't happened until well after the early 2000s. (Aside If see anyone wearing a "Comme des **** Down" tee, ever again, I will need to slap the stupid right off their face.)

Certainly, for me, a lot of the dislike for the label does stem from the styling and the look and the attitude of the presentations. Early Margiela presentations had themes like "interesting graduate student" which I found, if not particularly accurate, to be charming.

At the same time, I don't feel that the garments cannot be fully separated from the styling and the attitude.

 

[Fuuma]



I don't disagree at all, and except maybe for the Margiela connection, I don't think the brands have much in common either. I just thought it was interesting how the content of your post could also define Bless.

If Vetements is a product of blog/internet fashion culture, Bless is that photocopied zine that doesn't always make much sense but is still really fun to read.

Vêtements designers worked at Margiela, the connection is not only found in certain styles (overlong sleeves versus Margiela 00), eclectic 90s styling, use of reworked basics (jeans, trenches) sometimes with found object explicitly used as reference or even cut up and rebuild but also in the personal trajectory of the designers.

Bless is this very German style actual bohemian artist-weirdo brand with an heavy focus on themes AND object qua objects. I don't see much in common.

 

[Find Finn]



(Aside If see anyone wearing a "Comme des **** Down" tee, ever again, I will need to slap the stupid right off their face.) 

Can't plus +1 this enough.

 

[Fuuma]



I can give you one data point: us.   We send two emails a week : 1 editorial (digest of blog articles), 1 about products (new arrivals, promotions).   The editorial emails have an open rate less than 10% (not 10 points) below the more commercial emails.   So people do open them.  ROI cannot be quantified though because there's no product to click on and generally nothing to buy straight from the email.   We think it builds rapport (with those who open them) and maybe strengthen the relationship with our users beyond just talking about the products - not arguing that there's plenty who don't care about all that; there sure is.

Your store has an angle so there can be a rapport between discourse surrounding the clothes and the clothes themselves. Mr Porter is an online Barneys., if they have no viewpoint in their buys, website etc. aesthetic and brand selection I don't see how they can fake it through editorial content. Consumers are less stupid than we think, they care aout a certian amount of coherence when it comes to brand image.


Just in case: "Hey slightly older dude with disposable income, I'll sell you whatever you want at the moment." isn't an angle, it is abdication of any sort of aesthetic interest in favour of a purely and exclusively commercial endeavour.

 

[cyc wid it]

The conversation here over the last few days has been very interesting, especially to someone who doesn't know as much about various brand histories.

 

[venividivicibj]

Coming from more of a CM background... this thread is a pretty good intro to SWD

 

[notwithit]

A little off-topic, but is anyone else stoked about Horween veg-tan Stan Smiths?

 

[Synthese]

You All Did This (tm)

 

[DLester]

Here is my uninformed opinion - I thought that most of Vetements looked pretty good. I see a lot of Margiela influence. And I think that is fine.

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

 

[notwithit]



eh sorry, not really directed at you, i'm just railling against the anti-graphic/logo/branding sentiment.

already posted in music thread but guys: go listen to this new protomartyr album.

Normally that avatar would make me shy away from tracking down any music recommendations, but it's not bad. Kinda reminds me of Richard Hell.