yesterday-i-dreamed-of-tomorrow

[yesterday-i-dreamed-of-tomorrow]

The codes of #RAFSIMONS from the 1990s to now, are Influencing mens fashion. With #Demna and #Gosha as young prophets. 

#Raf Simons #gosha rubchinskiy #demna gvasalia #vetements #balenciaga #menswear #fashion #david sims #givenchy #stella mccartney

[yesterday-i-dreamed-of-tomorrow]

Since Raf Simons’ and David Sims’ Isolated Heroes was published in 1999, the idea of masculinity in menswear changed. A real paradigm shift in the world of fashion editorial unfold itself and it’s impact is still strong today. Designers and photographers are following the codes of Raf. Looking at fashions latest talents Vetements and Gosha Rubchinsky, who are currently dictating their peculiar style to the whole fashion world, we must recognize a Simons influenced signature all over it. What Simons did 18 years ago was groundbreaking, weird anti-fashion, protest-style that no one would have thought it ever became mainstream. Isolated Heroes was also the birth of a new stereotype in mens fashion, the boyish street-kid man, with tattooed hands and golden necklace but the face of a puppy. It was the end of grooming and tailored suits, that depicted men only as successful and powerful, opposed to the vulnerable and dreamy type we have today. A necessary step towards conjoined fashion shows, towards a united design process for both male and female clothing. Towards a future of unisex fashion that can be both masculine and feminine, and most importantly fashionable.  

  http://uk.complex.com/style/2016/01/raf-simons-david-sims-spring-summer-2016-isolated-heroes 

http://donlonbooks.com/products/raf-simons-isolated-heroes-by-raf-simons-and-david-sims

#raf simons #david sims #vetements #gosha rubchinskiy

[yesterday-i-dreamed-of-tomorrow]

Eames Lines

Some details from the AW 2017 menswear shows making me think of Eames 

#eames #midcentury #fashion trends #fashion #art reference #design #design history

[yesterday-i-dreamed-of-tomorrow]

Parallel lines. Past. Present. Perfect.

With London and Milan opening the 2017 Autumn Winter Fashion Month in January, we could clearly make out a common vibe across the collections already. There are wild vintage patterns, and old gentlemen’s checks too. The principal colours are beige and brown spiced up with some orange, yellow, purple and turquoise. We see corduroy suits and coats, pony skin, and patent leather. While some single pieces might look like props for a movie about 1970s intellectuals on a psychedelic self-discovery journey, others manage to transmit a rather retro-futuristic sentiment. 

While many runway-reports agree on a strong nineteen-seventies retro trend, the art references we see on the Prada landscape-sweaters, seem to come from an even further past. Looking like oil paintings in a Mid-century Modern house, or simply a well-intended birthday present from your grandmother, they somehow transport a feeling of teenage-angst, growing up surrounded by the past of older generations. It feels like Miuccia Prada invited us into her head, to see her very own memories from the seventies. 

This current nineteen-seventies homage feels very honest and intimate to me. Freed from the popular choices of disco and glam, down to beige everyday looks, with dusty furnishings and childhood memories sitting on string shelves. 

A Normcore dream that Spike Jonze already put on celluloid in 2013 with his romantic science fiction drama Her. Amongst all this, images of last season’s Fashion Month keep popping up in my mind. It all started there:

By taking another look at last year’s fashion month collections the strong seventies and eighties references are clear, paired with the obvious tributes to the passing of David Bowie and Prince. There was plenty of glam and shades of purple (lots and lots of purple to be precise), and one can only imagine the playlists that were running on a loop in the studios.

Yet on second glance one can see that this was not the only inspirational force. A strong Mid-Century-Modern iconicity was so prevalent from Milan to New York, that it’s impossible to un-see it. The parallel lines, the Eames minimalism, paired with garish but still pale and dusky colour-blockings, and of course the wild fifties tapestry patterns (that is the worst trap, as it looks convincingly nineteen-seventies). 

And still, it makes perfect sense to the eye. This remix of past fashions actually appears somehow futuristic and groundbreaking. How? Let me explain.

When we see seventies, eighties, and even nineties retro, we should take a second look. We always need to remember that retro trends also happened in the retro-sphere. So if we look at let’s say nineteen-nineties fashion, we need to remember that there was a strong seventies and even forties retro trend happening (platforms!!! crop tops!! shorts!). The eighties were full of late nineteen-forties wide shoulders and nineteen-fifties cat-eye glasses. In the nineteen-seventies, there was a big Art Deco craze, and obviously also some love for Eames and co. When we now create a retro trend of a certain period, we can hardly get around reusing an already existing retro-trend from that specific past — there is hardly anything left of the nineties if we take out the crop tops and the platforms...

When retro is not a bland copy of the past, and feels like little more than an elaborate dress-up party, something new is created simply by putting together unusual pairings. Here it finds a legitimate place in contemporary fashion, like a ideal merge between past and present.  

What I truly love about referencing the past in contemporary design is to consider another factor: the mistakes our memories commit by mixing up what we like to remember as vintage classics. Or in reverse we look at a collection, and our brain picks and chooses reference points to make sense of what it sees. So maybe what we are seeing is a 2016/17 version of a nineteen-seventies retrospective take on the nineteen-fifties?

#fashion #fashion trends #trends #70s #aw2017 #ss2017 #prada #mid centruy modern #essay #report #menswear #fashionshow #womenswear #fashionhistory #arthistory #iconography #vestoj

[yesterday-i-dreamed-of-tomorrow]

(via GIPHY) Watch out, I’ll be back tomorrow... any tomorrow. 

#giphy #the orchard #raf simons #the future #futurist

[yesterday-i-dreamed-of-tomorrow]

3D Printing - A Brave New Widget For A Fusty Old World

I have been fascinated with 3D printing from day one. Who does not wallow in nostalgic amusement remembering how TV shows like Star Trek or Red Dwarf fueled our imagination, using the concept of food replicators

But not only the fun 3D printing could bring to our lives is important. There are especially the possibilities it would open up for the fashion industry in terms of sustainable production, something that should make everyone feel excited about this new technology. 

There wouldn't be any unnecessary overproduction, therefore less waste and fewer environmental burdens. Nasty sweat shops would hopefully disappear and unhealthy work conditions as well. 

3D printing has the ability to change the world. Not tomorrow, but surely in the next 25 years. It offers to change the way we consume and the way we think about production. It could change the whole chain of a product's lifecycle and also the way we organize trade.

But there have been a number of concerns about 3D printing. People are again anxious that this new technology will be a means to end their careers, and therefore their wealth.

But despite the widely spread opinion in popular media, and by future-nihilists, neither shops, nor the idea of consumerism will just disappear. The concepts of a shop will change, and new fields will be introduced to the service industry. There will be a higher demand on 3D-modeling experts and those that operate the printers. The technology to produce more advanced printable filaments and fibres will be challenged as well as the questions of copyright and protection. A whole new range of highly skilled experts will be introduced to the free market.

Again, technology is faster than we are able to adapt our moral and ethical standards, and it is possible that it will create a few glitches in the system until we find a solution to create a sound way to follow up on the future – to create ethical standards, adapted to yet unknown demands.

Finally absolutely nothing can change the fact that people will stay traders and consumers, and that there won't be another step of evolution that changes the way we trade and exchange goods towards a purely autonomous self producing society. ( Unthinkable research titles pop to my imagination, like: Emptor excelsus - From Consumer to Replicator.)

Let's face it: We love to consume, we love the experience of being served and advised, we love the challenge of finding a bargain, just as much as we love to spent our money on expensive goods that do not have any other purpose to us than fulfilling a promise of happiness and exclusivity. Anything we consume opens up a full new universe of desires, and 3D-printing won't stop the world from turning.

Firstly we are still far away from any form of wearable, edible and other purpose-printables that can truly replace conventional production. It is still in an experimental stage. Pringle of Scotland has now used 3D-printed elements that are woven into the garments for their last collection. Adidas uses the technology in its prototype production for many years. Artist and Designer Iris van Herpen is known to create astonishing 3D-printed designs for her haute couture collections, but all this is far away from a pleasing surface feel, let alone compatible for mass production.

We also have to quit thinking that 3D-printing is as simple as Lego, and therefore replicates are easy to make for everyone.

It requires skills and access to material. Even if we imagine that in ten years the technology will be cheap and the diversity of print cartridges will open new branches of the economy, in its endless diversity.

Even then, the skill to create the models will be a valuable good. A home printer won't be the same as an industry style printer. You will need different printers for different purposes, e.g. metal, elastics, ceramics, and even food.

To think that small businesses and many parts of the producing industries will suffer from a huge wave of a new DIY trend is very far fetched. This is just another symptomatic to create panic, where we should actually be overwhelmed with inspiration. It could again lead to a decline in craftsmanship, but it is in the end just a shift towards a new way of crafting. Craftsmanship has a very special status quo in our society, and it will always survive any changes in time.

Let us instead imagine new concepts of service-orientated shops for 3D printed goods, how shop assistants would be required to operate software and hardware, to advise consumers on the perfect material, and to make slight alterations to the designs on-the-fly. Production will be taking place directly in front of the consumer's eyes, and will create a wholly new form of excitement. It is possible that 3D printing will finally bring the core idea of tailoring back to fashion, and no one will wear ill fitted clothes ever again, unless it becomes a deliberate trend. One can never be sure.

Imagine that you can bring an idea of your own design to a shop, and they will advise you on the realization. Imagine that production will be only on-demand and calculated loss is only necessary for prints that go wrong.

some of those Ideas already became reality, like the concept of 3D printing to go in a nice café atmosphere. 

We can be certain that there will be a new wave of DIY excitement in the beginning, but this won't last for too long, and it won't affect everyone, and it certainly won't replace consumerism, in the same way as we are not all home-producers of anything that can be considered as a simple imitable product. We currently buy readymade cakes in the supermarket or the small confectionary, we still choose the flower shop over picking our own flowers, we don't solely bake our own pizza at home, making the dough while choosing the toppings and we simply don't pull our cheap, super-accessible sewing machine out of the closet every time we have a new fashion fix. We love to shop because we love it simple. Consumers will always want to consume, and creators will always create. Shoppers will shop and tinkerers will go tinkering along.

#3d printing #Technology #consumer insight #future thinking #diy #consumerism

[yesterday-i-dreamed-of-tomorrow]

The Art of Loving 3.0

Spike Jonze’s placit science fiction romance Her, staring a shy, perhaps introverted Joaquin Phoenix, who falls in love with his eloquent and flirtatious operating system, voiced by Scarlett Johansson, evokes many distinct reactions. 

Firstly, it is both disturbing and understandable at the same time. It is plausible that Theodore, a professional copy writer of emotionally touching personalised letters, falls in love with a “female” OS that has been specifically designed to his needs and suit his predisposition. She is essentially a reflection of his desires. She copies his mannerisms, interacts with him in a sensible way, and assists him in all his daily tasks. She establishes a routine of astonishing leisure activities, and surprises him constantly with her newest compositions, poems, discoveries, and so it goes on. Always happy, cheerful, up for a laugh, entertaining, complimentary, he easily falls for her. She resembles his ideal female companion.

It is not at all surprising that an introverted, socially awkward, recently heartbroken person falls in love with, a reflection of his own personality.

One interesting part about science fiction, as a genre, is that it reflects on modern day problems, fears and threats, and transplants them into the future, whereas the future serves as a tool, to tell the story that resembles the consequences and possible outcomes of those issues.

It somehow strikes us to contemplate what love would be like in the future. But what is love for us right now? How do we pursue relationships? How do we meet friends and people and make sexual contacts? 

How far away are we from that future concept of cyber sex, and how close have we ever been to any romantic idea of what love should be? First of all, love is a concept that people like to create for themselves, it is a state of mind, a decision made.

Today people have tons of different ways to express and fulfil their weirdest desires, there are swingers, masochists, sadists, feeders, huggers, boring good old fashion lovers, and so much else. So what’s so strange about thinking people could get off with a cybernetic sex-whispering algorithm? How far fetched is this idea from using a Telephone service for sexual pleasures? And, to remind us of, a not so new anymore phenomena in the world of mobile phone trends: sexting.

Future is also only a concept, and as we already established, many different people create many different concepts, and yes some of them manifest themselves in future presents. When they become reality, it does not necessary have to be your or my reality. Even today, we can still choose, if we prefer online dating or making it up to what ever the day brings.

In the end, it is not about love, it is about desire. What do we desire? Sex? Friendship? Relationships? How do we consume it? What is our disposition towards those things, and what defines our character? Do we have an obsessive personality? Do we like to keep things simple and clean? Are we helplessly romantic? Do we believe in old fashioned values? What types of lovers / consumers of love are we?

And where does this tale come from that love is pure and natural and therefore cyber-love cannot, as it is artificial and bizarre? Since when is it not possible to channel ones love towards an abstract construct of our minds? Since when is love limited to loving another person? I guess in this misunderstanding of what love should be, lies the main reason for the disapproval of the idea of loving an OS.

The Film poses very philosophical questions about the idea of love itself, how technological advancement will change our behaviour, and maybe the way we form relationships.

Erich Fromm already puts this matter in a nutshell, in his Book The Art of Loving from 1959, where he states:

“Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an ordination of character which determines the relatedness of the person to the whole world as a whole, not toward one object of love” 

The way we consume the objects we desire is an expression of our personality. And it always will be. Technology has the power of changing habits and, therefore, changing our daily procedures and along with it taking away ongoing sensations that only came with the coherence of necessity we created ourselves. Clinging to those sensations is purely nostalgic, and in denial of the fact that future is something we cannot stop. But thinking, technology has the power of changing our personality is to far fetched. It merely brings out different aspects of our personality, highlights them or even helps us to solve them, like e.g. socially anxious in public, total cracker in a social network.

And in Fromm’s words: 

“Modern man has transformed himself into a commodity; he experiences his life energy as an investment with which he should make the highest profit, considering his position and the situation on the personality market. He is alienated from himself, from his fellow men and from nature. His main aim is profitable exchange of his skills, knowledge, and of himself, his "personality package" with others who are equally intent on a fair and profitable exchange. Life has no goal except the one to move, no principle except the one of fair exchange, no satisfaction except the one to consume.” 

We are still in the early stages of living amongst technology. And like anything new, we will perceive it with scepticism.

Experimenting with technology at an early stage is exciting, unforeseeable consequences are both an excitement and a worry. It is possible, that at one point it will regulate itself and new problems will release the old ones. Perhaps it will mean that the whole thrill of it, that is also causing some sexual fantasies in some of us, will water down with time. One thing is for sure, the better we know something, and the more familiar we get with what used to be new and strange to us, the less we fear it, and the lesser we even think about it. It will simply become another everyday commodity. 

So lets stop behaving like a broken record, by making the same mistakes over and over again: demonizing anything new and unheard of. It is good to be critical, and not blindly accepting, but let’s be honest: the future is now. We only need to adjust a little faster. And don’t worry! Be excited!

#Erich Fromm #Spike Jonze #her #cyber love #future thinking

[yesterday-i-dreamed-of-tomorrow]

Asking for Redemption

  Torstein Veblen, the US-American sociologist and economist, recognized people’s hedonistic nature in the act of consumption. He coined the term Conspicuous Consumption: consuming luxury goods in order to acquire prestige by the display of economic power in public. This was 1899! It was published in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions

  The leisure class is a label that can still be applied today, but as consumerism has evolved to a state where we have many different classes of consumers with a variety of attitudes, the reasons for consuming have evolved and expanded.

  Let us take, for example, the well-recognised target group of the so-called LOHAS, the followers of a lifestyle of health and sustainability. They come in any age, gender, sexual orientation, mostly middle class, mostly happy to spend  a significant percentage of  their income on products that make them happy. They are a little bit similar to the leisure class, just their concept of happiness is a tiny bit different. They want to do and be nice to the planet and people. They want to consume things that make them feel nicer; this is the thing that makes them happy.

  Could it be that this niceness has its roots in a truly hedonistic nature? Do we really want to be nice just for the sake of being nice? Or is being nice the price we pay for getting the attention we crave? I already coined for myself the term of redemptive consumption (Erlösungskonsum) in my master thesis Better be Good! published spring 2013 at the Zurich University of the Arts, in the context of fair fashion and its missionary zeal in rhetoric and imagery. At first, I was not focusing on the consumers, but more towards the producers and the labels. As it often is with research, however, once one identifies a defect or something catches one’s eye, one feels the need to further pursue these matters of interest. Is this now the next big thing in the world of consumerism trends?

The people from trendwatching.com clearly got it right, when six month after my graduation (yes, I love coincidences) calling their term of guilt free consumption the new luxury for consumers and businesses.

This clearly works best in the world of luxury goods where we would be back to the Veblen Effect. My initial thought, not being read in economics, on the fair fashion trend was that it appears to be a strategy of the fashion world to legitimise their ill practice and mass production. However, it plainly turns out to be a simple reaction to changing needs of the consumers. Most consumers want to be told that what they do is right and is best for them and the environment. They want the burden of responsibility lifted from their shoulders, in order to be able to  consume happily ever after…

  I have visited conferences for Green/Fair/Ethical Fashion, where the main questions were related to how to bring the joy of shopping back to consumers who are irritated by feelings of guilt and allegations of irresponsible behaviour. The main problem was to find a way of transparent hallmarking, but as we know now, this is not the best answer. While it does make it less difficult to find one’s bearings in the jungle of sustainable shopping for those who are clearly geeky about the topic, transparency does not bring the ease and the peace of mind. It just brings more confusion and off–putting emotions to those, who simply want to consume and quite simply do not want to feel guilty about it.

  What they want is the cosy, warm feeling of absolution.

  I love the English term Sale of Indulgences for what the Germans call Ablasshandel. Indulgences. Just the sound of it. Literally to indulge means to enjoy guilty pleasures. Whereas the German term reminds us more of some sort of phlebotomy.

  The final questions for today are: Is guilt free consumption maybe nothing more than a new form of purchasing indulgences? Do we try to buy ourselves free from guilt with clean products, to permit ourselves the pleasures of other vices? Are we asking for redemption or simply absolution? Is this maybe the reason why the already established moral tone in advertisement campaigns does not offend us in any way? And what comes after? Clearly not the great flood. A new generation of moral refusniks would be one logical consequence, and something I eagerly anticipate. One certainty: it will be different again, as nothing is more constant than change. In that sense: Amen.

  Postcard / Prayer Card from the Master Thesis Better Be Good! Zurich, 2013. Collage, using original campaign photography and quotations from the label's webpage.

#consumption #trend research #consumer insight