Fashion Futurist

Kawaii

2009-12-29T10:59:00.000-05:00

After all the minimalist androgyny (predicted, realized) is over, girls and young women are going to get all Japanese-style kawaii. This is sort of what Lady GaGa does already, and actually what Gwen Stefani does with Harajuku Lovers. I don't think it'll just be the decora-chan style of Harajuku District, though --

I think maybe it will get more mainstream to dress up in a costume, like goths here already do, or as the Lolitas and others do in Tokyo:

It's predictable since what's popular in Japan becomes popular in the U.S. oh like 15 or so years later, and also because it's a very appropriate style for celebrities and, later, people who are apparently all becoming "avatars" of themselves through fashion.

I put that in quotes like to be sarcastic, but the whole public-persona-as-avatar concept is actually really cool.

Unintended irony in street fashion

2009-03-21T09:19:00.005-04:00

For the first time this morning I saw a street style blog post with a picture of someone who had not dressed up trying to be fashionable or ironic. It was the first time I've seen the photographer make the decision that the person was going to be those things. Here it is:

http://com-onpeople.blogspot.com/2009/03/housein.html

Seeing the above really shocked me. Housein is not trying to be fashionable or cool! Who knows why he ended up buying that jacket, but it wasn't because it made him giggle. But still he was wearing a jacket that a hipster might buy because it made him giggle, and so the photographer photographed him. So I guess intentionality is now moot in the production of sartorial irony? Will everyone become un-P.C. like me and start taking pictures like this?

Interesting how, obviously, Housein's unironic orientation towards clothing goes right along with a completely different set of values. Whereas the legginged-out girl a couple posts above him reported her inspirations for this outfit as "Santangela,pulp,common people,1991," Housein's were his country, family, and friends. No hipster raised in the United States would ever say this. And yet, it's a much cooler response, in my opinion, than any of the rather boneheaded ones that most people spout when asked.

I've been spending some time with my friend's crowd of international-relations students here in D.C., and one bit of fashion trivia which they frequently cite is the Third World's position on the fashion food chain--how apparently after clothes have made it all the way from the manufacturer through discounts and more discounts at department stores, to second-tier bargain stores like T.J.Maxx, to thrift stores, they finally make it (seasons, years later) to poor countries in big bags, and people there shop by fishing things out of the bags.

The resulting outfits are representative of the trend I wrote about here called "Beautiful Ugliness," in which the goal of an outfit is to create an effect of aesthetic dissonance. However, I was completely wrong about this idea. Instead of being created on purpose, the new aesthetic dissonance will be created by accident; and instead of acting as a fashion catharsis for the "problem" of collage Late Modern culture, it will expose the fact that the "collage" is an illusion, a false construction of affluent Westerners trying to explain and contain the surging multiethnic, multicultural richness and vitality of the world beyond its ken--and to assuage its guilt over destroying the continuity of the past by obsessively recycling it.

This Beautiful Ugliness is the first modern fashion that the American-born cannot attain--or that at least very few of them can attain--because the prerequisite for it is a certain attitude: one that prompts a person to instinctively list as his inspirations, "My country Bangladesh, my family and my friends." Though hipsters and celebrities, especially M.I.A., dressing up in a version of Beautiful Ugliness, they still can't help doing it all on purpose. They have learned aesthetic preferences which it's very hard to unlearn, and have aesthetic associations that may never be wiped clean. They are doomed to look at Husein's jacket and think, "1980s. Ironic." They just can't wear this style!

Of course, is it a style? Does an aesthetic have to be intentional to be a style? I'm not sure. It does to be a "fashion" -- but all traditional cultures have extremely well-developed styles, and those emerged not from a designer's sketchbook but from centuries of evolution, elaboration, and perfection. Now they're gone. And what the descendants of those cultures have left to work with are the cast-offs of the culture that demolished them. And, repeating the pattern of unconscious evolution, the style that's emerging expresses much more perfectly the reality of the modern aesthetic than its rich overlords do. That is real street style.

Bring back the phone!

2008-07-16T12:01:00.003-04:00

So for lots of people, e-mailing has replaced the phone, and it's almost considered intrusive to call anyone but close friends and family at this point.

I was just e-mailing back and forth with one of my best friends, and was about to send yet another e-mail to clarify something, and then I was like: "What the hell am I doing? Why don't I call her on the phone?" And so I did. And we had...a conversation. And it was great! It relieved the loneliness of working at home much better than typing. I think people should e-mail and text less, and talk on the phone more. Especially when it actually saves time (There's this assumption that you cut out some kind of unnecessary chatter by e-mailing/IMing, but I think that's exaggerated).

Talking on the phone is also cool in a romantic, retro way. I even think people should talk on land lines more -- as much as possible. First of all it's less potentially-carcinogenic. Secondly there's not all that trouble with bad reception. And thirdly, it can feel really nice to hold a good old-fashioned receiver. I have a non-cordless phone and love it. It's the wall-mount-option kind, and I even wish it were the big clunky desk model.

Talking on the phone more is also a way to counteract all the overproliferation of "hot" media by chilling out with a nice "cool" medium.

Of course, I'm not the only person who's said exactly this same thing: the Times is aaaallll over it (here, here). But I think they're mainly speaking to an older audience about their work environments. I'm talking about social phone calls, here. We need more of them.

Cultural beauty

2008-07-15T22:16:00.003-04:00

I'm reading the second book by Ellen Dissanake (whom I wrote about before here), Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why and it, like her first book What Is Art For?, is awesome. There are a lot of ideas in it I want to blog about, and the first is something she points out in explaining how humans use art to turn something "natural" into something "cultural," thereby making it special. Something I thought was particularly interesting was what she pointed out about the art of personal beautification and adornment: that in traditional cultures, what constitutes true beauty is adherence to the culturally-mandated form of beautification:

To the Temne, the Igbo, and many other West African groups, beauty is inseparable from refinement so that it is said that a homely but well-groomed Temne woman with refined ways would be more likely to attract male attention than a fine-featured woman who appears disheveled. In such societies, beauty, like morality, comes by acquisition, and is achieved by manipulating nature: it is not a natural endowment.

This reminded me of a conversation I'd just been having with someone about how funny we thought it was that certain naturally-unattractive women will dye their hair, put on lots of makeup, dress up a certain way, and still (to us) be obviously hideous--but that to plenty of men and other women, they look attractive because of how they're done up. We discussed how we thought this was bizarre; but in fact, culturally speaking, of course it is we who are bizarre. Even though our modern culture does place value on natural beauty, it still places a great deal of value on cultural, "artificial" beauty. People really pay a lot more attention to the signification of others' appearances than they do to their actual aesthetics. And Dissanayake seems to think that this is evidence of a healthy engagement in the meaning-giving power of shared culture.

She really thinks postmodernism sucks, and that its whole aesthetic is symptomatic of our bankrupt culture: "It seems worth asking whether the confusing and unsatisfying state of art in our world has anything to do with the fact that we no longer care about important things." I guess that could apply, also, to the postmodern standard of beauty, which my friend and I have, which looks right at someone's actual body and face and judges their beauty based on that. That, culturally, is bizarre and alienated. And yet until now I unquestioningly assumed that I was "correct" to think I knew what beauty was. And I did--but not in a cultural sense. And I'm not sure I can, at this point, appreciate cultural beauty, because I'm not used to looking in that way.

Women and men

2008-07-03T10:34:00.005-04:00

I was talking to a baby boomer the other day who in the course of our conversation referred to a contemporary of mine as a "woman." Immediately I sensed the problem with this and felt compelled to fix it, and also to unnecessarily make my boomer friend feel uncomfortable. So I informed her, faux-offendedly, "Um, we call them girls."

Because it's true: most unmarried/childless urban females under the age of, say, 40 refer to themselves and each other as "girls," and their male equivalents are "guys" or even "boys." "Woman" sounds like a fat or boring person; "man" sounds like a strange, be-suited fellow. Both are waaaaaaaay too mature-sounding for the ineffectual, directionless, adult children we feel ourselves to be, and too old-sounding for the sexy, with-it hipsters we hope we are.

And yet right after I issued my official Millennial correction, I realized that I wasn't actually so sure about it. I'm not so sure I want to be called a "girl" anymore. Although self-identifying as a "girl" is superficially self-affirming, since it suggests that one is cute and fun, it's starting to seem a little depressing. After all, does it really feel good if at 26 I fall into the same category as a 5-year-old? The problem with "girl" no longer has anything to do with feminism (see above, "boy" -- there's no double standard) -- it has to do with the issue of Millennial/Gen-Y maturity. And as I started thinking here and a bit here even, it's maybe time we started working on that.

I'm a cautious proponent of the "fake it till you make it" strategy, so I'm going to go right ahead and start promoting the trend of females over the age of 18 calling themselves "women" again, in the hopes that this symbolic gesture will make us feel more like adults (in the best sense of the word). And boys should be men, too. Doesn't it all sound more exciting? To be women and men--to know women and men? I think it does. It kind of casts everything into a different light, to think of things that way. It's kind of radical--so I like it.

Is it going to become a thing, actually? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe a different word will become popular. "Lady" has had a bit of a comeback. Maybe other slang terms will come back instead. But I do think I see "girl" on its way out. It's not right anymore.

I was right: Obama's influence on names

2008-06-29T08:35:00.004-04:00

I predicted here that Obama's candidacy/presidency would prompt more black Americans to give their children traditional African names, and that this trend might extend to Americans of all ethnicities giving their children names borrowed from other cultures.

What's happening instead, already, as this NYT article reports, is that grown Obama supporters are giving themselves his middle name, Hussein, as their middle names, adopting it as a symbol of solidarity in the face of all the anti-Muslim hysteria about his background.

So far Obama's campaign has done an extremely good job of managing Obama's "brand." Obama-sponsored memes ("Yes we can") have been extremely successful. And a couple of (planned?) physical-gesture memes that started out looking potentially damaging (the Jay-Z brush-off, the terrorist fist jab) were swiftly picked up and championed by pop culture (no question, the fist-bump is the new high-five).

Obama's imagery is powerful. And the reason it's so powerful is that it's impeccably, vertically unified. The campaign's power comes from the bottom up, but its themes and aesthetic come from the top down. People interact with that imagery in a grassroots way -- make their own posters, buttons, etc. -- but they're using as their raw material the Obama "look." That look is incredibly well-thought-out and designed to look right, sound right, feel right -- so when it gets repeated and repeated as it trickles through culture, it all reinforces the Obama message.

What doesn't work is for the grassroots to come up with a meme and force it upwards, because it will clash with Obama's visual and rhetorical aesthetic. And Hussein clashes. Although Obama's middle name is a part of his "brand" (part of his name/"brand name") whether he likes it or not, it's not been chosen as part of his brand messaging. And so what these kids are doing becomes unintentionally subversive of what Obama's trying to do. The main problem with their gesture isn't that it adds to the false association between Obama and Islam (because, although it does, Obama is already treading the line on offending Muslims), but that it picks apart Obama's image when what's clearly been working best for him is summing-up, generalizing, unifying. And because it picks apart instead of generalizing, it distracts from the candidate, leading us away into a debate on religion and race between individuals instead of back toward Obama and the mass movement.

Radical Chic redux

2008-06-27T10:58:00.006-04:00

Along with the natural/afro hair, politicized hip-hop style, and authentic African names that I think an Obama candidacy and presidency is going to bring to the forefront, I'm starting to wonder if some Black Power-influenced style is going to come back in 2009.

I mentioned in this post that I think the color black in general is going to only get more pervasive, and that in the winter the classic black turtleneck is going to be huge. I'm also imagining lots of sober, simply-cut (minimalist) black jackets, suits, and coats, and flat black boots. And I'm thinking that the camouflage trend of this winter/spring is only going to get bigger and encompass a generally militant-ish look. Plus, I continue to insist, long hair for men. Add to that a dumbing-down of (or maybe even dispensing-with?) makeup (here, here), the continuation of skinny jeans, the not-dying popularity of sunglasses, especially still the Wayfarers, the seemingly-random turban and hats-in-general trend, and it's all sounding a little familiar:

...Christ, if the Panthers don't know how to get it all together, as they say, the tight pants, the tight black turtlenecks, the leather coats, Cuban shades, Afros. But real Afros, not the ones that have been shaped and trimmed like a topiary hedge and sprayed until they have a sheen like acrylic wall-to-wall--but like funky, natural, scraggly . . . wild . . .

...The Panther women...are so lean, so lithe, as they say, with tight pants and Yoruba-style headdresses, almost like turbans, as if they'd stepped out of the pages of Vogue, although no doubt Vogue got it from them. All at once every woman in the room knows what Amanda Burden meant when she said she was now anti-fashion because "the sophistication of the baby blacks made me rethink my attitudes." God knows the Panther women don't spend thirty minutes in front of the mirror in the morning shoring up their eye holes with contact lenses, eyeliner, eye shadow, eyebrow pencil, occipital rim brush, false eyelashes, mascara, Shadow-Ban for undereye and Eterna Creme for the corners . . . (from Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers ©1970 by Tom Wolfe)

Of course Black Power overtones are exactly the last thing Barack Obama needs, so I hope this doesn't come back too strong or too soon. Hopefully not really until he's in office. And I really, really hope it'll be about black pride instead of black separatism.

Ideally it will represent, also, not the nihilistic defeated attitude of 1969, but a non-materialistic, honest attitude, and be part of a sweeping-away of the overconsumption-oriented style that has reigned for almost this entire first decade of the 21st century.

Can-collector costume

2008-06-17T08:04:00.004-04:00

I always get transfixed by the clothes of the Chinese-American women who collect bottles and cans in downtown New York. Though definitely the result of poverty and with the main goal of utility, these women's outfits are quite beautiful and fascinating.

First of all, they just have their outfits DOWN! They are always dressed from head to toe in an utterly functional, comfortable-looking combination of layers. In the winter, this often means an assortment of cotton jackets piled on top of each other, with socks ingeniously made into wrist-warmers. But look at the picture here, taken recently in warm weather: She's wearing a short-sleeved top, and seemingly underneath a dark-red long-sleeve top. But I could see from closer up that what appear to be sleeves are actually arm coverings, home-made out of other cloth and with elastic at both ends to keep them on!!! They must be for sun protection, cleanliness, or both. Whatever they're for, they provide adjustable, easy-to-remove coverage and look amazing. Then there's her smock: these women always wear one. It's again a very functional, thrifty garment to wear. And yet it also adds another layer to the collage of clothes, making the whole outfit look more rich and almost exotic. The sun hat, too, is functional, but gives this woman and others an added dignity -- affirming, somehow, that they too are workers with a job to do and a role to fulfill.

Above all I love how all the different parts of these women's outfits work together. They always clash, possibly because the women can't afford to -- but my hunch is that they don't care to -- match their clothes to one another. It's not that they're oblivious to aesthetics: it's quite clear that they prefer certain prints (florals, paisleys), colors (pastels, muted neutrals and primaries), and styles (boxy jackets, especially traditional Chinese ones, and elastic-waist pants). But they're operating with a completely different eye for how these things should go together.

The can collector aesthetic is effectively very similar to Beautiful Ugliness, only from an opposite direction. Unlike a post-hipster who would have to combine clashing items self-consciously, these women -- and poor non-Westerners and marginal Westerners across the world -- put anti-matching, anti-fashion outfits together totally naturally. They don't have to force themselves to ignore what a rich Westerner can't help but see as contradictory, inappropriate, potentially-ironic juxtapositions of style -- because they don't have anything invested in those styles not clashing. So while they probably don't see their clothing as beautiful, neither do they see it as "wrong." And that puts them way ahead of typical affluent Americans, with their concerns about putting together right-wrong outfits, at great expense, which will just have to be given away or thrown away when the next right-wrong fashion comes along.

The can collectors don't care about any of that. They're just surviving. And they've come up with a clothing style perfectly oriented towards helping them survive. In this sense, their style is not just like Beautiful Ugliness, but also New Sportswear, in that it's all about functionality and performance. That's the most modern way to dress.

It's my belief that these women are actually, in a way, better-adapted to living in New York City than the expensively-suited office workers who pass by them and pity them every day. They really see clothes for what they are, and use them for exactly what they need. And they look more amazing than anyone else.

I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes

2008-06-12T21:05:00.005-04:00

The darkness isn't going to go if you turn your head, though. More darkness is on the way. In fact it would be appropriate, if you see a red dress, to paint it black, because black and more black is what we're going to be seeing this summer.

That's right, here it is, my favorite time of year: time to make the New York Downtown Young Ladies' Summer Fashion Trend Report.

It's all about separates, neutrals, minimalism, utilitarianism, lots of skin, and a tough attitude.

All the outfits worn by New York Downtown Young Ladies are a variation on this theme:

white, black, gray, denim, or khaki short shorts or short skirt, high-waisted
+ white, black, or gray top of some kind
OR black or white sundress BELTED AT THE WAIST -- NO empire line
potential vest, layered shirt, or jacket in white, black, or denim -- NO SWEATERS

Guidelines for accessories:

sandals, esp. gladiators or anything with an ankle strap, leather NOT jelly, espadrille, or other, TRUE sandal NOT FLIP-FLOP -- OR leather or canvas black/white/neutral lace-ups OR boots -- tough boots as motorcycle or winkle-picker, NOT round-toe scrunchy
NO bag -- OR utilitarian bag - backpack, fanny pack, or as last resort TRUE handbag (no shoulder straps and especially NO HOBOS)
the best accessories have some sort of significance or symbolism: for instance, political pins, wedding rings, friendship bracelets
earrings are long and made of feathers or fringe or are hoops or simple studs but are NOT chandelier. multiple ear piercings are good.
chokers

Grooming:

hair: should not be styled -- it should be air-dried and left in its natural state. If it's frizzy in its natural state, it should be frizzy; if it's flat, it should be flat. your growing-out bangs should be in your eyes. don't trim your hair.
makeup: pretty skin, some mascara. NO EYELINER. lip balm.
no nail polish

Underwear

I was a little wrong about bras. it's OK to wear a bra, but it shouldn't be a heavy-duty bra. It should be a garment and not an undergarment. it should show -- the straps should show, or the color should show through your shirt. or you can wear it on its own -- if it's a sports bra. that could be really cool, actually.

The following are forbidden:

irony
color
notions of "luxury" or "glamour"
boho

Other notes:

the right denim is old, thrifted, men's denim -- ideally a little torn.
don't try to be sexy. it's an election year, get over yourself
shoes are going to be getting more and more utilitarian. sandals this summer will give way to sneakers this fall and hiking boots and flat boots this winter. notice how the nineties are coming back?
also in that vein: perhaps instead of long hair, a bit of a sinead/ani moment?
this winter the black turtleneck will succeed these black winter clothes.

Political hip-hop style

2008-06-09T20:03:00.005-04:00

I was waiting for something like this. I saw an amazing, amazing Obama shirt this afternoon. It was in the window of a tiny hip-hop boutique on 28th near 6th Avenue: this big black shirt with a picture of Obama (shot from below, like in all the web site photos) giving the thumbs-up, and surrounding him the giant words "YES" (above his head) and, below him, "WE CAN," in puffy gold glitter fat bold type. There were other hip-hop-style Obama shirts in the window, too, but this one was the winner.

Tons of blacks and Latinos in their teens and twenties were psyched to wear the Obama stickers I and other volunteers were handing out at the Puerto Rican Day Parade on Sunday. Lots of people passed me waving these stickers around and then would circle back and say, "Oh, Obama. Yeah, I want a sticker."

What youth culture, black culture, and entertainment culture media will the Ice Cold Obama influence infiltrate next??

Tinted glasses, haircolor for men, nun casualwear

2008-05-28T18:31:00.005-04:00

Great people-watching on the downtown 6 train today.

I saw my third man wearing tinted prescription glasses (not sunglasses) of 2008. The first two men were wearing yellow-tinted glasses and I saw both of them on St. Mark's. One was wearing a very nice suit and the other I don't remember that well but was generally a bit nebbishy-chic I think. This man on the 6 today had pink or "rose"-tinted glasses. He was a short, plump thirty-something man wearing a tight blue-and-yellow-striped long-sleeved polo shirt, lots of rings, and a gold bangle bracelet. Like with the other 2 men, I was too afraid to ask him what the deal was with his glasses. I didn't like his as much as the yellow glasses because they were very high-style, whereas the yellow-tinted glasses on the other men were otherwise very normal and I thought that was cool. What's the deal? Is this a fad? Does it have to do with insisting on one's own subjective experience of reality?

Second: I saw a tall businessman, also in his thirties, in a nice suit, with platinum-blonde hair that I for some reason did not buy as his natural haircolor. I started wondering whether he'd started going gray and was dying his hair back blonde. His face looked older than his hair, somehow. Then I saw it in a different light and the blonde looked more believable. It was hard to believe someone that nicely-dressed would be *tacky* enough to dye his hair. Then I wondered whether it wouldn't just be very punk rock to dye one's hair, if one were a man. Natural colors that were just a little bit off would be cool. A reddish tint on a natural light brunette, black on natural dark-brown hair. Here's a redhead from Face Hunter who went Manic-Panic-red with great success.

Then I saw what I think must have been a nun in a nun's casual-wear ensemble. Do nuns have special casual-wear uniforms?? The all-over light-blue color was the main reason I thought she had to be a nun. That and most of what she was wearing was handmade: handmade light-blue knee-length A-line skirt with white embroidery (obviously done by one of the automatic stitch functions on a sewing machine -- scallops and zigzags); a light-blue V-neck cardigan, baggy fit, definitely hand-knit; white blouse looked like it could have been hand-sewn; and then my favorite, this chunky beaded necklace of alternating white and navy beads. This with tan hose and black-on-black cheapo sneakers, maybe Reeboks. And a short pageboy with bangs. She was doing the crossword. Is this an approved nun's holiday ensemble? Or was this woman just some sort of wacky Holly Hobby? I love spotting handmade clothes. They always just leap out at you. They look so original, and so wrong.

Maximizing the contradictions

2008-05-20T15:07:00.004-04:00

I've already complained about how, in this twilight of the Late Modern collage aesthetic, consumers are required to put a lot of time and effort into expressing themselves through creative consumption. So now I'd like to propose a better, newer, more advanced transitional aesthetic -- a tide-over until the recession-delayed New Sportswear.

I mentioned it in my post about Unhairdos. My idea is called Beautiful Ugliness and would consist of ensembles, in various mediums including but not limited to fashion, in which disparate elements are combined without regard to aesthetic harmony and in fact with the goal of creating dissonance.

I think Beautiful Ugliness is a good next aesthetic step because it's a clear way to acknowledge a problem that I think we as a culture are avoiding: that our current mash-up culture is a temporary, uneasy compromise at best and is not helping to move us forward. Because, I think, we are so afraid of facing the huge difficulty of collectively fabricating more original cultural forms to meet our modern human needs, we're procrastinating by obsessively trying to make mash-up culture "work." And of course it feeds into consumerism, too. If everything is original and different but everything has to "match" and "balance," etc., you have to spend a lot of time shopping for the right-color, right-style, right-"wrong," in a way, products. Magazines and TV shows are full of advice on how to make all the crap work together. Obviously it's a big strain on everyone. Why not put a stop to it with something a little more "real" and honest?

Instead of "right-wrong," I propose "wrong-right." This means, instead of trying to sublimate the apparent "wrong"-ness of our mismatched culture into the "right"ness of matchy-matchyness, let's put it out there, create obviously "wrong" mash-ups, and decide to accept these as the new "right."

Think about it: when you look around as you walk down the street, does everything match? It absolutely doesn't. When you walk around in nature, in a forest, say, everything matches to some degree. But in artificial human environments, aesthetic continuity exists within individual, self-contained environments such as stores, sure -- but not (except in the strip-mall environments that almost everyone agrees are heinous) in larger blocks of what actually constitute our living environments. If you look at a whole block, a whole street, together -- everything clashes. Everything is a jumble. Because it wasn't masterminded; it's the result of evolution, not intelligent design. And lots of city planners would tell you that that's precisely what makes good neighborhoods good. So why don't we expand this aesthetic, which is so expressive of what's good about melting-pot culture, and apply it more deliberately?

I love what Andy Warhol wrote in THE Philosophy of Andy Warhol about his own version of Beautiful Ugliness:

I really look awful, and I never bother to primp up or try to be appealing because I just don't want anyone to get involved with me. And that's the truth I play down my good features and play up the bad ones. So I look awful and I wear the wrong pants and the wrong shoes and I come at the wrong time with the wrong friends, and I say the wrong things and I talk to the wrong person, and then still sometimes somebody gets interested and I freak out and I wonder, "What did I do wrong?" So then I go home and try to figure it out. "Well I must be wearing something that somebody thinks is attractive. I'd better change it. Before things get too far...So I think, "How weird. I know I look bad. I made myself look especially bad--especially wrong--because I knew a lot of the right people would be there, and still someone somehow got interested..."

Of course this, like a lot of what Warhol wrote, is intentionally facetious/misleading, as what he called looking "awful" and "wrong" was a large part of the cult of personality he deliberately fostered in order to get the attention he claims he was avoiding. This ironically-ironic ambivalence towards the positive-attention-getting potential of "ugly" aesthetics would be one of Beautiful Ugliness's contrbutions to the cleansing transition out of irony into Post-Postmodernism.

Arguably some hipsters dress Beautifully Ugly, but most try to make stuff match and "look good." I just think it would be so cool if more people tried to "look bad." And wouldn't it be amazing if "bad" became the new "good"? Maybe that extreme of topsy-turviness would be enough to "reset" us aesthetically so we could come up with some good new stuff.

Movie trailers and the dangers of virtual reality

2008-05-16T16:40:00.005-04:00

Trailers for old movies are really weird. Since I was born in late 1981, I didn't really see many movie trailers until the late '80s. What I didn't realize until recently is that that means I exactly missed the transition between the old style of movie trailers and the new. But now that movies' original trailers are almost always included in the special features of DVDs, I've been exposed to lots of these old trailers, and I'm blown away by how different and old-fashioned they seem.

What makes the old trailers so different is how focused they were on the narrative of the films advertised. This hits you right away in the voiceover. Whereas lots of trailers today -- maybe the majority -- have no voiceover at all, it seems like every trailer back then had voiceover, and a lot of it. These old voiceovers functioned like narrators, introducing you to the characters and giving you lots of exposition. In contrast, voiceovers in trailers today are spoken by a remote-sounding, Godlike man in vague, stereotyped phrases such as "In a world where...," "...one man...," etc. which set the scene and mood with as few words as possible. The clips in pre-'90s trailers, too, tell a story; they're loooong clips, all of uncut dialogue, all in order, mostly of the same length, going all the way up to the end of the film and often essentially giving away the ending. In contrast, trailers today show you lots of short, out-of-order clips of varied lengths, many of them atmospheric shots of setting, silent action, or even just text on a blank screen, and the clips containing dialogue are always edited down and compressed, creating more of a collage.

Here's a comparison: the upcoming Pineapple Express has a trailer that I love to watch over and over again because of the way it massages my mind's visual and aural pleasure center with its lovely rhythmic cutting while not taxing it with anything but the most basic evocation of narrative; contrast that to the relative clunkiness of the trailer of a similarly-themed movie from 1978. What a difference. And yet I'm sure that if someone made a new trailer for Up in Smoke, it could look just like Pineapple Express, because compared to trailers, the style of movies hasn't changed at all. It would also be funny to try cutting an old-style preview of Pineapple Express to see just how unenticing it could be made to look.

Anyway, basically, the people making the trailers figured out that what they were selling wasn't a story, but an experience of a story. And that's what trailers show you: an extremely heightened, compressed sense of what the full-length experience of seeing a movie will be like. And they work really well; movie trailers are like crack, and all human beings readily admit that they love the previews.

But in terms of the actual movie, people are there for the story, right? The importance of the story of a movie gets lots of emphasis from filmmakers, especially recently, in my experience. Seemingly all film schools aggressively proclaim that their curriculums are centered around "storytelling," and most screenwriters and directors emphasize how their main drive is to "tell a story.” It starts to sound a bit defensive – and with good cause. Because the vast majority of the movie-going public, I’m pretty sure, does not go to movies for stories; they go for the same thing they like about trailers – the experience, which is primarily the experience not of the story but of the alternate world for which the story is only a fourth-dimension framework allowing you to pass through that world in time.

But if you didn’t need a stable framework for the fourth dimension in a world – what then? Well, that’s what’s possible in virtual reality. And virtual reality is the direction we’ve been moving towards for a long time. It’s what goes on in the movie-franchise phenomenon, which allows you to experience a movie in multiple media – the film, books, websites, TV shows, theme parks, food, music, weddings, furnishings, clothing… – to the extent that you’re essentially participating in an alternate world. New electronic media, as well -- the internet, video games, even DVR and OnDemand to some extent – break down the artificial structure of time created by the story and open up untold new dimensions through which humans and their senses can travel. Interestingly, this surrender of the fourth dimension in media is coinciding with new advances in the exploration of multiple dimensions beyond the fourth in reality.

What’s happening is the implosion of fixed-time narrative in media and its replacement by experiences of other worlds in which we the audience create the narrative ourselves.

But wait. What happens when we get rid of the story?

I think bad things might happen. Bad, bad things.

Stories are what communicate meaning and truth. They’re normative. They’re stable. They provide reference points for comparison, standards. So when stories are completely eclipsed by experience, which is amorphous and amoral, we lose a way of examining and agreeing on central significances in life. Is it a coincidence that the most successful virtualesque video game, Grand Theft Auto, is about a chaotic and amoral world? No.

Not only do storyless media experiences dispense with frameworks for meaning, but they also create a very problematic illusion of free choice. In the phantasmagorical hyperreality of a Disney franchise or packaged-goods brand universe, we have the illusion of traveling into a new world, where we can try being ourselves in a different atmosphere. The problem is that this atmosphere is not a neutral playground for our senses; it is a highly fake fantasy designed expressly to sell us things. There is in fact a built-in message in these artificial universes, and the message is BUY ME. And this message gets across so successfully exactly because of the way it exists apart from narrative and time. A commercial, which is like a story, tells you one thing once. A world, which when very successful can get confused with reality, brainwashes you constantly.

Rethinking monogamy

2008-05-13T10:29:00.003-04:00

I've been meaning to predict this for a while and putting it off, but since it's been showing up more and more in the news I thought I'd go ahead and put it out there. Basically, I think that non-exclusive sexual relationships are going to be getting more mainstream, and that this is going to have a huge impact on society.

The subject of nonmonogamy is back on my mind this week because it was featured in the winning essay in the NY Times's Modern Love College Essay Contest. It struck me as significant that, in choosing an essay about love in a contest specifically for young people and therefore really by definition specifically about "what's next," the Times settled on a piece that included such as this:

“The main thing,” he said, “is I don’t mind if she sleeps with other people. I mean, she’s not my property, right? I’m just glad I get to hang out with her. Spend time with her. Because that’s all we really have, you know? I don’t want her to be mine, and I don’t want to be anybody’s.”

At this stage, I guess, editors at the Times can put this stuff out there and say, "This is something young people are doing." But looking just a step ahead, what they're really beginning to say is, "This is what people are doing."

Part of the impetus for this is what I'm calling New Humanism -- a focus on our ever-growing understanding of intrinsic human psychological and biological needs as a guide for reforming our lifestyles. There's been a big increase in interest in trying to understand human sexual behavior in biological terms, which lately has taken the form of studies showing how sensory stimuli play a huge part in subconsciously influencing mate choice. Recently, for instance, there have been articles about how women's pheromones make them more attractive to men when they're ovulating (article) and how women are more attracted to men with deep voices (article). And many people are probably familiar with the "sweaty T-shirt experiment" from a few years back that showed women were more attracted to the armpit smell of men whose immune systems were different from theirs (article).

The growing awareness that so much of our sexual behavior seems to be subconsciously, biologically determined is beginning to spark questions about the extent to which our instinctive drives about sex invalidate our cultural norms regarding it. But most people are still pretty nervous about discussing this topic with reference to humans. The Times was able to approach the topic, a propos of the Spitzer scandal, with regard to animals, just hinting at the implications for humans (article). Slate went a little further on the topic of sperm competition (article). The anthropologist Helen Fisher is focusing directly on the question of what the human psychological predispositions are in the realm of sex and love and has written some cool books about it. Her basic opinion, which seems to be the preliminary consensus generally, is that humans are hardwired for long-term pair bonds -- on which they're hardwired to cheat.

I don't think that human pair-bonding or social monogamy will ever go away, because I do think it's what people are naturally predisposed to do and what they're happiest doing. However, I think that cultural norms are going to shift over the next few decades with regard to marriage, family structure, and romantic relationships in a way that will reflect at least a more open acknowledgment of the fact that lots of people want to cheat on their partners, and that lots of people do.

One change may be that the "serial monogamy" that is so often disparaged, yet is the most common love life model of young people, will become the accepted one. Serial monogamy, or something like it, is in fact what Helen Fisher thinks human psychology may be set up for, for the purpose of child-raising, with the infatuation that causes sex followed by the romantic love that leads to bonding, which is followed by the long-term attachment suitable for child-raising -- which then, after 4 years or so, at about the same time that children in primitive cultures reach a milestone of independence from their mothers (leaving the mothers in less need of help from the fathers), fades away unless another child is born to the couple. Of course, the lifestyle of a primitive culture is not that relevant in modern industrialized countries. What is relevant is the possibility that in an increasingly liberal social environment, people may be naturally drifting toward a more "natural" system of forming and dissolving multiple monogamous relationships over the course of their lifetimes. Currently the "serial monogamy" model gets a lot of criticism since it's a rather painful way of doing things under our current model of marriage and family, with its built-in reliance on parents sticking together, socially and financially, for decades. But if the current rates of divorce continue, which they probably will, it may be time to give up and tinker with the institution of marriage a bit for the sake of kids and their parents. Not sure how this would play out, but one idea is for couples to figure out theoretical child custody arrangements in case of divorce along with the financial plans they make in prenups (Op-Ed).

I also wonder what will happen with how our culture handles cheating. This is much more difficult. Even though the biological motives for preventing cheating aren't relevant anymore because of birth control, the psychological feelings of jealousy about one's partner cheating are extremely strong and will never go away, no matter how much the polyamorists try. The most pressing need in this area is to prevent the disease and violence that can result from cheating. But I also wonder whether gender-specific norms of cheating may develop, sort of along the lines of the "double standard" -- for instance, whether women may get a little more comfortable with men having sex with other women so long as they don't show them too much affection or support, while men may become tolerant of women getting affection and support from other men so long as they don't sleep with them. Of course, this system doesn't make any logical sense, since some of these women would have to be having sex and some of the men giving affection and support. Although, I guess this is kind of what already goes on with women who're close with gay men and men who sleep with prostitutes.

The media currently kind of doesn't know what to do with the few public figures, such as Will Smith and his wife, who are supposedly in an open marriage, who practice nonmonogamy. To me, it's astounding that Carla Bruni has been quoted saying, “I am faithful — to myself! I am bored to death by monogamy.” The current public reaction to stuff like this so far is basically denial, plus "Weird!" But I think we're going to start dealing with it a little more deeply soon.

Update 5/20: Looky here, an article about just this in the 5/26 NYMag: article

I was wrong: New sportswear

2008-05-09T10:40:00.000-04:00

Huh. Right after I post this argument for the glorious future of body-conscious, minimalist, eco-friendly garments made of hi-tech fabrics, the preeminent company designing and manufacturing such garments abruptly folds. I guess I was wrong? Or maybe the article's headline is right and the problem is just that the concept was "ahead of its time." Still, I guess I was wrong about this trend happening soonish. Too bad.

What's cooler than being cool?

2008-05-06T13:03:00.000-04:00

How can our culture turn around from the dead end it’s reached with Cool? This is something I think about a lot. We’ve been stuck for way too long re-processing the same cultural material, in this hyper-ironic state of mind, and the feeling of stagnation is overpowering.

Marshall McLuhan would say we’re in a Narcissus phase. In Understanding Media, he described what he called the “cooling” process, in which a culture uses play, parody, and miming to assimilate new (“hot”) information. Cooling serves a healthy cultural purpose, but it can become unhealthy if overindulged in. This often happens in the aftermath of the introduction of a new form of media. In the hyper-cooling phase that follows the invention of a media form, people, not yet “understanding” the new form, become fascinated and enslaved by the extensions of themselves in it. This enslavement occurs because people make the crucial mistake of thinking that the new media is separate from “real life,” when it is actually a part – an extension – of life and of people themselves.

In the present day, the hypnotizing media is the internet. Because of the internet, the speed of culture and its cooling has gotten so fast that living with media is like watching a video of life that’s on a split-second time delay: disorienting, disturbing, and discouraging – but hypnotizing. Hypnotizing because the split-second delay gives the false sensation of watching something fake, something different from our lives – a fantastic show that we don’t want to miss.

McLuhan would say that we’re making the same mistake as Narcissus, who, he emphasizes, did not fall in love with himself, but with a reflection of himself which he genuinely believed to be another person. Similarly, what we haven’t realized, in relentlessly parodying, recycling, and remixing pop culture, then consuming it again, is that this parodied, recycled, remixed culture isn’t some “other” culture, separate from our own, better than it – it IS our culture. Our problem, then, isn’t the common diagnosis of self-love, but rather self-alienation and resulting self-hate. Who but a really, really messed-up person could look at her reflection in the mirror and think to herself, “That person isn’t me”? But that’s exactly what our culture is doing.

And it’s clear that, subconsciously, the culture knows that it’s messed-up. Because just as Narcissus’s initial happiness at meeting such a beautiful creature quickly turned to anger and disgust when he found his image unresponsive, the initial attraction we felt when discovering ourselves on the internet turned quickly to ugly, hateful tearing-down when we started experiencing how empty it is to feed upon oneself.

McLuhan doesn’t provide an answer for how to overcome the problem of over-cooling. He does mention something called a “break point,” however, which seems to be the point at which a trend tips and reverses to the other direction. We simply have to be approaching such a break point now. How will the tip happen, though?

I’ve been trying to figure this out by extending the metaphor of cooling, asking myself, what happens when something over-cools? The short answer is that it freezes. That would translate into the speed of internet “cooling” breaking the speed of the internet itself. Literally that’s impossible, since it would mean images of real-life events would have to appear on the internet before they occurred in real life. Conceptually, however, that’s just the right idea. We have to put things on the internet, and out into the internet-adapted culture generally, before they “happen.” Meaning, we have to put things out there that aren’t real -- that are, in other words, art.

And entertainment has started doing just that. The NY Mag article about Gossip Girl pointed out that the most ground-breaking thing about the series is how all the gossip surrounding its actors’ real lives may be being manufactured by the same person who writes the show for the characters. So that would mean that the gossip reported on the internet is actually being written ahead of time. This is an old trick, of course – the film studios figured it out a long time ago. This has also been happening on the super-scripted reality shows like The Hills. Again, a kind of art sneaking in under the guise of life. We say this kind of behavior is somehow reprehensible, but I think it's just what we need.

Because like I started thinking here in reference to the internet, I think that our almost-frozen culture is also paradoxically the “hot”test it’s ever been. The question of which extreme the temperature is actually at doesn’t matter: the sensation is the same, and all that matters is how we conceptualize it. Are we going to keep thinking of our fake culture as “cool,” and tricking ourselves into thinking that as we constantly disparage it we’re talking about something better than ourselves? Or are we going to assert that we are part of it – very much a part of it?

What’s “cooler than being cool” is, as we all know, “Ice Cold.” I think what Andre 3000 wrote about in "Hey Ya" was actually a quite profound message about the redemptive pain of breaking through alienation by embracing it. In the video, Andre 3000 is the quintessential alienated artist in the act of transcendence. He's supposed to "act like [he's] got some sense," but all he knows how to do is "play," because that's the only way he knows of dealing with the complete ridiculousness of the adulation of his public (both in the studio and through T.V. screens) -- by inciting it, embracing it, and raising it to even-crazier heights. He does this by putting on a false persona -- not just one, but actually 6 personas (1 of them repeated 3 times), each with its own costume and personality and style of seduction. The seduction is both overtly fake (the over-the-top suaveness of the singer, the girl who runs up on stage to hug him but then ends up mainly wanting to wave at the camera) and intensely real and personal (the sweet girl in the yellow top blowing a kiss to the keyboardist, who shyly smiles). Both modes coexist and make each other possible -- embolden each other, perhaps.

The video parallels the love story in the song, which is itself a metaphor for the alienation in modern life. The song is about romantic ambivalence: "But does she really want to / but can't stand to see me walk out the door" (these thoughts incoherently running into each other, they're so mixed-up). There's this terror of committing to something, for fear that its disappointing reality ("separate's always better when there's feelings involved") will make the fantasy crumble ("got it just don't get it till there's nothing at all"). What makes love the exception? There's no straight answer to that, other than not to try to pin down an answer. Instead of listening to the words of the song, we should just dance; and instead of introducing Andre 3000 to our mother, we should just have sex with him. We should just live -- and living necessitates a little fakeness, a little superficiality, but also a little faith, just like love.

In the video, the bizarre instantaneousness of media communication drives home the miraculous coexistence of superficiality and depth: real-life Andre 3000 transforms into a still image of himself on a poster waved at him by a fan; Polaroid pictures develop images of what's currently going on before our eyes. But again, this can only happen (actually not, according to the Polaroid Corporation) if we "shake it." Andre 3000 demands this participation, not just by actively seducing his audience, but by weaving a really infectious call-and-response into his song. Even uptight Catholic school teachers can't resist the excitement of involving oneself in this kind of "play."

"Ice Cold" means that state of extreme “so-hot-it’s-cool”ness which "Hey Ya" is about, which is the best kind of coolness -- the kind in which you’re actually going out on a limb and owning what you create. Instead of pretending you’re somehow above what we all do now – put on personas, wear costumes, fake attitudes, create brands for ourselves – generally “be superficial” – you’re identifying with it and even asserting that what seems “fake” is, in the world of modern media, actually the realest thing there is.

I was right: Lipstick

2008-05-01T13:07:00.001-04:00

As I predicted here, it looks like lipstick is about to come back. The NYT says it's because of the recession.

Japanese haircuts

2008-04-29T08:27:00.000-04:00

Japanese people have really, really cool haircuts. The stylish ones are way more sophisticated than what most Americans get. And they are just totally different in the way they're layered. For example, try looking at this link: and specifically click on the woman in the thumbnail third from the right, and mouse over the back view of her head. See how extreme the layering is, with that very top-heavy design? That is so cool! Why don't Americans get that? I have a Japanese hairstylist and have been wanting to ask her to do something similar for a long time but my hair is only now long enough to try it. I'm thinking of doing it soon and am hoping my hair will be the right texture, and that she's into giving that kind of haircut (hopefully she doesn't hate the Japanese style and that's why she moved here in the first place). Anyway, that site has a bunch more amazing hairstyles, I get obsessed with it, so I hope you have fun too. The "gel nail" section is also incredible.

So, prediction I guess? Eventually people in the U.S. will catch on to how awesome Japanese hair is and try to get it themselves? There's no doubt we're influenced by that style, but no one's really going for it.

The dress is dead, the pant is dead, the jacket is dead, long live the new sportswear

2008-04-26T12:58:00.003-04:00

This Times Style piece covers the news that "the dress" "is dead." As usual, no concrete reason is given -- apparently, “the eye is looking for something new, and so is the psyche." Whatever. I think all these old categories -- "the dress"; "the pant" -- are outdated, and that it's the entire dizzying, lucrative dance of separates that consumers, their eyes, and their psyches are sick of.

So, my big, long-range prediction is that old separates categories, which have been eroding, are going to finally wash away, and in their place more total-look, perhaps one-piece, minimalist, body-con-influenced outfits will come into fashion. And as has been the way this happens since always, the new look will come out of sportswear -- actual sportswear, like you wear to play sports in. The modern equivalent of what the stuff we call "sportswear" now used to be.

This trend has begun with the interest in dancewear and the "superhero" look. It could continue with a revolution in material. Comfortable, high-performance, eco-friendly, temperature-control, sweat-wicking fabric will finally cease to exist exclusively in the realm of exercise clothes and move into regular casual and formal clothes. Design features of activewear, such as protective padding, zip-in-zip-out coordinating garments, etc., could then follow.

A really modern men's suit, for example, would be a form-fitting garment made of high-tech fabric worn over some kind of body-shaping or -enhancing "armor." Very Japanese, very superhero, very Aeon Flux. Very Clockwork Orange. Very environmentally-friendly, inexpensive, no-fuss, tough, modern.

A really modern women's outfit would, indeed, include some kind of leg covering. (It's the extraneous fabric and modesty-related inconvenience of dresses and skirts that really makes them old-fashioned.) It would be basically along the same lines as the above-imagined men's garment, only cut to flatter a woman's body.

Update 5/6/08: Madonna may have chosen sportswear as her new look. Her clothes in the video for 4 Minutes are a perfect example of New Sportswear.

Update 7/4/08: If even Free People is making corset-influenced clothes, something must be going on.

Long hair for men

2008-04-24T11:29:00.001-04:00

I've been floating this idea to lots of people recently and everyone hates it. But I still think it's a good trend. Nothing grody, just to-the-collar or a little past. No ponytails, necessarily (although that could be a great dirtbag look). Kurt Cobain stuff. It's how the high school boys wear their hair, and trends start in kid culture more and more these days (here's another youth hair trend (chunky highlights) that I think adult women will start wearing soon), so I think once those kids are in their twenties (in just a couple years) this could start to get big-time. And with all the employers rushing to accommodate the lifestyle demands of Millennials (while whining piteously about having to do so), a less-clean-cut look will get accepted more easily than you might think. There's already a movement towards this in the slightly-oily mini-mane that the kind of bankers who idolize Patrick Bateman have been sporting. This also fits with the long hair trend with women.

No shoe is a good shoe

2008-04-22T09:59:00.000-04:00

An emerging clothing trend that matches the theme of New Humanism (a reconsideration and redesigning of lifestyle around "natural" human biological/psychological needs) is the interest in shoes which attempt to replicate being barefoot, with the theory that this is what's best for feet and the body. This week's New York Magazine has an article about it. The aesthetics of the no-shoe shoes might need some working out, but overall I think the "barefoot" trend has good potential to catch on.

Plum

2008-04-18T10:27:00.001-04:00

An article today in the Times discusses the implications of the trend of businesses naming products and services after the color/fruit "plum."

Lots of associations with plum are tossed around in the article. Plum the color is said to evoke royalty, sophistication, emotion, individuality, class, calm, cleanliness, health, vitality, and purity.
Plum the fruit, in its literal form, is described as connoting sweetness and naturalness. But most of the discussion of plum the fruit centers around its metaphorical connotations, which have to do with something highly desirable and elite -- "something you strive for" -- such as a "plum job" or "plum assignment." One CMO quoted in the article mentioned the sayings "sweeten the deal" and "juicy deal" and noted that "in many societies, plums are given as rewards or gifts."

The article doesn't do much to relate all these various connotations of plum together in a way that explains the zeitgeist of the trend. What's missing is a theory that relates the creativity and hedonism of the color plum's meanings to the business-speak, achievement-oriented overtones of plum the fruit.

My theory is that this "plum" trend is all about the convergence of commerce and art in marketing. With art's makers priced out of cities and its products priced out of the budget of most consumers, art for art's sake is a less and less viable pursuit. The tide is turning, and aesthetics is ceasing to be an end in itself and beginning to be a means of "making special" Western culture's main socially shared significance: capitalism. Consumption is now the most meaningful way for an individual to participate in the group; modern self-transcendence takes place through transactions.

The growing sophistication, beauty, and pervasiveness of marketing are evidence that advertising is fast becoming the art of the post-postmodern age. Plum is the perfect motif of this evolution because its multiple meanings as color and fruit encapsulate the hallmarks of the ascendant superrich whose purposes are served by consumer culture: their obsession with luxury; their equation of creativity with entrepreneurship; their monopoly on self-realization; their status as the new royalty; their ability to afford health and well-being; their power as patrons of the arts.

Plum is very much a business branding trend -- not a fashion or general aesthetic trend. The author mentions this point only at the very end of the article, in a bit of a throwaway. But I think it's quite significant, as it points out the exclusivity of "plum." Plum is not for the masses; it's for the rich, creatively-entitled elite, and in a type of self-enforcing sumptuary law, it will not be glimpsed outside their world.

African names

2008-04-16T15:12:00.000-04:00

When/if Barack Obama is elected president, there will be a huge surge in African-American parents giving their kids traditional African first names.

Currently, it seems to be more common for African-Americans to give their kids African-inspired names as opposed to strictly "authentic," letter-for-letter African names. According to this article, this trend began when, "spurred by the black power movement and media phenomena like "Roots," certain prefixes and suffixes inspired by Islamic and African names, like "Lat," "isha" and "ika," became fashionable for black girls in 1975: Tamika (No. 3 among black girls in 1975), Latoya (16), Latisha (20), Latasha (75) and Shameka (88)."

If Obama is elected, the resulting wave of black pride will probably go even further in the direction of authenticity, with African-American parents researching traditional family names, looking into the meanings of African first names, etc.

Maybe parents of non-African backgrounds will give their kids African names, too. I could definitely see non-African-American, hard-core Democrats naming their sons "Barack." This could lay the groundwork for an increase in name-swapping among all ethnicities.

Perhaps we'll even see a reversal of the long-term trend of upwardly-mobile, non-Anglo parents giving their children Anglo names. For example, maybe in a few decades it won't be weird or offensive for a non-Hispanic couple to name their son "Juan." Such a trend could be a healthy personal-branding response to the increasing size, power, and importance of traditional ethnic minorities in the United States.

Homespun chic

2008-04-10T10:10:00.001-04:00

The cheapest clothes are often the coolest. Subcultures tend to discover cheap ways of dressing (Edie Sedgwick's girls' skirts from the LES; hipsters' thrift store clothes; grunge rockers' work clothes), which then get knocked off mass-market style. You can still go out and try to buy "the real thing" for cheap once that happens, but the price of the original often goes up, and wearing the original is never quite the same again once everyone's wearing a copy from Urban Outfitters. There's one type of cheap clothing that can never be knocked off by mass merchants, however, and that's homemade clothing. I'm predicting that homemade clothes are going to be the next subculture fashion trend.

People are clearly interested in this. Teen Vogue has had a "DIY" section almost since it launched, I think, in which they show you how to turn an existing piece of clothing into a clone of some designer garment. Built by Wendy sells a book called Sew U, which teaches the basics of home sewing, as well as patterns. Project Runway obviously has people interested in making their own clothes, too.

I think a potential home-sewing trend would take a slightly different direction than the above examples, however. The reason more people don't make their own clothes is that sewing is so difficult and time-consuming. If more people are going to make their own clothing, it has to be easier and faster to make than conventional tailored garments. So, I think that body con will combine with the classicism of New Humanism to create an aesthetic of simple, easy-to-make knit clothing in a Nouveau-Ancient-Greek style (which has also been popular lately, with all the Greek drapery styles and the relaunch of Vionnet).

I'm wearing a dress today that I made in thirty minutes for $21. I learned how to make it by doing a little research online about how Greek chitons were made, got some fabric at Mood, and used my sewing machine (the pricey initial investment for doing this). I'll try to write up some instructions on how I did it, hopefully with a photo, sometime soon. It took me a few tries to figure out a pattern that didn't look like I was in costume, but what I ended up with actually looks pretty modern and vaguely Calvin Klein-minimalist.

Body con

2008-04-08T11:49:00.000-04:00

I wrote earlier about my prediction that underwear would be "cast off as an unnecessary artifice standing in the way of fashion’s reimagining of the body." I now have a clearer sense of how that reimagining is going to take place. We're seeing its beginning in the body-conscious or "body con" trend, which I believe is related to the trend of "new humanism" in society and culture.

Superficially, body con is a sexy, show-off-y look. But at a more basic level, it's about the body, and letting the body beneath a garment determine the shape of the garment. No other style could be more human-, as opposed to fashion-, centric. This return to the body, after seasons of shapeless baby-dolls, sacks, and bubbles, signals the beginning of a turn away from "art" and towards "life" as the model for fashion.

In May of 2006, during the heyday of the shapeless dress, a representative piece of fiction appeared in Harper's. The story, "A change of fashion" by Steven Millhauser, chronicled the rise and fall of a spectacular fashion trend in which women's dresses grew to be as large, sculptural, and complex as houses, to a point at which women could withdraw into them and remain incommunicado for days at a time; suddenly, at the height of the trend, it reversed itself, and women went back to wearing regular, person-sized dresses. I think this story was about the overgrown artiness of our culture, for which fashion has been only one outlet.

A similarly representative piece of writing for the body con trend just ran in the New Yorker: Michael Chabon's essay "Secret Skin: An essay in unitard theory" (March 10, 2008). Although Chabon's topic was the archetypal superhero costume, his theory of its significance is just as applicable to contemporary body con fashion: "it ultimately takes its deepest meaning and serves its primary function in the depiction of the naked human form, unfettered, perfect, and free."

Just as the ancient Greeks celebrated their humanistic worldview by wearing draped garments and exercising in the nude, we are beginning to manifest a return to a human-centered view of things by wearing human-centered clothing. But also like the Greeks, we're striving toward not a completely "natural" human form, but an idealized one. This idealization is evident in two currents within body con: the unification and re-shaping of the body.

The drive toward unification is evident in the trend toward one-piece garments. Prada, Halston, Stella McCartney, Betsey Johnson, and many others showed jumpsuits for spring. The "one-piece" category at American Apparel is also going stronger and stronger. This new enthusiasm for all-in-one garments indicates a high regard for the aesthetic of the body-as-a-whole -- a regard high enough to overturn the shifting collage of separates that has been the basis of styling for decades now.

The re-shaping tendency is showing up in the growing popularity of all-in-one shaping garments. This got started a couple of years ago when a retro-ish corset trend showed up. But now, with Spanx, which celebrities are always talking about in tabloids, and products like the Dreambody, which I learned all about from a mesmerizing infomercial at the gym, there's a new market for undergarments that take a lumpy, out-of-shape body and magically streamline it.

The new unified, reshaped body is a sign of what the new humanism is looking for: a way of life modeled on the icon of inherently-perfect homo sapiens. I'm predicting that the "body con" trend will continue and extend past its roots in sexiness and provocativeness into a more general wide-range, long-term, minimalist, form-fitting trend in clothing.

Update 4/9: The Met is planning a May exhibit that "will explore the symbolic and metaphorical associations between fashion and the superhero" and "reveal how the superhero serves as the ultimate metaphor for fashion and its ability to empower and transform the human body."

Update 4/17: The NYT reports how designers are being influenced by the comic book aesthetic

Luxury entertainment

2008-04-07T09:25:00.000-04:00

You may have read about these new $35-per-ticket movie theaters that are about to start showing up, where you pay a higher price for nicer seats and food, etc.

I was just thinking, though -- even though these theaters are going to charge more to see a movie, they're still going to charge the same amount for every movie. Why is that? Why is it that you can buy premium vodka, designer clothes, etc., but there's no such thing as "designer" or "luxury" movies? Why does it cost the same amount of money to see Drillbit Taylor as it does to see Paranoid Park?

There always has been, and still is, a considerable cost difference between media formats made for elites (like ballet) and formats made for the common folk (network TV). But what about different styles and qualities of content in the same format? In some mass media, there is already a "premium" price for high-quality content. Most obviously, there's a price difference between cable and network TV; an even better example is the extra you pay for what are actually called the "premium" TV channels, such as HBO. Higher-tone magazines like Harper's always cost more than tabloids like US, and the same is true for newspapers. On the internet, until recently, you often had to pay for content on legitimate, recognized sites. Increasingly paid content is disappearing -- except, of course, for pornography: the Queen of Media.

But in a few other media -- namely, movies, books, and music -- there is no quality-based price differentiation. For instance, why not charge higher (instead of lower, which is the norm) admission for art-house movies than for blockbusters? Or more for movies starring A-list actors than with B-list actors? Also, why not charge more -- at least a little more -- for books of literature than for chick lit books? For singles by popular bands than for unpopular ones?

Introducing "luxury"-based stratification into consumption costs for movies, books, and CDs would also be much fairer to and nurturing of artists with new, edgy ideas. If ticket prices for indie movies were higher than for other movies, for example, indie filmmakers could remain "indie" while still being able to support themselves. And people who wanted to have "good" taste in movies would likely be willing to pay a premium for arty films, just like many people already do for fair-trade coffee or cage-free eggs. Paying slightly more "for a good cause" might actually raise demand by giving media consumers an ego boost.

I'm just going to guess that when you pay a uniform price for movies, books, and songs, the quality costs of indie movies/groups and books of literature are already built into the price, and people paying for chick lit and blockbusters are actually being overcharged, rather than indie filmgoers and literature-readers being undercharged. Anyone in film/publishing/record industries care to tell me if this is right?

If I am right, then these media are actually set up to nurture emerging talent. What does that say about the fact that two of them -- the publishing and record industries -- are supposedly in deep trouble? And what about the fact that increasingly content on the internet, the most cutting-edge form of media, is free? I guess it looks like the new model of media shifts most of the price of developing talent off of the media companies and onto the public. Non-contributing viewers/readers get "free" or at least underpriced media, but for contributors, the "price" of media viewer/readership is "built into" their labor in creating content.

So, I guess I'm paying Blogger right now. You're welcome!

Six human needs

2008-04-04T15:48:00.000-04:00

Recently I've become a big fan of Ellen Dissanayake and her book What Is Art For?. Dissanayake defines modern art as distinct from the "primitive" arts in that modern art sees aesthetics as an end in itself, whereas humans originally used aesthetics as a means to the end of "making special," or emphasizing the importance of certain important rituals, objects, and occasions. The reason "we" (really Western elites) invented modern "art for art's sake" is as a method of self-transcendence in a world in which literacy has destroyed the old ("primitive," "superstitious," "magical") ways of transcending ourselves.

Towards the end of the book, Dissanayake speculates about exactly what it is that modern Westerners are missing that makes them need art. She identifies six "human needs," which are not being well met in our text-centered culture:

Humans tend to construct, accept, and share with others systems that explain and organize their world as perceived and known, and feel uneasy without such explanation and organization.
Humans tend to require the psychological (as well as physical) security of predictability and familiarity of knowing and accepting their role and place in life, and feel uneasy without such predictability and knowledge.
Humans require psychological ratification or certification by others--by being an integral part of a group or family--and feel uneasy without this certification.
Humans tend to bond or attach to others, and feel incomplete without this attachment.
Humans recognize and celebrate with others of their kind an extraordinary as opposed to ordinary dimension of experience, and feel unsatisfied without it.
Humans tend to engage in play and make-believe, and feel deprived if unable to do so.

She thinks that if we reorganized society with an orientation towards meeting these needs, we would all be happier and less alienated. And, presumably, we would no longer need art, and aesthetics would retreat back into its role as a tool for "making special."

Even though not needing art would mean we were "healthier," I still hate the idea. I don't want to accept that something I grew up thinking was one of the big points of life is actually just a symptom of our civilization's sickness. But then, I'm a classic alienated Western elite, and my feelings about art probably put me in a tiny minority of people worldwide. Most people are probably better off not feeling a need for art. And yet, the artification of culture worldwide (see Head-to-toe for my reactionary rant about that) seems to be proceeding at a quick pace. Before too long everyone may be alienated out of their skulls.

Or maybe the artification trend will reach saturation and reverse itself automatically. As I mentioned in B.O. is the new perfume, I do think that people are getting very interested in a "New Humanism" which looks to our natural, instinctual, inherent human qualities for guidance as to how we should live and structure society. So maybe the "six basic needs" will get some attention after all.

So hot it's cool, so cool it's hot

2008-04-02T10:00:00.001-04:00

I've been reading Understanding Media and thinking about how McLuhan's theories about hot and cool media apply to the internet. It's clear that with its combination of "hot" text and "cool" electronic communication and participation, the internet does not fit neatly into either category. But does that mean that McLuhan's theory doesn't apply to the internet, that it breaks down in our new media atmosphere? Or does the mixing of "hot" and "cool" online make the internet "lukewarm"?

I think a good way of understanding the internet in McLuhan's terms is with the description used in a Pop-Tart commercial I remember well from the '80s, which seized on the phenomenon of how the burning sensation of freshly-toasted fruit filling searing one's tongue is indistinguishable from the similar "burning" coolness you feel when your tongue is stuck to ice. The overstimulation of your senses in one direction leads to an inverted experience of the sensation. And so, Pop-Tarts are "so hot, they're cool -- so cool, they're hot."

That's what the internet is like. It is, I believe, an inherently "hot" medium -- so hot that we've come to experience it as "cool." The internet's heat comes from its inherent characteristics:

high definition (computer screens)
high density of data
high specialization (specialized function of transmitting text, images, and sound)
intense engagement of a single sense (sight)
high degree of fragmentation (on millions of web sites)

The internet's "cool" attributes have to do with its apparent effects:

high audience participation
unification of time in a continuous present
inclusion of all
retribalization

These "cool" effects have all come about precisely because of the internet's extreme "hot"ness: it's the "hot" qualities of data density and intense visual engagement that bring about the "cool" sensation of unified time and instantaneousness; "hot" fragmentation that is causing "cool" retribalization and all-inclusiveness; and the "hot" specialization of computer technology that requires "cool" participation. The extreme hotness of the internet makes it "feel" and in some ways behave like a "cool" medium. But it still lacks the essence of "cool"ness.

McLuhan theorized that electric technology would deliver us out of the literate (often misconstrued as "rational") mindset of mechanization back into an intuitive ("irrational") world, where myth, the "total field," non-illusionistic art, structure and configuration (as opposed to linearity), and oral culture would gain ascendency. But I don't see that happening. Sure, the internet's intensity creates a kind of buzz that gives a feeling of iconography, mythology, simultaneity, and complex structure; but, to me, in practice the internet mainly displays the characteristics McLuhan assigns to traditional, Western, "mechanized" culture: fragmentary, superficial relationships; sequentiality; the hiding or denying of causes; an over-focus on "point of view"; attention to specialized segments of information; the divorce of form and function; and written modes of communication.

McLuhan warns that cultures always make the mistake of trying to use new technologies to do the work of the old. That's what we're currently doing with the internet by using it as the medium for our same old literacy-focused culture. It's not impossible for the internet to "cool down" so that we can bite into it without burning our tongues; but in order for that to happen, I believe it would have to evolve dramatically from what it is today. It's fun to think about the ways in which people initially "misunderstood" how to use the internet -- which suggests that we "get it" now. But I think we're still mistaking a "hot" medium for a "cool" one. That's a mistake that may have some disappointing consequences.

Shooting

2008-03-26T17:42:00.000-04:00

I think going to shooting ranges as a hobby should be a new trend.

I'd thought this before but remembered the idea the other day when I saw that scene in American Beauty:

CAROLYN (cont'd): I was soooo stressed out.

LEONARD: Know what I do when I get that way?

Carolyn SITS UP for this, eager to learn from the master.

LEONARD (cont'd): I fire a gun.

And then they go to a shooting range and she loves it.

Apparently stressed-out bankers and lawyers have already discovered this hobby. But what about all the young cool kids? Why don't they try it? It's certainly a million times cooler than stupid overdone bowling.

And easier to do than you think! For some reason -- perhaps because guns ARE FREAKING DANGEROUS -- I assumed that most shooting ranges were tucked away in backwoods-type places, inaccessible to major metropolitan areas. But no! It turns out that, if I wished to, I could go to the West Side Pistol Range ("conveniently located in the Flatiron District" (!!)) and fire a gun myself, today, because apparently "in the City of New York one does not need a permit to shoot a .22 caliber rifle." Word!

The only problem is, you probably aren't allowed to get drunk and then go. That may be what's enabling bowling to continue to win. In fact, that's got to be it. But still -- I think it could catch on.

LEONARD: Oh, you have to try it. Nothing makes you feel more powerful.

My marketing idea

2008-03-25T11:17:00.000-04:00

There's apparently this big problem where no one can figure out how to make money off of Web 2.0. I came up with an idea for this and I'm curious if anyone thinks it could work.

The problem is clearly that the old marketing paradigm (companies pay advertisers, who buy ad space from media, who show it to consumers, who buy the products advertised) is poorly suited to Web 2.0. The mass-market messaging of traditional advertising is just really clunky within the highly segmented realm of the internet. So far, marketers have been sticking to the old paradigm, tinkering with ways to insinuate mass-messaging into social networks, etc., in creative and sticky ways. But I think this is going at it from the wrong direction.

What if instead of changing how the ad space is used, marketers changed how the ad space was bought? Namely, why don't marketers start buying ad space from consumers instead of from media? This is already sort of what goes on when you watch TV episodes online on networks' pages and they make you watch a little commercial first: you agree to submit to advertising in return for the "payment" of entertainment. But the same idea could be expanded into an actual financial transaction between the company and the consumer. For example, marketers could pay MySpace and Facebook users to post ads for products they like on their pages. You can already be a "friend" of a product; but in this case, you would be a paid "friend." The catch would be that marketers would invent a new kind of spider to crawl social network pages and decide which people are the most popular and cool; these people would be paid more to post ads than other people. Similarly, on YouTube, the posters of videos that got the most views would get paid the most money for showing ads before their videos.

In other words, The Media would get cut out of the advertising loop. Instead of being providers of content, they would become providers of technology -- period. They would be paid by users, not advertisers. So, use of Facebook, YouTube, etc. would no longer be free. This transition from free to paid Web 2.0 would be similar to the transition from free T.V. to paid T.V. (cable).

This new marketing paradigm makes sense to me because it represents a true, complete adaptation to the user-created-content revolution. I'm not sure quite how it could come about, but I think it probably will.

2nd Update: Camouflage

2008-03-19T10:00:00.000-04:00

I wrote earlier about the street trend of camouflage prints here and here.

This second update is long overdue because I've been seeing more and new kinds of camouflage for over a month now. Desert camo prints have been gaining on the woodland ones I saw most at first. But more curiously, there are now lots of camo-like prints in mass market clothes. I've been seeing women's tops and skirts in floral prints that copy the look and colors of camouflage. I also saw a skirt with a print of a collage of faces that formed a camo-like pattern. There has been a lot of pixillated camo on skater-type clothes for men, too.

The transmutation of camouflage into traditional fashion patterns can be read in multiple interesting ways, such as:

A symbol of how the foreign policy topic of the war has come to be seen also as a domestic issue
An echo of the trend in contemporary art away from the abstract (camo's blobs and squiggles) and towards the figurative (flowers, faces)
A gesture of solidarity with the troops
An anti-war statement
A motif of national insecurity (we want even our pretty patterns to "camouflage" and protect us in daily life)

These patterns haven't actually been having that much success: I've spotted them a lot on sales racks and in thrift stores. People may be a bit put off by the potentially very loaded message of these prints. Or they may just find them ugly and difficult to wear -- which they are. I can't tell yet whether this trend is surviving into spring, but if it does, I'm sure I'll write about it again.

Update: Hillary Clinton's style

2008-03-18T15:45:00.000-04:00

A friendly tipster sent me this article today, in which the writer agrees with my assessment of Clinton's wardrobe as being extremely calculated (see my post here).

Whereas I theorized that Clinton's shapeless, unstylish suits were a "middle class" costume, the writer sees them as an attempt to desexualize Clinton in the aftermath of the cleavage incident.

Either way, it's my opinion that style is yet another area in which Clinton's overly-managed persona is hurting her. Most Americans don't think it's shallow to make a reasonable attempt to look fashionable. A good stylist could make Clinton look professional and attractive, which would really up her political star power and help compensate for what she lacks in charisma.

It feels good to be American again

2008-03-17T14:35:00.001-04:00

One of the little tricks of culture that I've always admired is how it facilitates group survival by making cooperation feel good. It just seems to be something that human cultures naturally do: set up rituals through which food, money, labor, and goods are redistributed in the context of festivals full of sensual pleasure, the relaxation of societal norms, gorging on food, spectacle, dancing, and play -- in other words, fun. Good times.

It follows that when a culture's traditions of making cooperation feel good break down, the cooperation will not work so well. This is, of course, what we have going on in our society. We are not all able to "party" together, exactly. Bill Gates does not throw keggers to which we are all invited. This is a problem.

The 1968/2008 connection has been pretty hyped recently. So I'll add this to it: Another important similarity between the two years is that they're times when a counterculture has made important political progress that was facilitated by methods that felt good.

A friend who participated in some of the protests and marches of the late sixties was recently insisting to me that those political actions, though sometimes scary and difficult, were also pretty fun -- even "sexy." I'm sure that point must be obvious to most people, but for me it was a bit of a revelation. In my mind, I'd always kept the counterculture's social and political action in a separate compartment from its other manifestations (music, fashion, art, lifestyle). I'd always thought of those latter things as mere superficial manifestations of the more substantive things that were going on. But of course, they were a crucial element of the engine of change. Because they provided the good times, the fun, that made taking real risks feel good.

Since the sixties, our culture has been lacking that means of making political engagement feel good. As the medium of TV became more and more powerful, people felt more and more disengaged from, angry at, and helpless against culture. Rather than facilitating worthwhile action, popular culture became a soma. This happened because there was no meaningful way to engage with our pop culture. No ordinary American can participate in TV culture, because TV culture only goes one way. All you can do with TV culture is receive it, not contribute.

But now the internet. The internet feels good. It's not nearly as visceral a medium of communal cooperation as actual dancing, feasting, etc. -- but it is one in which everyone can participate. And that is the crucial part. The internet is 2008's version of the streets and parks where the protests and happenings of 1968 took place. It's a place where participation feels good, because it's taking place in the cultural vernacular -- a vernacular that seems pretty silly and childish to people sometimes, but there it is. In the sixties there were folk songs; now there's Obama Girl.

Because engagement in the American political process is feeling good, American patriotism is coming back. Michelle Obama's controversial sound bite about feeling proud of her country again is more representative of how we've been feeling as a nation than most would care to admit. But now, I believe, a trend of popular, mainstream, non-ironic American pride is beginning, and it's showing up in pop culture. The main examples I'm aware of so far are HBO's John Adams miniseries and the new, heavily-advertised JC Penney "American Living" line. But I bet more are coming soon.

Baby-you-cheated blue

2008-03-11T08:23:00.000-04:00

Light blue appears to be the color of choice for women standing by their philandering politician husbands.

According to Color: Messages & Meanings (Eiseman 2006), light blue is second only to white in conjuring up feelings of cleanliness and purity. Dressing the wife in light blue, then, emphasizes that although her husband has sinned, she herself is untainted, and that her cleansing influence is washing over him, helping to clean up the mess he has made.

B.O. is the new perfume

2008-03-10T09:08:00.000-04:00

Two trends are converging right now:

The outcome, I predict, will be that fashion-forward people will start wearing their own body odor as perfume. It's the easiest and cheapest way to wear fragrance: just wash with unscented soap, wear no deodorant, and let your happy glands do the work of cranking out some naturally-attractive-to-the-opposite-sex smells.

Note that I say "fashion-forward" people. The taboo against body odor in America is strong. So, were the trend to become mainstream at all, I'm sure that most adopters would go with unscented deodorant instead of none at all. Arguably that's what everyone trying this out ought to do in the summer. Consumer products companies can cash in on this trend by offering new or expanded lines of unscented deodorant. Or perhaps the midday armpit-wash will become a new ritual.

This trend would make sense in the context of the trend toward an increasingly "natural"/"animal" dynamic in sexual relationships that I'm predicting and think I will call "New Humanism." (Basically I think people are getting interested in "humans as animals" again and that this will manifest itself in culture in myriad ways, one of them this trend in scent, another in romantic/sexual relationships.)

The "B.O. as perfume" trend also fits with the trend of the growing prominence of non-American and especially developing countries. Americans have long made fun of Europeans for their more relaxed attitude toward hygiene and body odor, but the street goes both ways and they make fun of us for being so uptight about keeping squeaky-clean, too. If the euro continues to dominate the dollar, maybe The French & Friends will start smelling better to us. People in developing non-European countries have even less interest in, history of using, ability to afford, and possibly need for deodorant than Europeans do. The increasing importance of these countries is an argument for America to try out their beauty traditions for a change.

The trend might also be more palatable if B.O.-wearers would Eat to Live, as vegans supposedly perspire less and smell better than meat/dairy-eaters.

Escape from "New York"

2008-03-03T21:30:00.000-05:00

This spring we're finally seeing the last gasp of the media's over-the-top fantasy of consumption-fueled, glamour-filled "New York." What began in 1998 with "Sex and the City" the show will come to an end, this May, with Sex and the City: The Movie. Leading up to it have been the pale copycat shows "Cashmere Mafia" and "Lipstick Jungle" and now "The Real Housewives of New York City."

Ever since the media's "New York" debuted, real New Yorkers have bemoaned the disappearance of "real" New York (= affordable, creative, dirty, crime-filled New York in the 1970s). But now that "New York" is about to be over -- and the utter tiredness of the "New York" fantasy in these new shows leaves little doubt about that -- can "real" New York come back?

Well, I don't think so. New York today is very unaffordable, clean, safe, and, according to popular opinion, less and less creative as a result. And I don't think there's any going back. The problem is not New York itself, but the whole idea of the creative city: it just doesn't work anymore. New York is a great place to showcase creativity, because all the infrastructure, both physical and social, is concentrated here to support it. But that's all it is: infrastructure. And that infrastructure has gotten so big, established, and expensive that it's pushing out the creativity it was originally meant to support.

The infrastructure isn't just overgrown; it's obsolete. The art world is already moving onto the internet, and as this trend progresses the physical location of art and other culture will become not just irrelevant, but nonexistent. Marshall McLuhan predicted this outcome in 1967 in The Medium is the Massage:

The circuited city of the future will not be the huge hunk of concentrated real estate created by the railway. It will take on a totally new meaning under conditions of very rapid movement. It will be an information megalopolis. What remains of the configuration of former "cities" will be very much like World's Fairs--places in which to show off new technology, not places of work or residence. They will be preserved, museumlike, as living monuments to the railway era. If we were to dispose of the city now, future societies would reconstruct them, like so-many Williamsburgs.

Isn't fantasy "New York" just such a "Williamsburg"? The only difference is that it, like the rest of culture increasingly, exists not in physical reality but in the virtual reality of media.

I predict that the creative work of the future, which will be aided more and more by technology and the internet, will be done by people scattered across the remote, affordable, natural, and beautiful rural areas of the country and world, as rural gentrification becomes the next "creative class" trend. (Friends of mine are doing this right now in upstate New York.) Major international cities like New York will become more and more expensive, sterile, and artificial, and the work done in them will become more and more abstract and business-oriented. Perhaps a time will eventually come when the rural creative workers storm the rich cities, demanding their share of the glitz and glamour. Or maybe the opposite will happen, and the new exciting passion will be not to make it in New York, but to make it out.

I was right: Calvin Klein 90s minimalism

2008-02-28T09:42:00.000-05:00

On December 8th I predicted that 1990s-era minimalism would come back and that Calvin Klein should capitalize on this. And on February 13th JC Report's review of "Recession-Friendly Style" in the fall collections said:

Calvin Klein rigorously adhered to the brand's minimalist DNA, with Francisco Costa skillfully executing clean, well-tailored clothes reminiscent of the house's '90s heyday.

It remains to be seen whether other designers will pick up on this trend and grow it. I still think so!

Strong shoulder

2008-02-27T20:22:00.000-05:00

When fashion editors write about the recycling of 1980s fashion, they always take care to mention that no one need worry because one thing that will never come back from the 80's is the shoulder pad. I think this is wrong! I think big, strong shoulders for women should come back.

Particularly when and if Hillary Clinton loses the Democratic primary, a lot of pissed-off white women are going to want to put on something that really makes them feel powerful. So are a lot of job-seeking or job-holding-on-to women, when and if the recession gets worse.

Suits have been coming back for a long time and I think they should really come back now. Women's fashion should stop playing around with "menswear" looks and just do some good-old, powerful, classic jackets for women. And, underneath, perhaps a regular-old shirt instead of a fancy cami. And on the bottom, a skirt to the knee (the conservative length for hard times).

I was right: Natural haircare & unhairdos

2008-02-21T12:41:00.000-05:00

This article in today's (bad, bad!) NYT confirms both the trend towards the mainstreaming of natural (non-shampoo) hair care, which I wrote about in Long hair (penultimate paragraph), and the trend of messy, falling-apart hairdos, which I wrote about in Unhairdos.

Graffiti

2008-02-19T11:26:00.000-05:00

One last reader question:

Do you see graffiti subjects or colors trending a certain way?

I am far from being an expert on graffiti, so I have no idea what the current trends are. However, the trend in street art that interests me the most is the work of the Splasher. The group behind "the Splasher" is very opposed to the growing alliance between and merging of art and commerce which I'm predicting will be the huge trend of the 21st century. "The Splasher" is one of the early examples of resistance to that trend.

Interestingly, I believe that the group behind the splashings may have had its own anti-co-optation art co-opted by Sephora, whose current promotion features a woman's face "splashed" with different colors of makeup. Granted, this is clearly supposed to be a Pollock reference -- but it's curious that a "splattered" image was chosen to advertise all the other "art"-themed makeup looks, which don't even include a Pollock-inspired look. It's possible that the Splasher was on the advertisers' minds and that the "splashed" aesthetic will be seeping into popular culture. MAC Cosmetics is using the street art aesthetic in one of its new lines, too, by partnering with graffiti artist Fafi. These art-focused makeup lines are evidence that cosmetics companies are finally beginning to resolve the mismatch between clothing and makeup (which I mentioned in this post) by catching up with apparel companies on the "creativity" trend.

Getting back to the anti-corporate-art movement: Just as international resistance to American dominance is taking a terrorist form, the Splasher's resistance to capitalism took the form of "art terrorism." But terrorism is no use against the market. Advertisers mastered and improved upon "guerrilla" publicity long ago, rhetorically bankrupting such tactics for their inventors. The organizers of the "splashings," by engaging in the same forum as the street artists, "lowered" themselves to the same level as the perceived sell-outs, and hurt their own cause more than they helped it.

How will counter-culture cope with the almost instantaneous co-optation of the "creative underclass" and its "terrorist" tactics by consumerism? Again, culture will follow the model of war: just as, under a Democratic administration, the U.S. will withdraw from Iraq and allow the Iraqis to "fight it out," capitalism, too, will cool its heels while the artists tear each other apart. Corporations will extract as much profit as possible from the fight, then pick up one day and leave, abandoning the creatives to fend for themselves in their ravaged community. Afterwards there will be a long period of "rebuilding," during which anger towards the exploiters will grow -- but it still won't find a powerful outlet in "terrorist" actions for years to come, because such tactics will be so discredited. Instead a "shadow" creative movement will grow, safe in isolation from commerce. One day, it, too, will be co-opted. That seems to be how things work.

I was right: natural-colored shoes

2008-02-16T07:42:00.000-05:00

Today Bill Cunningham's "On the Street" is about natural-colored shoes, which I wrote about spotting on the street on January 18th.

Pack animals

2008-02-15T20:32:00.000-05:00

Here's another reader question:

Why are women pack animals and men are not? Yes, men have briefcases, but women always carry around lots of stuff.

There are two reasons, one of which arose somewhat out of the other. The first reason is that women can't, or won't, carry things in their pockets, as men do. Back when women wore voluminous dresses, bags were unnecessary because women would carry things in little pouches worn inside their skirts, which they reached into through slits in the sides of their dresses. But once the female silhouette was modernized, there was no more room for these pouches. Women could use pockets, like men do -- but a pocket with actual stuff, such as a wallet or keys, in it placed anywhere on a modern female outfit tends to destroy the female silhouette. So vain females eschew pockets and instead carry bags. (Non-vain females often don't have a choice, since clothing manufacturers, in response to women's preferences, often don't include pockets on women's garments.)

The second reason women carry around so much stuff is that they have a lot of stuff. The main items women carry that men don't are personal-grooming ones: makeup, hairbrushes, etc. These things can be, and used to be, contained in relatively modest-sized bags. But during the last 20 years or so, women started carrying even more stuff in their bags, just because they could -- and so bags got larger in response.

One reason women started carrying more stuff is that there was simply more stuff to carry. The obvious culprits are cell phones and iPods, which didn't use to exist. But women now carry around all kinds of other items that didn't seem essential in the past but now do, such as hand sanitizer, bottled water, breath-freshening strips, etc. Again, the focus with these items is personal care -- a huge, easy selling point for women. Manufacturers thoughtfully make these personal-care goods in "purse-size" containers for women to buy. They are feeding off not just a practical need, but also a psychological need women have to feel "secure" and "prepared" to deal with emergencies like bad breath or bacteria-covered skin. This gives women the illusion of power in a workplace still subtly dominated by men.

And lastly, there's the Sex and the City effect. That show and its huge rippling cultural effect (whose demise is finally upon us, heralded by the terrible copycat shows Lipstick Jungle and Cashmere Mafia) taught women to see the fantasy of glamorous, sexy "New York" as the ultimate covetable fashion ideal. Unlike most women across America, women in New York don't drive around in cars, so they can't keep their stash of necessities with them in the glove compartment. Instead they carry around huge bags. Women across America have recently followed suit, carrying similarly huge bags even though the original purpose for them is absent.

Gambling

2008-02-14T08:46:00.000-05:00

Over the next few days I'll be answering a few questions a reader e-mailed me. Here's the first one:

Gambling in all forms is VERY popular. Gambling used to be an activity that was considered somewhat shameful (if not sinful) among the middle class... Now it's ubiquitous. It was once considered louche, now it has no disreputable air. I wonder if you believe that this will continue or whether it will reverse since the economy is in a tailspin.

In my opinion, it was the instability of the economy that made the gambling trend so popular in the first place. Of course, back when the poker trend started a few years ago, it was in an atmosphere of economic growth and relative optimism, which on the surface justified a trend towards playing games in which one risks money. But beneath that optimism probably lay a subconscious worry about just when our economic bubble was going to burst. That underlying anxiety perhaps led people to voluntarily take on economic risk in order to gain a feeling of control over it. Now that that risk has become all too real, I expect that the popularity of gambling will indeed dwindle.

Update: Camouflage

2008-02-13T16:11:00.000-05:00

In December I posted about all the camouflage army jackets I'd been seeing around town. Since then I've seen more and more camouflage, but remained unsure of what it meant. Today I read this article, which describes how gang members in the U.S. army in Iraq are sending flak jackets back to America for use in gang warfare. It gave me a couple of new ideas about the source of the camo trend.

On one level, the camouflage trend may have come from a street trend: gang members started wearing the stolen camouflage flak jackets around, clothing companies picked up on this, and the trend was turned into fashion.

On a more abstract level, the use of camouflage as a print in civilian wear may be a symbol of how American corporations are using the war to make money. Commercializing camouflage by bringing it into "fashion" could be a statement about the commercialization of warfare.

The favored shade of blue for females in politics

2008-02-13T13:19:00.000-05:00

This morning a tipster directed me to the Drudge Report's side-by-side comparison of Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher wearing the same "Thatcher Blue" (link).

It reminded me of another woman in politics, Barbara Bush the elder, who also famously liked to wear bright "Barbara blue."

It makes sense for a woman seeking popularity to wear blue, since it's well-established that blue is the #1 favorite color of people everywhere. This particular bright, primary blue is the kind of intense color that children tend to respond to well. Maybe these ladies are trying to evoke happy childhood feelings in us? Or maybe choosing this super-charged blue is a way of taking the conservatism and respectability of darker blue and making it eye-catching and exciting.

Hats

2008-02-07T11:36:00.000-05:00

I noticed a strong trend in the March issue of Teen Vogue: it seemed to be full of hats.

To check whether I wasn't overestimating just how many hats there were, I went through and counted. Sure enough, the issue contained 60 images of women wearing hats. In addition, there were 23 images of women wearing some kind of non-hat head decoration: 5 flowers, 6 bows, 2 turbans, 6 tiaras, 13 headbands, 1 large pin, 2 feathers, 4 colored hair extensions, 3 sunglasses-on-top-of-heads, 1 visor, and 3 full-deployed hoods on hoodies. 83 head accessories in all.

This is a big deal. That is way more hats and hatlike accessories than any magazine has shown in a long time. It's definitely a trend, one that Teen Vogue's editors seem to be pushing and which therefore has a good chance of catching on.

What do all the hats mean? Since hat-wearing is associated with the past, and particularly with Jackie O and the early 1960s, hats may be popular because of the recent Camelot nostalgia in coverage of the 2008 election. They also fit in with the return to conservative dressing for fall 2008. Recently young trendsetters have played around with hats as fun, often vintage-y accessories, and in recent years we've seen the trucker hat, the cowboy hat, the hippie headband, and the fedora have comebacks.

But I see hats and other head decorations as more than just another ingredient to throw into the style-mixing blender. I group them with the veils, masks, and hoods that have also appeared on runways in the past few seasons; as such, they are part of an ongoing, long-range ideological fashion trend, as opposed to being a fleeting fad.

Hats are profoundly traditional, symbolic, ritualistic clothing items. Throughout history they have been indicators of religious affiliation, class status, and even political belief. Hats are carriers and indicators of meaning, and the reemergence of the hat signals people's waxing interest in meaningfulness. This trend signals that people are interested in identifying with, believing in, and standing for something. In this way, hats are very post-postmodern.

It's curious that hats are returning just as there's been renewed interest in JFK in the form of comparisons between him and Obama. JFK was the first US president to go hatless; this choice caused quite a stir, for at the time the hat was a key component of standard business dress, and going without one was somewhat shockingly informal. But I don't think the return of hats means a return to formality, because the trend toward informality is extremely strong. For instance, Obama has recently been echoing Kennedy's hatlessness by often going tieless.

I think the popularity of hats has more to do with maturity than formality. JFK's reason for not wearing a hat was that he thought hats made him look old. At the time he was elected, America's idealism about the future was very tied to positive associations between youth and progress. The same thing is going on today, except that youth is being conceived of in a different way. Simply being young is not the point; rather, it's the capacity of young people to display maturity, and thereby to increase the credibility and value of youth culture as a whole, that is gaining attention and favor.

The fact that stylish young people are donning hats shows that they are ready to actively and positively participate in culture -- adult culture.

What will the new hats look like? I can't wait to see. I'm hoping that the "reference" hats we've seen recently, like the trapper hat, will give way to exciting original designs within the next year.

Millennials

2008-02-04T14:21:00.000-05:00

Americans born between 1976 and 2000, congratulations: you've been branded.

Although we were called "Generation Y" for a long time, and have had a few other labels tried out on us, such as "MTV Generation," "Tamagotchi Generation," "Internet Generation," etc., I'm confident that Millennials we now are, and Millennials we will remain.

I think this just because of my very unscientific observation that that's the word the media are trending towards using for us. I also think the term "Millennial" will ultimately become universal because, of all the preliminary monikers, it best captures the zeitgeist of the generation it describes. "Millennial," with its connotations of great opportunity for either spectacular destruction or utopian recreation, encapsulates the important history-making role the current youth generation holds in American history. Its sci-fi overtone captures the importance of technology and the internet to this generation. And finally, it's just extremely accurate. The Millennials are the generation that came of age at a very significant point in time: the turn of the second millennium.

Tricky to spell, delicious to pronounce, "Millennials," I predict, will henceforth be the name for the generation after Generation X.

Generational détente

2008-02-04T13:55:00.000-05:00

“If you want to be treated like adults, then act like adults.”

That’s a classic line teachers use to deal with misbehaving students. It’s good advice, but often frustrating to hear and difficult to follow. Kids do want to act like adults; they want it more than anything. But they can’t do it so long as they’re kept in the role of children – and that’s what teachers, unwittingly, are doing to their students when they bark at them to “act like adults.”

In ancient societies, the path to adulthood was clear. Everyone grew up in the same way, following in their parents’ footsteps and ritualistically gaining entrance into adult culture soon after puberty. But today, because of our exceedingly complicated and everchanging culture, facilitated by sophisticated, pervasive international media, the old model is broken.

Instead of growing up into the culture of its parents, each generation of kids today grows up with its own culture. The latest generation gets the latest culture – and because each wave of culture inevitably reacts against the previous one, the younger generation’s culture is consistently anathema to the older’s. This isolates the young from the old, making the elders’ wisdom look obsolete and the youths’ offerings look destructive.

Kids can’t “act like adults” because they’ve become conditioned to think “adulthood” is something that belongs to a completely alien sphere ruled by a different culture. To act “adult,” in this paradigm, would require kids to leave their culture, where they feel powerful and engaged – and welcomed – and enter the alien adult culture, which seems to have nothing to offer them but reprimands. Of course, no kids want to do that.

And so each generation embarks on its own terrifying mission of learning, on its own, how to grow up. I imagine that this has been going on to some degree ever since the dawn of civilization. The problem certainly grew enormously during the twentieth century. But only in the last few decades has the speed of change gotten so fast and the reach of media extended so far that now the young and the old seem to exist on separate planets.

I think we’re at a crucial moment in our cultural history. In the 1960s, the Baby Boomers rejected their parents’ values and founded their own youth culture. In the 1980s, Generation X rejected that culture and dropped out, retreating into its own anti-cultures and sub-cultures. The Millennials are now asserting a new youth culture -- one that thrives on individual involvement in larger society through the media.

Recently, predictably, the Boomers have had a rather negative response to Millennial culture, labeling it self-centered and self-indulgent. I think there’s a lot of truth to those accusations. But they’re not the full story. I think the Millennial generation would love to engage in some productive, other-centered activity – if it could only reach outside its generational bubble into the “adult” sphere.

The key to an American renaissance is wrapped up in ending the culture war, but culture is really just the medium for a deeper conflict: What we really need to do is end the generational war – and the way to do that is for young and old to together build a shared culture which everyone can enjoy and in which everyone has a stake. We need to achieve generational détente: a reconciliation between the youngest generation (the Millennials) and its parents (the Boomers), brokered by those in between (Generation X).

I’ve seen hints of the beginnings of generational détente in the movies recently. On one side there’s Juno and Knocked Up. In both those movies, Millennials got into trouble by doing a very “adult” thing – getting pregnant and having a baby – when they were physically – but not psychologically, economically, or in any other way – ready. Tellingly, in both movies, the characters’ parents, Boomer characters, ended up giving them priceless good advice and practical help that made their “adult” task work out in the end – and helped the characters to do some emotional “growing up,” as well. In both movies, the Generation X characters – the adoptive couple in Juno and the older sister and her husband in Knocked Up – ended up in the role of commiserators with the Millennials. They were able to offer understanding and companionship, but were short on good advice and practical help, and ended up disappointing the Millennials when they needed them the most.

In The 40 Year-Old Virgin, the opposite thing happened. A 40-year-old man – right on the cusp between the Baby Boom and Gen-X generations – tried and finally succeeded to reach another “growing up”milestone – losing his virginity. But just as the pregnant girls in Juno and Knocked Up were too young for their endeavors, the main character in The 40 Year-Old Virgin was too old. He almost messed up his best chance at a good first time by relying on his Gen-X friends’ advice, which kept him motivated but ultimately lacked substance. What saved him was some bonding with a Millennial – his girlfriend’s daughter.

The message in these movies is that the different generations need each other. Each generation has an important role to play: The Boomers have the wisdom; the Millennials have the energy and enthusiasm; and the Gen X-ers have the communication skills. If we can find a way to put these ingredients together, we’ll have a powerful recipe for cultural renewal.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the first signs of a generational truce showed up in the movies. Like it or not, the mass media are going to become even more enmeshed into our lives in the coming years. We need to make sure that we become empowered agents, not victims, in this new media-filled world. And so we need to pick a leader who can navigate the media in a way that brings the generations together. That leader is Barack Obama.

Recently our media stars have become very political, with Angelina and Brad traveling the world to do humanitarian aid, George Clooney making edgy movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger getting elected governor, and Oprah making a presidential endorsement. What we need now is for our political stars to succeed in the media. JFK was good at that and his skill with the media was an important ingredient in his success. Obama is even better, and I’m convinced his media-savviness is going to win him the presidency. He is a classic Generation X communicator: a bit detached, a bit vague, but with enormous perspective, a knack for making connections and establishing common ground, and quite visionary and inspiring on the topic of the future.

I believe all our American generations are willing to “grow up” by putting aside their cultural differences and turning the media back into a tool of positive change. I think the Boomers are ready to cede a bit of their control of the world stage. I think Generation X has been ready for a long time to take a bigger role in culture. I think the Millennials are ready to look beyond themselves to something much bigger. And I think America is ready to “grow up” as a country and participate in global government in a mature fashion.

Kids need to act like adults. But adults need to, too. "Adults" are people who know how to communicate in a responsible, respectful, positive way. Obama is communicating for us right now and will successfully lead us in our efforts to communicate with each other and the world.

Vote tomorrow, Tuesday the 5th!!!

Hillary Clinton, middle-class hero?

2008-02-01T16:17:00.000-05:00

Hillary Clinton's political cynicism is spilling over into sartorial cynicism.

I have admired Clinton's skill at putting herself together so that she looks feminine and approachable without appearing unprofessional. But after seeing her outfit at last night’s debate, it’s become clear to me that her campaign is not just trying to make her look pleasant; they are deliberately dressing her up to look middle-class.

Clinton was born, perhaps, into a middle-class family. But now, as a graduate of Wellesley and Yale Law, a former lawyer, and a senator, she is a happy member of the upper-middle class. Yet in every respect, her clothing in last night’s debate rejected the upper-middle-class aesthetic in favor of a solidly –- and, I’m pretty sure, deliberately –- middle-class look. Here’s a rundown of how her ensemble broke the rules of upper-middle-class dressing, as set forth in Paul Fussell’s Class:

Her suit: The casual and untraditional style of her jacket, which had a small collar but no lapels, sent a message similar to the one Fussell saw in Reagan’s flouting of Eastern Establishment standards of dress. By eschewing the upper-middle-class professional look, which would have her wearing very conservative, man-tailored skirt suits, Clinton distances herself from the taint of elitism. Her choice of suit color is also key. For the upper-middle-class, Fussell says, “the color toward which everything aspires is really navy.” And yet Clinton has consistently avoided navy as a neutral in favor of black and the brown of last night. Finally, the fabric of Clinton’s suit was on the cheap-looking side. On the topic of fabric, Fussell writes, "Middle-class clothes tend to err by excessive smoothness, to glitter a bit, to shine even before they're worn. Upper-middle clothes, on the other hand, lean to the soft, textured, woolly, nubby." By this measure, the jacket Clinton wore in the previous debate was upper-middle-class; the one last night was much more middle. Finally, Clinton's outfit seemed to explicitly avoid the upper-middle-class look of layering. The matching color, and perhaps even fabric, of her jacket and shell made her look un-layered and therefore less classy.

Her jewelry: According to Fussell, upper-class women wear "very little jewelry" and have "a tendency to understate." But last night, as throughout her campaign, Clinton wore more than her share of jewelry, and none of it understated: a multi-strand beaded turquoise necklace with big oval turquoise button earrings. Nothing could convince me that Clinton would pick this jewelry out for herself; it's just too tacky and ridiculous. Worn together, the pieces looked like a matching set hawked on the Home Shopping Network. Not only were the necklace and earrings oversized and inelegant, but their turquoise stones lent them a Southwestern flair which Fussell repeatedly derides as very lower-class.

Her hair: According to Class, "the classiest women wear their hair for a lifetime in exactly the style they affected in college." I wouldn't expect Clinton to hew to that standard, since in her case this would mean a too-hippieish mass of long, frizzy hair. But she doesn't even meet Fussell's relaxed guideline for upper-class hair: "a hairstyle dating back eighteen or twenty years or so." If she had just held onto one of the styles she sported during the early Clinton years, she would be set. But her hair now is ultra-updated, complete with tawdry clashing ash-blond and caramel highlights, which again make her look very middle-class.

Perhaps if men had as much leeway in their formal dress, Barack Obama's people would be fiddling around with his clothes, too; but they don't, so they're not. Clinton's camp has, I believe, made a definite choice to make her look just like the soccer moms who carried her husband to victory. I have to say I don't like it. I want my politicians to dress for serious business, not a PTA meeting. But I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority on that. Clinton's style probably has the broad appeal her campaign is going for.

The coming collapse of the American art market

2008-01-25T08:18:00.000-05:00

I've been wondering what will happen when the American art market collapses. I think it's going to happen soon -- maybe this summer.

The economic super-boom America has been in since the end of WWII paralleled the super-boom in American art. It was no coincidence that America's political and economic supremacy made American artists supreme. But that is about to change. Now that our boom has gone bust, the art boom will meet the same fate.

It's not that there will be no more money for art. Just like in other recessions, the American super-rich will get to keep much of their wealth and will still be able to spend it on expensive art. They just won't want to. What made American art so attractive to new money was what it symbolized: that exciting American supremacy. The rich didn't just want the status of owning art; they wanted the psychological justification for their wealth and power that that art seemed to provide. But once American supremacy diminishes, American art won't look so appetizing anymore. As a result, American artists are going to see a lot less demand for their work and much lower prices.

The art itself will change, too. In contrast to the egotistic exuberance of early-boom artists like Pollock, post-boom Americans artists will shed their bravado and mystique. No one will be interested in that anymore. And in a way, that will be a big relief. All the postmodern ennui, the fragmentation, reflexivity, and ambiguity, will finally come to an end. Postmodernism will be revealed for what it really was: not a discrete period constituting a reaction to Modernism, but merely Modernism's self-digestion and death. In other words, there is no such thing as Postmodernism. The period properly called "postmodern" has only recently arrived. Postmodernism was just the final period of Modernism: Late Modernism.

The new art won't be "post"-anything. It will be new. And it will build on the foundations of our new, globalized reality. It will be hugely influenced by the 2.0 paradigm. It will see the reclassification of the artist from lone visionary to collaborative craftsman. Luckily for America, it will begin right here, during our decline. Unluckily for America, it will then spread and find its greatest expression abroad, during the rise of other countries.

Update 2/8/08: Uneasiness at London auctions
Update 4/17/08: Is Street Turmoil Coloring Art Market? [WSJ preview, subscription required for full article]

Candidates' colors part II

2008-01-23T21:48:00.000-05:00

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day debate in South Carolina had the Democratic presidential candidates dressing close to type. In anticipation of the more clearly-drawn battle lines of this debate, the campaigns dressed their candidates in ways that sought to visually pinpoint their unique strengths.

First, the ties. Edwards went with a bright-blue tie that looked very similar to the one he wore at the New Hampshire debate. Could it even have been the same tie? Actors going for call-backs are often advised to go ahead and wear the same outfit they wore to the initial audition, the reasoning being that this will help the casting director remember his/her first (good) impression of them. Maybe Edwards wore a similar tie to help voters remember how he looked back when he was doing relatively well in the polls.

Obama's tie was possibly another showbiz trick -- one cleverly adapted from some classic on-air no-nos. On television, certain colors and patterns don't come across well: specifically, bright red tends to "bleed," or look fuzzy, and small, high-contrast patterns, like stripes, can appear to wiggle. Nevertheless, Obama wore a red-and-white thinly-striped tie. He clearly has some good wardrobe people; they finally got him a jacket that fits, for one thing (in the previous two debates he had some collar-gap issues). They must be aware of the problems with red and stripes on T.V. I think they deliberately put him in that tie, knowing how it would look: on my screen, it glowed and scintillated, drawing attention straight to him in the wide shots of the three candidates. It was almost as though you could see straight through his chest to his burning, passionate Democrat heart. Brilliant.

Clinton's "tie" in this debate was a bright-orange scarf. Yet another bold color choice! Orange's greatest strength as a color is its power to conjure up a feeling of exuberant happiness (think of the ads and packaging for Clinique Happy). Particularly during this week of bad economic news, Clinton's people wanted to give her an aura of cheerfulness and optimism. Orange may have also been a ploy to increase Clinton's desirability: it has notoriously been used in the decor of fast food restaurants because of its proven power to stimulate the appetite. Were we supposed to feel "hungry for Hillary?" I found the effect of the tucked-in scarf to be a bit off, making Clinton seem a little too bundled-up. Still, it was much better than the distracting necklaces she wore in the previous two debates.

Grooming: Didn't the candidates look lovely? Everyone's makeup looked fantastic. Edwards's skin looked like a newborn baby's! Obama's looked like sweet milk chocolate! Clinton's makeup was much better than in Nevada. She looked a decade younger. They've switched her to shiny lipstick, which makes her mouth look fuller, younger, and more pleasant, even when she does her disapproving pursed-lips thing. Her eyeliner was better, too -- less harsh than it has been in the past. She was positively doe-eyed! Good show!

I can't write about the men's suits, because I really don't know anything about men's suits. They were...dark navy blue single-breasted suits? That's all I've got. Of course, there's much less to say about their suits, since the men's suit is such a standard garment. But there's tons to say about Clinton's suits! Her suit at this debate was very nice. I applaud her return to the nehru jacket after two debates of traditional jackets with lapels. The high, collarless neckline makes her look secure, put-together, streamlined, and modern. It's a great personal signature. I had a problem with the single button at the neckline, though: it was a neat touch, but bunched in there with the clip-on mic and the scarf, it made her neck area look cluttered. The suit was beautifully fitted to her, though. You could really see this from the back -- and weren't there a lot of shots of her from the back! I thought that was really unfair. Did we see any shots of Obama's or Edwards's behinds? Clinton's figure looked lovely, especially considering her jacket broke the cardinal rule of jackets for pear-shaped women: Thou Shalt Not Wear A Jacket That Ends At Your Widest Point. Her jacket fell right at the widest part of her rear. I understand her wanting to cover her backside, for professionalism's sake -- but at the cost of emphasizing being broad-in-the-beam? The horror! A cropped jacket that shows more leg is a necessity for elongating this type of figure! The color and fabric of the suit were the best part. The fabric looked really refined -- maybe a silk/wool blend? It had a subtle, light-absorbing texture. And the color was perfect: a flattering but serious brown: earthy, sophisticated, and just dark enough to project authority.

The poor candidates were forced to abandon the security of their podiums for a ridiculous faux-casual chair-sitting set during the second half of the debate. Each of them sat in a very distinct and characteristic way: Edwards, the populist, let his legs hang open casually, revealing a little too much crotch; Obama, cool as ice, crossed his legs; and Clinton, the proper professional lady, kept her knees together and her ankles crossed. Both men's socks were, thankfully, long enough to conceal leg skin. But only Obama's people were thoughtful enough to give him brand-new shoes with perfect, unblemished soles (not so for Edwards, whose scuffed bottoms made a couple of brief appearances).

The set was the typical red, white, and blue, in a patchwork pattern. In close-up, Edwards and Clinton were in front of blue squares on the mosaic, while Obama was in front of red. Obama's red background probably made him come off as even more aggressive during the points in the debate when he got all riled up. Clinton's scarf was not such a good match with the decor this time. She was right to pick a softer, "pumpkin" shade of orange, though, instead of primary orange to go with the set, which would have been horrendous next to her face.

At this point, with the green, pink, and now orange, it's clear that Clinton is making a point of excluding red and blue, the more obvious colors. I actually think that's a smart choice. Women so often find themselves choosing between too-masculine and too-feminine versions of business clothing. By breaking out of the box with her collar shape and colors, Clinton makes it clear that she is not trying to look like a man, but does so without looking too much "like a woman" in the wrong way. That's a truly difficult task, and she, or her handlers, are doing a great job at it.

One more debate to go... For my coverage of color in the previous two debates, see Their true colors.

Eat to live

2008-01-22T07:45:00.000-05:00

When I read articles about obesity like this one, I feel really frustrated because I'm pretty sure I know about the solution to it and many other health problems. It's called Eat to Live.

Eat to Live is a diet developed by Joel Fuhrman, a doctor whose specialty is reversing disease through nutrition. The concept behind it is very simple and intuitive:

Health = Nutrients/Calories

In other words, the more nutrient-rich your food, the healthier you will be. This means minimizing or eliminating processed foods with "empty" calories as well as meat and dairy, which are not only nutrient-poor as judged by the formula above, but also raise the risk of heart disease, cancer, and other illnesses.

I know from personal experience and my friends' experiences that this diet really works. When I started it, my weight dropped rapidly and kept dropping until it stabilized right at the number Dr. Fuhrman's weight tables recommended for my height -- and has stayed right there for months. My BMI went from 22.4 (within the normal range) to 18.6 (on the low end of the healthy range). And it was really easy. You can eat as much as you want, so long as you eat a variety of whole vegan foods.

This diet seems weird and fringey to most people now, but I'm convinced it will eventually become very popular. I hope it will even change the majority of Americans' diets for good. It works too well not to be a success; it just has to reach its "tipping point." It seems like the momentum is gathering. A book called The China Study, which urges an almost-identical diet, was published in 2004, the year after Dr. Fuhrman's book. And Michael Pollan's book that just came out, In Defense of Food, has this message: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

I encourage everyone to read Dr. Fuhrman's book, Eat to Live, and to try the diet! Even if you're a healthy weight, it's nice to see, written down, a guide to exactly how to eat in order to be as healthy as you can be. Then, you can decide whether to eat that way or not -- but at least you'll have good information about the optimal human diet.

All-black is whack

2008-01-18T10:02:00.000-05:00

The all-black look is overdone: most people agree with that. But lots of people love black and want to wear as much of it as possible. What's the best way to pull it off?

Lots of people compromise with almost-all-black, adding color in just one place like in a top or accessory. That's a little more interesting than all-black, but it doesn't have much personality, unless you're really good with the details. It's also hard to make it look balanced since the one spot of color draws the eye like a magnet, making you look poorly-proportioned.

It's best to flip the ratio of black-to-color so that black makes up the minority of your outfit. Just a dash of black, in an accessory or a single item of clothing, is enough to make an outfit pop. It also makes you look cool, because a restrained use of black shows you're not trying too hard.

The most modern colors to combine with black are neutrals. I've been seeing lots of people on the street combining black with natural-colored leather shoes, bags, and belts. This is a great look because of the strong contrast between the ascetic modernism of black and the earthy classicism of the neutral. It is also very easy to put together.

To make a black + neutral outfit even better, it's good to add some color in the form of a print. Once you've got one print in there, it's O.K. to add a solid color. But an outfit looks best with at least one print to play off against the solids.

I'm not saying no one can ever wear all-black. But very few people can pull it off. You have to be extremely intense to make it work. And you have to be a wizard at combining different textures and fabrics, because that's what makes an all-black outfit work. And you have to either be very good-looking or have very deep, cool, or clear coloring -- ideally both.

Their true colors

2008-01-16T13:58:00.000-05:00

I've been fascinated by the color palettes of the most recent two Democratic debates. Though conservative, the set designers' and candidates' color choices were quite telling.

For one thing, they suggested that the campaigns have advance knowledge about the colors of the sets -- because there has been a striking degree of color coordination between the candidates' clothes and the backdrops behind them. (Do the debate's producers provide information to campaign officials about what colors they will be using? If so, is this done secretly or openly? I would love to know.)

At the January 5th debate in New Hampshire, the sets were large, bright screens of vibrant -- verging on jewel-toned -- red and blue. The three front-runners' color accents mixed perfectly with these sets. Obama's shiny red tie matched the glowing red of the background, and its gold stripes were a complementary safe neutral. Edwards's bright-blue tie was a near-perfect match with the clear blue of the set. Clinton, in an interesting choice, wore a green top under her black suit. The selection of green suggests an effort by Clinton's campaign to bolster her popularity with younger voters who are drawn to Obama's coolness. Green is a currently-trendy color that has associations with the trendy cause of environmentalism. It also stood out within the otherwise red-and-blue color scheme of the debate (while harmonizing with it). Green was a risky choice, since in addition to its positive connotations of tenacity and reliability, green has overtones of stubbornness, predictability, and backward thinking. But after her loss in Iowa, Clinton's handlers probably thought it was important to take such a risk in order to raise her profile. Richardson wore a blue tie, but its dark, relatively matte, subdued tone did not fit in with the rest of the color scheme -- and, surprise, he soon dropped out of the race.

I found the bright colors at the New Hampshire debate somewhat overwhelming and felt that they placed the Democrats in an atmosphere that was too aggressive and intense for their personalities. Of course, the set was designed with the Republicans (who went first) in mind as well, so it must have represented a merging of their sensibilities. Republicans need straightforward, powerful colors, which means strong primary tones; this was modified for the Democrats, perhaps, by tweaking the colors into the jewel range, which made them look more open and optimistic, referencing the party's orientation towards the future.

The color scheme of last night's Nevada debate was more nuanced, befitting its exclusively-Democratic stars. The set backdrop was composed of vertical screens displaying a close-up of the point on the American flag where the bottom-right corner of the starred blue canton meets the striped portion. That point on the flag, non-coincidentally I think, is just left-of-center: the sweet spot these candidates are aiming for. It is also a middle ground between the stars (symbolizing the heavens, or God and faith) and the stripes (symbolizing, for many people, the red of blood shed for the country and the white of the liberty it was shed for). However, the blue portion predominated, perhaps reflecting the peaceful tone the contest is struggling to maintain (in spite of the questioners' repeated attempts to rile them into a fight). Most intriguingly, the blues and reds blurred in such a way that the backdrop included whole swathes of obvious purple -- which, with its connotations of creativity, was a daring but fitting choice to underscore this primary season's embrace of change.

These set choices were made by MSNBC and its production designers, of course -- not the candidates -- so what they really reflect is the image the network wanted to project of its news coverage. That image, in turn, was chosen to reflect the mood of the audience (politically-engaged Democrats) it's trying to attract. And that mood, based on the look of the set, is very high-minded, idealistic, and positive.

The two front-running males were once again matchy-matchy with the debate's set. This time Edwards wore a tie that looked remarkably like the one Obama wore for the New Hampshire debate: an attempt to make himself look more like the youth majority's first choice? Obama's light-blue tie was the color of the blurry sections of the background at which blue (peacefulness and order) met white (freedom and purity), making a light-blue color that toned down the conservative, authoritative connotations of blue into a non-confrontational, optimistic shade -- good for someone who got flak for the "likeable enough" comment. Clinton went for pink. Pink is unabashedly feminine, and the campaign's choice of it for Clinton's top is a sign that they are, despite protestations to the contrary, continuing to play the gender card. More shockingly, pink is a color which image consultants recommend wearing in order to inspire feelings of sympathy. Dressing Clinton in pink signals an attempt to keep capitalizing on the emotional response voters had to the Edwards-Obama "double-teaming" and to Clinton's coffee-shop tearfulness. But while holding onto her emotional appeal, the Clinton campaign does not want to lose the candidate's authority: her top was a deep, strong shade of fuschia (which, unfortunately, almost-matched her lipstick in an unflattering way).

I'll watch the next debate with interest and post again on the evolving color story of the Democratic contest.

Naive makeup

2008-01-15T13:46:00.000-05:00

Instead of trying to make your makeup look perfect, why not make it look imperfect -- even naive?

Women are still stuck trying to look like celebrities, with their makeup as well as their clothes. This is not only boring (and vulgar), but impossible! It takes lots of skill, time, know-how, and expensive products to replicate the look professional makeup artists achieve -- and, even then, it rarely looks right or even good.

Instead, I'd like to see women applying makeup in a way that's honest about their skill level. Lots of young women don't wear any makeup at all because they're afraid they'll get it wrong. I say, stop worrying about getting it wrong, and just do it (wrong)! I think adult women should go back to applying makeup like they did when they were little girls playing with their mothers' lipstick. That was fun!

Instead of putting on all the correct layers in their correct order, why not just smear on one coat of bright lipstick -- without moisturizer, primer, lipliner, gloss, or powder -- and otherwise have a completely bare face? Or, why not wear several coats of mascara and nothing else? Or foundation without any other makeup?

Over-applied blush was trendy within recent memory (popularized by Anna on The O.C. -- remember??) and looks hideous BUT is also kind of cool. Poorly-done or flaking-off manicures have been cool for teenagers recently and are reminiscent of that Tinkerbell plastic peel-off nail polish I remember using as a 6-year-old in the '80s.

It's interesting to note that naive makeup not only is a technique and look in itself, but also makes possible lots of additional new looks. Lipstick-only creates a Lolita look; mascara-only makes a gamine look; and foundation-only makes an androgynous look. Overdone blush results in a prostitute look and peeling-off polish in a grunge look.

I think it's funny that hipsters who take risks with their clothes are so safe with their makeup. Why were girls wearing Goodwill outfits with full-on M.A.C. makeup at Misshapes? I guess it's because they, like their idols, were getting photographed a lot and cared more about looking good than completing their fashion statement. And that's kind of...lame, actually.

Although the application style of naive makeup is "naive," the total effect and meaning are not -- at least not in the more negative sense of the word. Naive makeup is naive in the "natural and unaffected" sense. It's very honest, empowered, and knowing, and projects a strong and sophisticated image.

It is possible to take this idea to too far an extreme: I saw a girl on the J train a couple of weeks ago who had drawn war stripes on her cheeks with hot pink lipstick. She may have been insane. So, I guess, don't go too far, or people on the subway will think you're crazy.

I don't think this will be a trend. Although it could actually get lots more women wearing makeup, the loss in revenue from the women who already wore full-on makeup and started wearing less would make it unprofitable. Also, since this look is best achieved using the very cheapest drugstore brands (Wet 'n' Wild, N.Y.C), high-end and medium-level brands would not benefit.

Glitter nail polish

2008-01-14T13:06:00.000-05:00

Nails have a fast trend cycle now, with a change in length, shape, color, or decoration happening at least once a season. It seems like the short, rounded shape is here to stay for a while. Color has been the main changeable factor for the past few seasons, with pale pinks giving way to classic red, then black and its variations, then metallics, and now dark blue. I think the next thing to come up will be a change in texture, which means glitter! The black and blue trends have included "subtle shimmer," but I think BIG flecks of shine should come in next. Silver and gold will be good, colored glitter better, multicolored even better, and, if someone would manufacture it, glitter in small shapes (hearts, dollar signs) would be best. I think glitter could start showing up as early as next winter and be big for spring '09.

A new separates dynamic?

2008-01-10T22:07:00.002-05:00

There are multiple variables that can change in fashion as part of a trend: proportion, volume, pattern, color, skirt length, waist location, etc. But there's one variable I'm interested in but never hear discussed (probably because it changes so rarely) and don't know the name for, and that's the relationship between the various articles of clothing.

Even though I haven't heard a name for this variable, I am sure it exists because it has been very active and changeable recently. Here's the progression we've seen over the past few years in the relationship between women's sportswear tops and bottoms:

bootcut pants with tank tops and jackets
low-rise bootcut pants with fancy tops and jackets
designer low-rise jeans with fancy tops
skinny designer low-rise jeans with fancy tops
tunics, wide-leg pants
tops with leggings
dresses with leggings
dresses
bubble dresses
high-waisted jeans

This is probably a little inaccurate, but still -- it's quite a progression! From mid-rise bootcut pants to high-waisted skinny jeans and dresses? What is going on?! It's like there was a whole reimagining of the proper clothing for the torso (from tight and short to long and loose) and the legs (from long and high to tight and low and back again!) and the combination of the two. It was as if the women's top got longer and fancier, becoming like a dress that was worn over pants, until it became long enough to actually go over pants, then pants were eliminated and the dress took over, then evolved its own kind of "pants" (leggings) to go under it, which then grew more important than the dress...

The recent reorientation of the relationship between legwear and...torsowear (?) is similar to what happened during the sixties with the miniskirt. As Thomas Hine points out in The Great Funk, pantyhose came on the market just as miniskirts were surging in popularity. This invention arrived right on time, as pantyhose tempered the miniskirt's shock appeal by cushioning the visual impact of so much leg. Hine agrees that, just like it seems leggings have recently supplanted trousers, "it may be that pantyhose were themselves pants in disguise."

I think it's interesting to take a look at how we put our clothing together and realize how arbitrary it is. We take for granted that men, for instance, wear some kind of pants on their legs and some kind of shirt on their torsos. But this is far from how men used to dress in the past! Men used to wear stockings with little pantaloons and cropped jackets with tails; women used to wear dresses that were actually in two parts; women's sleeves used to be separate from the rest of their clothes; men's ties used to actually hold the collar tight, and their belts used to actually hold their pants up. Native American men traditionally didn't wear pants -- they mostly wore breechcloths, sometimes with leggings that hung from their belts, so that the total effect was somewhat like pants, but was actually put together very differently. Men in ancient Greece and Rome wore chitons, which were not pants at all but more like big loose dresses; men in ancient Egypt wore kilts, which were linen skirts.

All I'm saying is that our basic vocabulary of pants, shirts, and jackets for men and pants/skirts and tops or dresses for women is not the only option. Men and women could instead both wear some kind of dress; or we could both wear unitards; or men could wear skirts and women could be the default pants-wearers.

I'm wondering whether women's separates will keep moving around like they have been, or find one place and stay there. I'm also wondering when the next total paradigm shift will occur in how we wear separates, and what form it will take. One option I think would be really cool, and possible given current trends, would be if undergarments actually became the basic garments, much like the breechcloth was the basic garment for Native American men, and for the other separates to be layered on top of those as needed. For instance, women could wear underwear only in hot weather, a top added as it got cooler, then, as it got progressively cooler, socks, gloves, sweaters, warm thigh-high stockings, boots, and finally a coat. But a woman would still be decent so long as she had her underwear on--her underwear and her shoes.

Unhairdos

2008-01-04T11:13:00.000-05:00

A good accompaniment to the unhaircut will be the unhairdo.

This will be a deliberately not-done or poorly-done hairdo. Examples of not-done hair are bedhead, frizzy hair, dirty hair, tangled hair, staticky hair, untamed cowlicks, and hair allowed to go gray. Poorly-done hairdos could include bumpy ponytails, coming-apart updos, hairdos that are askew, bad or haphazard color jobs, sticking-up or too-long bangs, home haircuts, and flyaways.

While calculated on a conceptual level, unhairdos should not be too calculated in their execution. They should not require very much time or effort. However, they will require an excellent eye, because the hardest thing of all is to get "looking wrong" right.

Besides serving as a fitting styling option for the unhaircut head of hair, unhairdos also fit into what I'm predicting will be a popular "jolie laide," "beautiful ugliness" look.

Back to the post-9/11 future

2008-01-01T22:40:00.000-05:00

In Back to the Future II, while Marty McFly and Doc Brown are in the year 2015, Marty buys a sports almanac with the intention of using it to place bets once he returns to 1985. But when Doc Brown discovers what Marty has done, he scolds him and throws the almanac into the trash. The "bad guy" character Biff, who has overheard their conversation, then retrieves the almanac, steals the time machine, travels back to November 12, 1955, and gives the almanac to his younger self with instructions on how to use it to make money. As a result, when Doc and Marty return from 2015 to 1985, they find not the 1985 they left but instead a dystopian "alternate 1985" in which Biff is incredibly rich and powerful and Hill Valley is a crime-filled wasteland.

To many Americans, the present day is like the nightmarish "alternate 1985" of Back to the Future. We look at the disaster in Iraq and the related struggling American economy and damaged U.S. reputation and feel a lot like Marty did when confronted with his neighborhood transformed into a slum. We ask ourselves, "How could this happen?" The current state of affairs sometimes seems so bad that it feels existentially wrong. The comedian Patton Oswalt puts it like this:

There was this time when, in 2003, I felt like we had all fallen into this really creepy, alternate Earth--like, the "bad" Earth, where Bush won, and the towers fell, and we were going to Iraq, and Paris Hilton was successful, and everything was just wrong--everything was goddamn evil. And I felt like there was like a Earth next to ours where Gore won, and the towers still stood, and we weren't in Iraq, and Paris Hilton had been eaten by wolves, and everything was just wonderful, like...it was all good, you know?

The way we got to this point is complicated, but on one level all our trouble dates to September 11, 2001. The problems that began then were not a direct result of the terrorist attacks, which we could have prevented or at least responded to much more effectively, but the Bush administration's poorly-thought-out reaction to them. In the Back to the Future trilogy, Marty's main weakness is allowing Biff to provoke him by calling him "chicken." Marty consistently lets Biff "project" his insecurity and anger onto him, causing him to "become" his enemy and get into a vengeful, self-destructive pattern--which is just what Biff wants.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened to George Bush on 9/11. Tellingly, Biff is not just a good stand-in for terrorism, but for Bush as well, because, like Marty, Bush played into the hands of the terrorists by letting them successfully project their anger and vengefulness onto him. Bush then became like his enemy, allowing himself to be driven by similar religious and ideological mania and resorting to similar inhumane tactics. Like Biff, Bush let his insecurity drive him to take advantage of an unusual situation by unfairly grabbing far more power and money than he was entitled to and using it for selfish, misguided, disastrous ends.

In Back to the Future II, Marty and Doc travel back to November 12, 1955, steal the almanac back from Biff, and thereby set time back on its "proper course." My hope is that 2008 will be the year that America does the equivalent. We don't need to erase the intervening years since 9/11--and unless Barack Obama is able to ride a De Lorean back to 2001, chase Bush on a hoverboard, steal his executive power, and burn it, we can't--but we can take this opportunity to steer the course of history away from the "wrong turn" more and more Americans think it has taken and back onto its earlier path.

And while we're at it, we should follow Marty's example and learn from our mistakes. In the course of his adventures in time, Marty gains self-esteem by choosing to do the right thing. With this new self-image, he is able to abandon his old threatened, reactive course of action, which had been keeping him stuck on a dead-end course. Instead, he learns to stop, cool down, and think rationally. When he does this, he sees Biff for the essentially empty, surmountable threat that he is, and is able to deal with him accordingly. By doing the same thing, America could create not just a "good" 2008, but an even better 2015.

Let's stay away from 1885, though. Part III sucks.

Handkerchiefs

2007-12-29T19:18:00.000-05:00

More and more of the young men I know in New York are carrying pocket handkerchiefs.

My father was amused to hear about this trend and inquired whether these same men had also taken to making shows of crying in public just as fashionable gentlemen did in the nineteenth century. I had to say that no, they had not. Yet he made me realize that the growing popularity of the handkerchief does have overtones of Romanticism.

The reason handkerchiefs have come back into style is fairly obvious: They’re just one of the many foppish accoutrements that men have adopted as part of the Anglophile dandy look that’s having such a major comeback. But unlike the other popular accessories, such as hats, pocket squares, and custom-made shoes, the handkerchief has changed not just aesthetics but behavior.

Traditionally, men sniffle through colds and allergies and drip through sweaty summers. These bodily discomforts are seen as unavoidable, since no manly man would be seen carrying around a packet of tissues in his pocket or fanning himself with a piece of paper. Men in our society aren’t supposed to be fussing over themselves in that way. But now that handkerchiefs have become mainstream accessories, men are not just carrying them but using them, to blow their noses and wipe their brows. And while this rediscovered habit is a far cry from weeping at the opera, it is similar in that it’s a public acknowledgment of men’s sensitivity—just in a physical, rather than emotional, sense.

There’s a long-term trend towards the genders becoming more alike, and the readoption of the handkerchief is a sign that one symptom of the continuing feminization of men will be their increasing willingness to be seen indulging in the kind of self-care—even pampering—that has long been the exclusive prerogative of women. Axe body spray, for instance, while a pitiful version of the cornucopia of fruitily-scented products with which women shower themselves daily, is nonetheless an example of a product that would have been considered effeminate a few years ago but which is nonetheless quite ordinary today. It will be interesting to see what new ways marketers find to capitalize on men’s increasing interest in exploring and enjoying sensory pleasure.

Unhaircuts

2007-12-19T09:10:00.000-05:00

I think the next hair trend, for men and women (either concurrent with long hair or right before it) will be the "unhaircut."

The unhaircut is a nontraditional haircut in that it's not designed from the perspective of what would look good when the person is sitting upright, looking straight ahead, as all haircuts are today. Instead, the unhaircut can be performed with the cuttee in any position -- lying down, with the head tilted to the side, or upside-down. Once the hair is in position, it's simply grabbed at a certain point and hacked off, so that when the cuttee resumes an upright position, the hair falls into a semi-arbitrary, "wrong"-looking configuration.

This haircut is a lot like the emo haircut, except it's less studied and will not necessarily have to obscure the face or be dyed black or excessively styled. I imagine the hair just hanging there, in whatever shape the cut gives it. And I think the hair will be longer than most emo haircuts are--even on men, who might wear it shoulder-length. The unhaircut's other antecedent is the grown-out look that's so popular among the New York private school boys and their ilk across America. I'm sure they have a name for it, but I have no idea what it could be. The "prep school mafia hairstyle"? Anyone know?

The unhaircut says, "I realize that everything is just a construct, including haircuts," and in that way it's very postmodern. Yet ultimately the unhaircut is post-postmodern, because it makes no distinction between hair and haircut: they are one and the same.

Post-postmodernism

2007-12-19T09:05:00.001-05:00

I love the word "post-postmodern," first of all because it is so silly, but also because I'm so excited about finding out what "post-postmodernism" will be, as well as what its real name will be (because by its very nature, "post-postmodernism" is emphatically the wrong name for it).

I think post-postmodernism will be defined by the blurring of the line between reality and construct. In the post-postmodern world, life, art, and commerce will be one. This development will be dehumanizing according to our old definitions, but rehumanizing in our new ones, which will resituate money, advertising, capitalism, and the market, moving them from the status of parasites feeding off of humanity's blood to something more like the blood itself. I know, it sounds very bleak. But I think it's the real answer, because capitalism is here and it's not going anywhere, and we've waited far too long to devise some real, humane way to deal with its realities.

I'm not quite up to figuring all that out, but what I am up to are some ideas about how art and culture will respond. I think the new style, like the new geopolitics, will attempt a reconciliation between the realism we can't ignore and the humanism we strive for. The new "answer" in the arts will be neither a desperate search for meaning nor a flat rejection of it, but an acceptance that meaning is both real and unreal: intrinsic to humanity, yet "only human." Under the new pragmatic humanism, we will no longer be devastated by the recognition of our own perspective's arbitrariness--rather, we will accept it, and this acceptance ("ironically," although irony really will be dead this time) will enable us to lift up and celebrate art even more than we did in the twentieth century. Art and meaning will no longer be "only" constructs, but plain-old constructs--just like every single other thing we experience in our extremely subjective human way.

Art will moreover be recognized as essential therapy for humanity. I think anthropologists and psychologists will identify art's emergence along with civilization as an adaptation humans evolved in order to deal with the extremely traumatizing experience of living in a society. We will then turn this new information about art to our advantage, finding ways to use the arts to ease our transition into the modern world.

This new art will be totally unlike what we've seen before. It will be everywhere, and everyone will be a part of it. It will be awesome.

Big sweaters

2007-12-18T16:36:00.001-05:00

Just an idea for something to try: oversized sweaters on women.

Similar to the popular belief that it's uncool to wear shirts tucked in is the general consensus that it's uncool to wear a sweater that doesn't tightly hug one's every curve. Baggy sweaters are associated with nerdy middle-school girls who are self-conscious about "developing."

I think this notion is passé. A baggy sweater looks refreshing and chic and makes its wearer seem relaxed, down-to-earth, confident, fun, and comfortable in her skin.

It's important that an oversized sweater have some kind of banding at the bottom so that it hugs the body there instead of flopping all around. And I think it's best to keep it simple. A men's small classic crewneck sweater in a solid color should work. But please none of those terrible thick waffle-knit sweaters that are trendy right now.

Army jackets

2007-12-17T14:58:00.000-05:00

Ever since it got cold this fall, I’ve been seeing men in army jackets all over New York. They are cotton field jackets with a “woodland camouflage” print. Some of them appear to be army surplus (probably the M65 Field Jacket) and some are reproductions with a twist such as screenprinting done over the camouflage pattern. I’ve seen them on thirtyish men of all ethnicities, most of whom have an understated, sort-of anti-fashion—but still stylish—style.

This is the second military jacket to be popular this year. The first was the M65 “fishtail” parka, which Prada brought back in fall 2006 and H&M and others knocked off early this fall. I attributed the reappearance of the fishtail parka to its association with the British Mods of the ‘60s, whose look had a mini-comeback along with the other recent ‘60s trends, and to the “urban warrior” look that was popular last winter. Associated as it is with the Korean War and the Mods, the fishtail parka does not seem like a direct reference to our current war in Iraq.

Neither do these field jackets. First of all, the men wearing them do not project a politically-charged fashion statement of any kind. Secondly, the print I’ve been seeing is woodland camouflage, not the desert camouflage all our troops are wearing. Do these jackets make a statement at all? Maybe they were bought for practical reasons, such as price (they cost about $70), the desire to avoid shopping (they can be found in any army-surplus store), a disinterest in fashion (they’re a uniform), or plain utility (although the outer shell is cotton, a warm, down-filled liner can be purchased to go inside). Or maybe men bought them to be environmentally friendly (buying a surplus item is a form of reuse/recycling).

I’m curious, though, about the “woodland” camouflage print. I hadn’t seen it around until recently, and I think its popularity must have some significance. Could it have to do with a renewed interest in nature and concern for the environment? Or perhaps an enthusiasm for hunting? Or maybe the jackets are a political statement after all, and the wearing of woodland camouflage, instead of desert camouflage, is a symbol of Americans’ desire to turn our military’s image away from the negative one it’s taken on in Iraq and back towards its traditional, more positive one.

I wonder whether anyone else has been seeing this trend, or whether they start noticing it after reading this. Please let me know (in the comments) if you spot it around or have other ideas or reactions.

Update 1/6/08: I am now seeing brand-new-looking desert camo on "cool dads" at Whole Foods and such places.

Update 1/11/08: Now seeing tons of camo-print hoodies and hats

Tuck it in

2007-12-12T10:59:00.001-05:00

There's this consensus that tucked-in shirts on girls look ugly, nerdy, and wrong. Almost no young women wear their shirts tucked in unless they have to as part of the dress code for their jobs. For as long as I can remember (since the mid-eighties), tucked-in shirts have been extremely uncool as part of casual wear. Why is this?

I think it's because it's so hard to make a tucked-in shirt look flattering on a woman's body. First of all, it draws attention to the waist, which can be bad if the waist is too wide, too high, or too low. It also makes the hips look wider by making the waist look smaller. And tucking in can make you look heavier than you are: if you're overweight, it draws attention to your tummy, and if you're thin, the blousing effect can hide your flat stomach. I'm guessing that untucked shirts became mainstream because women realized that it was easier to look good in them. The women who contined to tuck in their tops were either very conservative dressers or not very fashion-conscious ones. Tucking in became associated with conformity and nerdiness, and therefore came to be considered not only unflattering, but uncool as well.
Of course, the uncoolness of tucking in makes it ripe for coolness. Now that 70s and 80s styles are so mainstream, I think authentic 70s and 80s styling should come back, too. Plus, as I discovered just now while looking for images of nerdy tucked-in shirts, even L.L.Bean now shows its shirts worn untucked on models on its website. If L.L.Bean has decided tucking in is too uncool for its customers, then it is definitely time for it to become cool for trendy people. (L.L.Bean is a great barometer; they also started producing bootcut pants just as those were about to become unfashionable.)

It's all in the execution, of course. For knit tops, I think it's best to go small and simple: a form-fitting (but not skintight) T-shirt or tank tucked into jeans (the high-waisted ones are perfect). For blouses, form-fitting is a bad idea; tops with very shaped waists that slip perfectly into pants or skirts will give the bad, conservative look. It's better to choose a looser-fitting top, accept that the blousing is going to happen, and embrace it.

Lipstick

2007-12-09T15:25:00.001-05:00

It's time for young women to start wearing lipstick again. Gloss has been popular for too long, it's too much a part of the sweet/girly thing that is so over, and it's too wishy-washy of a statement for the more supercharged, ultrafemme style that I think is going to be in again.

Women over 35 wear lipstick all the time. It's specifically younger women who are going to start getting into lipstick -- even teenagers. It will be a "strong lip" -- no "natural" shades, but plenty of unnatural reds and pinks (but on the cooler side, not coral). All the easier-to-wear stains, sheers, and cremes will ease the transition, but the real hard-core look will involve traditional matte or semi-matte full-coverage lipsticks. I'm even thinking that some frosted shades could be quite hip-looking.

And I don't think this has to mean a neutral eye. Hopefully it will mean at least slightly less eye makeup for certain people, but I think that whole idea of focusing only on the eyes or lips is really overdone, old-fashioned, and safe. What about a real, made-up face?

Minimalism

2007-12-08T09:29:00.000-05:00

Apparently the nineties are on their way back. I knew it was inevitable, but the idea of it was just so depressing and boring that I think I blocked it out. It makes sense, though--with the concern about the environment, the weak dollar, the celebutante burnout...It's time for minimalism.

The early signs are here: all the black on sale for winter; the Gap finally getting its act together and selling more colorful basics instead of trendy clothes (its older and younger brothers, Banana Republic and Old Navy, have made a similar switch as well); all the interest in Kate Moss; high-waisted jeans; the obsession with white Converse; American Apparel; androgyny. It's coming.

As soon as everyone acknowledges that we really are in a recession (or more precisely a "four-year slow-down," as my banker friend informs me), this will hit for real. Shoppers are already tightening their purse strings.

What will the apparel companies do? For a few years the fashion cycle has been so fast, and everyone has been buying trendy this and faddish that, throwing all their money away. I can't see how mass-market chains won't lose out when that suddenly drops off. There will still be some fads, of course; minimalism in the 90's wasn't just blankness, but a blank slate for other trends as well (grunge, heroin chic). But, like those, the fads superimposed on the 1990s of the 2000s won't be too lucrative, either. Luxury, of course, will keep booming through this, as those rich people continue to get even unbelievably richer, and they'll be able to afford the expensive designer versions of minimalism (People at Calvin Klein, start your engines).

So, the 90s trend is kind of a precursor to the end of the hipster fashion I predicted a few days ago. But, since it's still just a recycling of a previous decade, it's not the real deal. It will be more like a palate-cleanser. Because the 90s trend won't last a whole decade. In a few years, it will be over, and at that point we'll be all caught up; there won't be anything left to recycle...except for "recycling." How would that work--an ironic recycling of ironic recycling? That could be interesting. I look forward to seeing Marc Jacobs do it. Until then...black jeans, anyone...??

Long hair

2007-12-06T16:03:00.000-05:00

Long hair is going to be in. And I mean really long hair. Think Lady Godiva. Think Rapunzel.

Actually, those women’s stories are quite relevant to the trend. In both tales, a woman’s long hair simultaneously symbolizes chastity and sexuality; I believe that when a long hair trend occurs in the future, it will be associated with a similar set of semi-contradictory attitudes toward women.

Women are going to become both more and “less” sexual in the coming years. They’re going to be more sexual in the sense that they will become more informed about, comfortable with, and outgoing about their sexuality. I think women are going to be more sexually aggressive with men than they are now. But at the same time, I they will be more picky, and the hook-up culture will decline as women get better at enjoying sex for its own sake. (Yes, it’s just like with the hippies and their hair—only I think it’ll go further this time. If you think about it in terms of the “waves” model of social change, the sixties were a little wave of hair and sex, and we are now approaching another, bigger one.) Long hair will be only part of fashion’s response to women’s increased sexual sophistication, which will be manifested in a generally more organic, soft, tactile femininity.

Let’s look at where we’re starting from. The most recent hair trends have been the Jean Seberg/Rosemary’s Baby pixie cut and the bangs phenomenon. Both of those are little-girl looks, which went well with all the little-girl fashions of the past year and a half. They are also both very specifically centered on the cut, not the styling, of the hair.

I see the long-hair trend as a continuation of those styles. First of all, the little girl will become the pubescent girl. The women in our culture who are most likely to have long hair, currently, are tweens and teenagers, and therefore women who wear their hair long will be identifying with adolescence and sexual maturation. Secondly, the turn away from aggressive styling will persist and deepen in the long-hair trend, which will be actively anti-style. Instead, long hair will be worn loose. And I don’t think it will be kept fussily combed, either, but will be a little tangled and thicket-like (sexual symbolism again). Cory Kennedy has been an important innovator in this regard.

The anti-style element brings me to the other important precursor of long hair, the no-shampoo/Devachan movement. That haircare style, with its focus on working with hair’s natural texture and oils, is a step in the direction of a kind of hair-worship that will be part of the long hair style. I think that women will begin to re-identify with their hair, and what is now an often antagonistic relationship between women and their hair will become one of nurturing and enjoyment. Women’s healthy, natural hair will symbolize their healthy individuality and confident sexuality.

Sorry, straight-hairs, but curls will fashionable this time (opposite of in the sixties). Also: the Afro is on its way back.

Head-to-toe

2007-12-04T15:13:00.001-05:00

You hear it all the time: “I would never wear a whole outfit by one designer. I like to combine designer clothes with cheap stuff from H&M and vintage store finds to create my own unique look.”

“Unique.” Ha! That same unique look is worn by every single celebrity, rich person, hipster, and “fashionista” in the world. Sure, one person may combine that thrift-store jacket with a cocktail dress while another pairs it with an ironic T-shirt, but both people are wearing essentially the same look: that “I created my own unique style by wearing a bunch of stuff that doesn’t go together” look.

I’ll admit that, within the context of this now-ubiquitous “look,” creating a successful outfit requires some creativity. Honestly, it is quite a challenge, and someone devoted to getting it right can spend a great deal of time doing all the shopping and outfit-planning it requires. But to what end? A person who dresses like this may be wearing a unique outfit, but they are not sending a unique message. Instead they are sending the same message as everyone else on the planet: “I want to look creative, I hope I look cool, God these booties are uncomfortable, did I overdo it with the beret? Are people looking at me?” In other words, no message at all, except for a vague, self-centered longing for an identity. I think it’s only a matter of time, now, until people realize how shallow, boring, and essentially hypocritical this message is, and start looking for a new one.

I’m not asking for everyone to become genuinely unique and creative with their clothes. My, what a trial that would be! No, in fact, I’d prefer it if people dressed a little more alike, if that’s what it takes to get a new style going. After all, it’s nothing out of the ordinary for the majority of people to send the same message with their clothes; that’s what fashion is. In fashion, everyone sends the same message with their clothes at the same time because everyone in the society is going through the same things: the same economy, the same world events, the same environment, the same popular culture. Think back to some fashions that meant something (they’re easy to remember since we’ve now been recycling them in our creative outfits for the past ten years): flappers (“We’re liberated, we have legs, hooray!”); the New Look (“Yes! The war is over! we feel like looking HOT”); Courreges and space-age fashion (“We’re exited about the future, we’re going to fly to the Moon, we have even more legs, hooray!”). What fun those all were. These days, however, with our “unique” outfits, we’re trying to deny the fact that we’re all experiencing the same things. Instead we’re focusing on all the different experiences that are available to us now as a result of globalization and the internet, and that proliferation of possibilities is showing up in our wacky mish-mashed wardrobes.

But everyone is scared, too. And I think that fear is what’s causing us to place so much emphasis on creating a unique (but ultimately uncreative and “blocked”) style of dress. In this new world, with all its problems and possibilities, we’re afraid of losing our identities, of being submerged in mass culture. We’re insecure, so we’re exhibiting self-conscious, self-centered behavior. This is manifesting itself not in a new fashion, but in a new use of fashion.

Until recently, fashion wasn’t a very important part of most people’s lives. It was something that decorated, commented upon, and reflected life, but it wasn’t the focus of life. But since the millennium, fashion, and all the arts, have grown out of their proper contexts. Instead of being treated mainly as a decoration for life, the arts have come to substitute for it. We would rather look at art than what’s really going on in the world. Nowadays everyone wants to work in, or at least feel like they’re an expert in, film, fashion, music, writing, or art. Witness TV shows like The Hills and Project Runway: we’re all fascinated by people who are “making it” in these creative fields, and we think that in order to be truly unique and authentic, we have to be involved in creative pursuits ourselves, too. Witness the insane art market: everyone who can afford it is gobbling up art at high prices because they hope that its creativity and uniqueness will rub off on them.

But all this is an illusion. We can’t, as a culture, come up with a new statement in fashion because we’re overly focused on the fashion itself. Sooner or later, the feedback loop will have to break down, as a cannibalizing culture finally consumes itself. At that point, designers and other artists can turn back to looking at life, instead of at art, and a genuinely new style will grow out of that—one that reflects our times, our collective mood, and our culture’s aspirations. People—lots of people—will adopt the new style, and go from trying to be creative with their clothes to being genuinely creative with their lives—from insisting on the important uniqueness of their individuality to collaborating more in groups. Looking forward to that is very exciting.

I have a few ideas about what might happen, and I’ll probably post some of them later. But for now, I just want to predict (and pray) that before too long, we’ll start being able to say, “I’m wearing head-to-toe [blank],” and be proud of it.

Burn your bra

2007-12-03T22:02:00.000-05:00

Okay, here's the first fashion prediction I want to share with you: bralessness is going to be in.

The history of the brassiere tells us that the modern bra evolved out of the corset. In the late nineteenth century, concerns about corsets’ health risks and physical restrictiveness led to the invention of a new, supposedly more comfortable undergarment. This new underthing was like a corset split in half, with the bottom part cinching in the waist and the upper part supporting the bust. Over time, the waist corset evolved into the lighter, elasticized girdle, which in turn fell almost completely out of usage in the late 1960s, when control-top pantyhose rendered it obsolete. Today, of course, most women’s below-the-waist undergarments consist of nothing more than panties. The top half of the corset, in contrast, changed very little over the course of the twentieth century; most bras retain the corset’s boning (underwire) and rigidity (padding). The brassiere’s function, as well, has remained the same as that of the corset: the reshaping of the breasts into a desirable, artificial shape. The bra remains, essentially, a corset for the breasts.

If the top half of women’s undergarments had kept pace with the bottom half, then today, instead of brassieres, most women would be wearing the upper-body equivalent of panties: camisoles. Why did it not happen that way? It seemed for a time that it might: in the ‘60s, some women stopped wearing bras, and many continued this trend into the 1970s. In the ‘80s, though, the switch to “power dressing” and a backlash to feminism caused the bra to regain its status as a crucial foundation garment, which it retains today.

In my opinion, wearing a bra is extremely uncool. Apart from being shockingly old-fashioned, bras are uncomfortable, prudish, ugly, and expensive. So why do most women still wear them? I’ve heard large-breasted women say they find going braless uncomfortable. There’s also the aesthetic factor: bras can disguise the appearance of breasts that are droopy or asymmetrical. But why do women with nice-looking, regular-sized breasts still wear bras?

It all has to do with sexual repression. Un-bra’ed breasts are very sexy; they have shape, personality, and a natural bounciness. Breasts in a bra are comparatively much less sexy; molded into perfect, geometric hemispheres, “supported” and held in place, they are sanitized, and, I think, desexualized. The contemporary “hottie,” with her skintight T-shirt over her Victoria’s Secret bra, has transformed herself into a safe and unthreatening visual treat for men. Her cartoon breasts—nippleless and immobile, like Barbie’s—give no hint of their actual functions as secondary sexual characteristics or milk-producing organs. Bras do the same thing to breasts that corsets did to waists: they objectify them, turning them into symbols of femininity by distorting and destroying their natural, feminine shape.

I think it’s time for women to stop wearing bras. It’s “been time” for a while, but I think American culture might actually, finally, be ready for it. There aren’t that many clear signs that the trend is coming—the most obvious is American Apparel’s promotion of the no-bra look in its ads and online product photos—but I think that bralessness would extend and resolve too many existing, long-term trends in fashion not to become a fad. For one thing, the women most visually associated with fashion—models—do not wear bras. That's partly because they don’t need them because they’re so skinny and have small breasts as a result. But it’s also just not the convention for models to wear bras on the runway. Why should it be any different in real life? Women are getting more and more interested in high fashion, and wearing clothes just like runway models do would be another way of being authentically stylish. Secondly, I think that small breasts in themselves should become trendy because of their above-mentioned association with thinness—which, of course, continues to be quite the fashionable body type for females. A bralessness trend would give thin women yet another way to show off how thin they are. Finally, I don’t understand why bralessness hasn’t been “in” despite being so inherently rebellious and punk. In a society where we are constantly searching for the new, hip thing, the no-bra option is just too obvious of a potential fashion statement to be ignored.

Something is currently brewing in fashion regarding women’s underwear, and it’s all bound up in this transparency thing that is so big for spring. I predict that within a year, that theme will be carried to the next level. Underwear has been revealed and examined, and next it will be cast off as an unnecessary artifice standing in the way of fashion’s reimagining of the body. But I suggest adopting this trend now, before it happens, when it is still weird, naughty, and utterly cool.