TALKING POINT | The Rise of the Street

A different point of view about using street as design inspiration.

What comes to your mind when the word "street" is uttered? For me, who resides in the crowded, collapsing capital called Jakarta, traffic, dust, and endless constructions are the top three answers. Different take on the "street" will surely come out from the blessed groups whose view includes the Eiffel, the Empire State Building or the Brandenburg Gate. Street, for them, might spark inspiration, raw energy and stylish crowd hanging out in hip places. Put a photographer in that spot, and you will get stream of invigorating street style shots, capturing real people dress in an effortless chic manner ready to be snapped any time and still look cool. This particular understanding of "street" then brings title of "high street" to Zara, Topshop and those alike, in a way entitling them to claim the style of the street as rightfully theirs.

I have vague idea of which one comes first: whether the high street chains produce accessible clothes and gain profits, which lures the high-end designers to draw elements of the "street" for their own collections, or whether the designers inspire the high-street brands to adopt their design at a more affordable price range. In both cases, the street is much praised, and its influence transpires to all layers of fashion kingdom. Sneakers, backpacks, denim, bomber jackets, slouch dresses, and more - almost everything on the runway can be called "street," and here we see how street transforms from the roads you walk on into an adjective in the fashion universe. Street equals to laid back, slightly rebellious, oftentimes wild. Street is young and sporty. Street is new, more commercial, more accessible. The rise of the street is even further escalated by the couture fashion houses: Dior introduces sneakers in the spring '14 couture collection and Chanel brings "street protesters" (a.k.a. white-dominated models screaming feminism manifesto) to its spring/summer '15 runway. 

Reflecting back to the streets of Jakarta, or even the streets of Berlin (this I can testify for I have physically been there), the spirit of the real street has definitely lost its meaning in fashion. On the street people are struggling to survive, thumping the ground to make their way to work. Teenagers who hang out on the streets are no longer revolutionists, they simply have nowhere to go or they just don't have money to go anywhere. Street, at the same time, is a familiar pathway that can lead you to home. But to cite street as an inspiration for glamorous pieces being appropriated for daily wear (cue: Hedi Slimane's Saint Laurent) is taking advantage of a struggling place. Anything but street, I beg you, a word to describe your clothes and what is currently in trend.  

P.S. Style.com has been re-designed and it includes "street" as the menu now. I am an opposition in this case, although Tommy Ton's street style photos are always the ones I impatiently click during fashion week.

image: style.com

  

THOUGHTS | The Internet’s Effect on Fashion

While internet offers uncountable options, fashion is experiencing a uniformity of taste.

Internet has liberated fashion in a way that fashion cannot even liberate itself. This very moment is the time when fashion bloggers are applauded for their style mastery, when #ootd (stands for outfit of the day) hashtag will guarantee more likes than book-related photos in Instagram and when fashion week has gradually lost its relevance. Take an example from how easy it is for people to tune in style.com and other websites to see the latest collection looks and even live-stream the runway shows.

If we are to list internet influences on liberating fashion, a logical path we are supposed to find is a more diverse fashion scene, where people get a platform to express their individualities and brands are able to engage the consumers personally. And at a glimpse, that is indeed what happens. Most notably marked with the birth of fashion bloggers and online shopping behavior, fashion appears to let go of its exclusivity factor and comes out as a royalty ready to mingle. (disclosure: as a matter of fact, as I’m writing this piece, I cannot keep my fingers from changing tabs to several blogs) Internet has become such a warmhearted playground for those whose wardrobe is too outrageous or those who want to channel their “creativity” outside the real life. The world wide web with its gargantuan space thus welcomes innumerable takes on fashion.

But, really, is that what happens?

Yes, bloggers get the chance to show off their individual style, but are their styles any different? Counting how many similar products the bloggers have can tell you better. Yes, we all can upload our “outfit of the day,” but are our outfits strikingly different? Your Instagram filter can perhaps illustrate better. This so-called democracy of fashion, it turns out, brings an anonymity and uniformity of taste.

What I’d like to address with "boringness" in fashion and style accounts to our unhappiness to the innumerable choices. Or at least, that is what the internet entities think we feel. Thus every day we are offered chances to “curate” what we see through who we’re following on social media channels, which websites we are subscribed to, and even we can handpick whose feeds we will be presented with upon signing in to Facebook. With these whole additional and more diverse options, people start to filter and choose who they want to be exposed with. And by the end of the day, once you read or view the same thing on a regular basis, you become that thing.

After all, maybe uniformity in fashion isn’t entirely dangerous so the designers can predict better what each customer likes. And to us? The uniformity can bring in more likes for our #ootd posts because we can easily predict what kind of photo the majority likes. Henceforth, I’d like to welcome you to the future of online fashion. The future that believes in “minimalism” and “nineties” as evident on the latest runway of a lot of major fashion houses, the future that encourages commercialism but forgets to celebrate diversity. The future that casts out your individual style statement. The future you may not belong to.

image is from tumblr

THOUGHTS | 5 Reasons Why Fashion becomes Boring

I have seemed to lost the thrills and excitement right when fashion week reaches its height.

Beautiful girl, bored expression always sells

To keep this really straightforward, here are some reasons why I find fashion less interesting these days:

1. The repetitive looks highly inspired by Balenciaga during Ghesquière period and Céline during Philo period for the upcoming fall/winter. There are too many of them--in all New York, London, Milan and Paris it seems that distinguished aesthetics are now gone and replaced by the needs to sell clothes. Or is it because the designers are basically exposed to similar things thanks to popular websites and social media channels?
*inserting the correct French name takes some effort, you know.

2. The stagnancy of fashion blogs. When those popular girls (and boys) depart from their chic environment to the "high fashion" territory, they somehow start to produce similar content in their blogs. Not to mention their similar styles and similar activities during fashion week. Plus the inability of the bloggers to produce high quality review, the whole blogging content is really inundated with various phrases that all mean the same: We love it because we are invited.
*There are still few distinctive bloggers who stand out with their wit and smart take on the collection, but the rest of the pack is really frustrating.

3. Monotonous captures of the "street style personalities" in the so-called leading street style websites. Other than the polished looks on the runway crafted by expert stylists, I pretty much would love to see the pieces on real person. This where the street style photographers are supposed to feed their readers with. But instead of photographing great style regardless of how famous the person is, they consistently take photos of renowned fashion industry insiders. Thus the website appears no different than those of celebrity websites.
*Again, there are several exclusions to this, but I really cannot help but including this disappointing tendency of the street style trend here.

4. Local designers putting unbelievably high price tag on their clothes. Personally, I would love to buy local designers' clothes because that way, I feel like I have partaken in supporting the local talents. But once they start going gaga on pricing, that would be hard for a lot of people to access their clothes. I am not saying that it should be cheap, but there are times when I find crappy cutting, messy lining or mediocre fabric being priced unfairly high. The local brands serving middle class, in particular, are now labelling themselves as "exclusive" thus creating gap for the people to access them. Regular bazaars bringing a number of local brands together are becoming hit and miss, somehow classifying themselves in the category of "cool" and the rests are simply "not cool."

5. Snob fashion insiders. This is a long overdue issue, but the stamp given on the people working in the fashion industry is: They are mean. A more important thing to consider is actually: Is it because of the movie "Devil Wears Prada" or because the fashion workers regard brands and positions more than they regard style and aesthetic?
*Exclusion, exclusion, exclusion to several warmhearted fashion people out there.

I haven't rested my case. But this should be enough for now. I am still waiting for Ghesquière upcoming Louis Vuitton collection, which is supposed to be fantastic. The beautiful photo is from here, used for illustrative purpose only.

STORY | Love and Hate in Fashion Week

Apparently, the dilemma of whether you should only highlight a plus from one collection and abandon things that you dislike does not only strike the journalist.

Amidst the enormous storm of New York Fashion Week news in our feed, a question persists: what if I hate a particular collection? That very same question perhaps crosses the mind of the front row citizens and fashion journalists in attendance, plenty of which decides to talk about the highs and disregard the lows. Upon my observation, constant absence of discussions about particular brand are actually signals that it is widely unloved.

Sad, isn’t it?

I am simply curious of what is really going on in the mind of the show-goers and what are the discussions off the record when it comes to something we hate. Let’s face it, fashion industry has been long regarded as a bitchy source, where people who work in it slowly become the devil who wears Prada (although in reality, only a handful REALLY wears Prada – the rest should crawl up to reach the high ladder to afford one). So why are almost all reviews reflect something positive? Where are the sharp opinions and snarky commentaries for the designers?

On a logical note, designers who have created collections that result in millions of dollars must have adequate skills NOT to screw up and design badly. They have the power as well, as performed by some designers who dislike negative commentary from the journalists. They can delete you from the invitees list or place you somewhere far far away that only the heads of the models are visible. Deletion from the invitation list is probably not so bad, when compared to the brand’s decision for discontinuing their advertisement agreement with the related publication.

Horrible, isn’t it?

And apparently the bloggers, who now count themselves as the influential commentators and taste makers, continue to proclaim their love for almost all shows they are invited to. I am both a blogger and a journalist, albeit not (yet?) a wildly popular one, but somehow I sense this kind of wrong doings in terms of criticism in fashion. It should be fun, yes, but at the same time I feel that it should be democratic and open for discussion.

From my own experience, I have once tweeted something blatantly negative about certain collection of the house and someone, a local designer, fired back at me by pretty much saying that I am no expert thus I have no legibility to give such opinion. Really? Because to me, when the so-called experts of fashion cannot really say and explain what’s going on, then someone who is free from obligation to obey any advertisement deal has the right to sound their opinion. When the fashion journalists are flocking to make the brands look good, I think it is not such a bad thing to deliver criticism in my own way and praising in my own way, too. I can give some stupid shitty sentences to describe a collection, but that is probably just my way of learning. 

Or not?

If that is really not, then I will just resume my fashion writing 101 from the reputable style.com. I hopefully will find my way of explaining my lack of understanding in the whole à la mode universe.

photo is from style.com (Proenza Schouler SS14)

P.S: I admire the bravery of Robin Givhan (and celebrate her return to fashion journalism) to write something honest and at the same time, thoughtful regarding the mess creative confusion at Rodarte.

FASHION SCENE | It's Fashion Weeks!

On what feels like forever in blogging timeline, I am thrilled and feel obliged to do a post as the big month a.k.a fashion week is approaching. 

September and March are two holy months in fashion industry, for the a la mode capitals of New York, London, Milan, and Paris--in that order, celebrate the upcoming season that seems like a million year later but already so salivating with shows and parties. Not to be seconded, the street style will also undoubtedly be an essential part of the fashion weeks, where the right clothes (that is autumn/winter collection) are worn at the right seasons, and we can cheer upon it.

Hoard of editors and buyers and bloggers--the last one mentioned is still a highly debatable subject (or object?) up until today, in which people and the industry as a whole are weighing their influence and importance for sitting up in the same row as the journalists and what themselves consider as industry insiders, will fly across the world to the cities, fitting all the statement pieces into their trunks (monogram or not) and charging their gadget batteries full all the time so they can take pictures and later instagram them all. Designers and models--used to be the only subjects worth talking about during the weeks, will still rush to get the show done, oftentimes being rewarded with the big headlines and endless mentions after satisfying the hunger of the fashion eyes.

And what is the main point of it all?

Years before (fashion historian can calculate), people like ME--a.k.a. no one, cannot give this kind of elaboration because everything happened in fashion weeks is basically untouched, away from the reach of the mundane. Shows are exclusive, invitations are given to the most influential, clients, buyers, and editors are the only pairs of vision who see. So with all the access we have to whatever happens behind-the-scene and plenty photos that tell stories, how will the fashion week change?

One, everything will get stale so easily. Suzy Menkes has articulated it in T Magazine just right regarding the confusing season of fashion, where the fashion weeks are showing six months in advance and being stocked just for around a month. As everything has been reviewed and seen before, when the season comes, it will no longer be viewed as new, but rather, outdated.

Two, the line between the insiders and outsiders is blurry. We witness it all, we have access to it all; so who to say that we are outsiders? Journalists, for once, get all the invitations. But now, the bloggers, even those who only showcase what they wear each and every day without any insight and commentary pieces can get into the show, taking beautiful photos, and (probably) walking away with goodies. I really appreciate those who really put out great piece of writing accompanied by photos, thus enabling me to understand the collection from different point of view and helping me to reach the exclusivity. But those who perhaps hashtag their post with #ootd each and every time? I still don't get it.

Three, overflowing information. I have once stopped following certain twitter accounts as they constantly update everything happens and somehow it bugs the hell out of me. Call me old-school but that is really what I feel, that people require some time to digest all the updates of fashion week. At least, a thoughtful commentary and decent photo are sufficient to feed us all, rather than constantly updating meaningless low quality photos on everything you see on the runway (which is later uploaded by style.com anyway). And that is just one case, probably in relation with how fast everything turns old is that we see similar outtakes everywhere and cannot help but getting tired of it.

Still, I am excited about fashion weeks and wish to one day join the merciless, fashionably on-time crowd.

What say you?

image: STREETFSN