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Normcore: It’s Hip to Be Square

February 26, 2014 /

normcore

Fiona Duncan:

Normcore—it was funny, but it also effectively captured the self-aware, stylized blandness I’d been noticing. Brad’s source for the term was the trend forecasting collective (and fellow artists) K-Hole. They had been using it in a slightly different sense, not to describe a particular look but a general attitude: embracing sameness deliberately as a new way of being cool, rather than striving for “difference” or “authenticity.” In fashion, though, this manifests itself in ardently ordinary clothes. Mall clothes. Blank clothes. The kind of dad-brand non-style you might have once associated with Jerry Seinfeld, but transposed on a Cooper Union student with William Gibson glasses. […]

K-HOLE describes normcore as a theory rather than a look; but in practice, the contemporary normcore styles I’ve seen have their clear aesthetic precedent in the nineties. The editorials in Hot and Cool look a lot like Corinne Day styling newcomer Kate Moss in Birkenstocks in 1990, or like Art Club 2000’s appropriation of madras from the Gap, like grunge-lite and Calvin Klein minimalism. But while (in their original incarnation) those styles reflected anxiety around “selling out,” today’s version is more ambivalent toward its market reality. Normcore isn’t about rebelling against or giving into the status quo; it’s about letting go of the need to look distinctive, to make time for something new.

Full Story: New York Magazine: Normcore: Fashion for Those Who Realize They’re One in 7 Billion

A simpler explanation is that this stuff is just the latest uncool thing that hipsters have made hip, and that the 90s are the new 80s.

(Though my own typical ensemble of a plain black t-shirt, bootcut blue jeans, black Vans slips and black Marmot rain jacket could easily be described normcore, and I justify it much the way the people interviewed for the story do)

(via Nathan Jurgenson)

3D Printed Headdress

December 17, 2013 /

3d printed headdress

A 3D printed headdress by Joshua Harker. More photos here.

See also:

3D Printed Fashion of Iris van Herpen

London designer creates 3D-printed, regenerative running shoes from protocells

(Thanks Jillian!)

Punk Rock Is Bullshit

March 8, 2013 /

At first I wondered how this article could possibly be relevant to anyone but a youngster still discovering punk for the first time. But, although there are bits I disagree with and the snarky tone is of reminiscent of exactly what the writer is preaching against, I think it’s worth a read because of how the ideology of punk has influenced other stuff. Anarchism, activist culture, the industrial scene, indie rock and, to a certain extent, the occulture and psychonaut communties. It can be seen as the roots of modern hipsterism. Arguably, it started earlier, with the beats, or with Dada, or with something else. But that’s a conversation for another day.

John Roderick writes:

What I’m talking about is “punk rock” as a political stance, punk rock as a social movement, punk rock as a fashion trend, punk rock as a personal lifestyle brand, and punk rock as a lens of critical appraisal. The shadow of punk rock has eclipsed countless new dawns under its fundamental negativity and its lazy equation of rejection with action.

What started out as teenage piss-taking at baby-boomer onanism quickly morphed into a humorless doctrine characterized by acute self-consciousness and boring conformism. We internalized its laundry list of pseudo-values—anti-establishmentarianism, anti-capitalism, libertarianism, anti-intellectualism, and self-abnegation disguised as humility—until we became merciless captors of our own lightheartedness, prisoners in a Panopticon who no longer needed a fence. After almost four decades of gorging on punk fashion, music, art, and attitude, we still grant it permanent “outsider” status. Its tired tropes and worn-out clichés are still celebrated as edgy and anti-authoritarian, above reproach and beyond criticism. Punk-rock culture is the ultimate slow-acting venom, dulling our expectations by narrowing the aperture of “cool” and neutering our taste by sneering at new flavors until every expression of actual individualism is corralled and expunged in favor of group-think conformity. […]

The truth is, if there really was an Illuminati bent on controlling the world through a secret government, they couldn’t have done a better job of defanging the youth movement than by introducing the self-negating, life-consuming, ignorance-propagating, lethargy-celebrating, divisive and controlling, fashion-based ideology of punk rock into the mainstream. It was basically the crack epidemic of rock culture.

Full Story: Seattle Times: Punk Rock Is Bullshit

(via Joshua Ellis)

It might be worth comparing punk with the hacker ethos, which for the most part embraced making money and building useful tools, but whose impact on the world is also debatable.

Rap Stars Turn to Punk Aesthetics

February 20, 2013 /

punk-jacket

Former Technoccult guest editor and EsoZone co-organizer Nick Pell drops some knowledge on Vice:

Hip-hop and punk were born at about the same time (the late 70s), in the same place (New York City), with the same rebellious and aggressive spirit; however, their fashion aesthetics have always clashed. Although there have been some instances of style cross-pollination—Public Enemy rocking Minor Threat gear, Lil Jon cloaking himself in Bad Brains apparel—rap stars have traditionally liked things loose-fitting, expensive, and flashy, while punks go for tight, ripped, and dirty.

Full Story: Vice: Anarchy in Hip Hop

(FWIW, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge says Lil Wayne was seen performing in a TOPI Psychic Cross hat)

Evolution Of Fashion As A Signifier

November 19, 2012 /

Evolution of Men's Fashion

Numidas Prasarn wrote:

We have images of masculine attire through the ages as being playful at some points, and completely dour and boring at others, with it ultimately landing on the latter. English psychologist John Carl Flugel coined the term for this phenomenon as “The Great Masculine Renunciation”. He writes, “modern man’s clothing abounds in features which symbolize his devotion to the principles of duty, of renunciation, and of self control.”[2] Changes in political attitudes and values pinned masculinity into this mode of restraint starting with 17th century France. And not to beat a dead french horse, but the death of the aristocracy was just the first nail in the coffin. After the French Revolution, specific signs of nobility and class distinction were shunned and in some cases outright outlawed. Which isn’t to say that in their push for liberty and equality in the Napoleonic era class distinction and social hierarchy did NOT exist, only that showing specific signs of flamboyance or excess, characteristics of the bourgeoisie, was unacceptable. And so we reach a period of uniformity and reserve in masculine dress, as Flugel puts it “Man abandoned his claim to be considered beautiful. He henceforth aimed at being only useful.”

Interestingly Prasarn cites the emergence of the dandy as part of this trend away from “play” in men’s dress towards minimalism, though I’d always had the impression of the dandy as a rather fanciful figure:

On the flipside, in the English Regency, there are two major factors that contributed to this change – the Age of Enlightenment and the quintessential dandy, Beau Brummell. England at this point is engaged in constant war between Napoleon, its own efforts at expansion, and itself (Hey, America!) and the French Revolution along with the philosophical writings of the time jump start this trend of neoclassicism. For men, this means a “sleeker” silhouette, to highlight the male body and echo the idealized physique in greek sculpture. Suddenly elaborate trims and ornamentation is left out and the quality of tailoring and cut of cloth is emphasized in such a way that implied the fitness and virility of the wearer (important also in a growing military culture). Beau Brummell takes this silhouette and runs with it, becoming the poster boy for men’s fashion. He is so influential as a style icon that it is often credited to him that we see the modern suit form, the dark colors and precise tailoring, starched crisp collar and a well placed necktie all from his cue (which he took from the french idealization of working class aesthetics).

Full Story: Coilhouse: The Evolution of Fashion as a Signifier

Previously: Fashion Is A Feminist Issue

“I Am So Goth, I Was Born Black”

September 20, 2012 /

Nadya writes at Coilhouse about the growing number of multicultural goth fashion blogs:

While there’s still never been a black model on the cover of Gothic Beauty Magazine (in fact, having looked the past twelve years of covers up close, it’s clear that even models with brown eyes appear to be a rarity among the blue- and green-eyed cover ladies), and while most spooky fashion designers still prefer white models for their branding, a host of blogs dedicated to multicultural dark fashion are bringing greater visibility to the people that these venues ignore. Just on Tumblr, there’s Darque & Lovely, DarkSKIN (subtitled “I was so goth, I was born black”), and Black Sheep Goths. On Facebook, groups such as Black/African American Goths foster lively discussion.

Full Story: Coilhouse: “I am so goth, I was born black”

Notes from a William Gibson Q&A Session (9/08/10)

April 10, 2012 /

These are my notes from William Gibson’s Q&A session after his Zero History reading at Powells Books in Portland, OR on 9/08/2010 (here are some photographs from the evening). I thought initially that most of this would come up in other interviews, but I recently reviewed my notes and realized that although some of it has come up elsewhere, some of it is either unique or unusual. So I decided to type up my notes.

Gibson started off saying “Powells is the best book store in the world. It’s not even a book store, it’s a genre all to its own,” before reading the first chapter of Zero History. After the reading he said “The reason I write opening chapters the way I do is to get rid of all the people who won’t ‘get’ the book. They’re all fairly easy to read after the first chapter.” He then opened up to questions. Most, probably all, of these answers are incomplete – but close to direct quotes from larger answers. I didn’t ask most of these questions and didn’t get down the exact questions asked.

Q: What’s next?

Gibson: I have no idea. I have to have no idea. I know no one believes me, but I never intended to make trilogies. When I was learning about writing, I was told that trilogy was a long novel with a boring middle published separately. I think the books could be read in any order. I think I would be interesting to read these backwards. But maybe that’s too advanced.

[of course now he’s said that his next novel will probably be about the future]

Where do you go for inspiration?

I’m not a globe trotting writer/researcher. Wherever I happen to go usually ends up in the book. For example, I happened to go to Myrtle Beach a few months before I wrote the book and I thought it was suitably weird.

Asked about predictions.

I’m not interested in the sort of sci-fi that does or doesn’t predict the iPad. I’m interested in how people behave.

Asked about the intelligence communities in his books

I don’t want anyone to think I’ve gone “Tom Clancy” but what you find is that you have fans in every line of work. How reliable those narrators are I don’t know, but they tell a good story.

Asked about humor in his work.

Neuromancer was not without a comedic edge. My cyberpunk colleagues and I back in our cyberpunk rat hole sniggered mightily as we slapped our knees.

But writers can’t have more than two hooks. “Gritty, punky,” sure. “Gritty, punky, funny” doesn’t work.

I asked him about the slogan “Never in fashion, always in style” because I read that slogan on his blog and never found out what company that slogan actually belonged to.

Aero Leathers in Scotland. But they weight too much. You wouldn’t tour in a WWII motorcyle jacket unless of course you were on a WWII motorcycle. [Gibson reportedly wore an Acronym jacket on the Zero History tour]

Asked about Twitter

Twitter is the best aggregator of novelty anywhere. There’s more weird shit there than anywhere. It’s the equivalent value of $300 worth of imported magazines for free every day.

Asked about hypertext/electronic media and how it is changing his work.

The book is a cloud of hyperlinks. You can Google any unfamiliar phrase and you will be sort of walking in my shoes, going where I did in my research. The links are there, and there’s even some easter eggs.

I’m not sure what question this was in response to

I large part of my narrative comes from growing up in a particularly backwards part of the south, which had a particularly spoken culture.

Asked about his favorite contemporary writers

[Anything by Iian Sinclair, Zoo City by Lauren Bach, Jack Womack’s Random Acts of Senseless Violence, which he found “wounding.”]

Asked about the punk influence on his work.

It wasn’t the Sex Pistols, it was Waylon and Willy.

Asked what sci-fi influenced him.

Certain sci-fi that never had much impact on the mainstream of the genre. My novels have had very little impact as well. If you don’t believe me, go down to a sci-fi specialist shop. Cyberpunk has become a descriptor – cyberpunk albums, cyberpunk pants.

Asked about cyberpunk’s legacy.

Anything with a manifesto ends up looking silly.

Asked what he thinks of the post-cyberpunk writers, Cory Doctorow et al.

I think the original cyberpunks were a little thin on the ground.

See also: William Gibson dossier.

3D Printed Fashion of Iris van Herpen

March 30, 2012 /

The work of Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen, whose designs have been worn by the likes of Lady Gaga and Bjork, are being featured in the Groningen Museum in the Netherlands. van Herpen uses 3-D printing to make dresses like this one:

(you can see a model actually wearing it in the video above)

More images and information: 3-Der: Iris van Herpen’s 3D-printed dresses in Groningen Museum

(via Fiarce)

See also: The New Aestetic and Future Fatigue

Fashion is a Feminist Issue

December 20, 2011 /

(photo by Toru Kogure)

Greta Christina writes:

Fashion is one of the very few forms of expression in which women have more freedom than men.

And I don’t think it’s an accident that it’s typically seen as shallow, trivial, and vain.

It is the height of irony that women are valued for our looks, encouraged to make ourselves beautiful and ornamental… and are then derided as shallow and vain for doing so. And it’s a subtle but definite form of sexism to take one of the few forms of expression where women have more freedom, and treat it as a form of expression that’s inherently superficial and trivial. Like it or not, fashion and style are primarily a women’s art form. And I think it gets treated as trivial because women get treated as trivial. […]

If you don’t personally care about fashion and style, that’s fine. We don’t all have to care about the same art forms: I could care less about grand opera, and it’s unlikely that I’m ever going to. I do think people should be aware that what they wear communicates something to other people — something about who they are and how they feel about the world and their place in it — and I think many people would be better off if they made that communication intentionally instead of un-. But again, we all don’t have to care about the same forms of communication. If what you want to say about yourself through your clothing is, “I wear clothes so I won’t be naked,” that is entirely your prerogative, and none of my business.

But if you think other people — especially other women — who do care about fashion and style are shallow, trivial, or vain for doing so?

That is my business.

Greta Christina: Fashion is a Feminist Issue

(via eecummingscapitalized)

Great post, though some might dispute the conflation of “fashion” and “style.”

Witch Style Hits Diesel

September 5, 2011 /

Diesel Witch Style, staff, skull

See also:

Beta Unit 2

Multifunctional Clothes for Modern Mystics

paris vogue satanism pics

Devil Worship Is The New Black

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