Elentor posted:

They said "I'd also love to know what you learn majoring in fashion." and I answered partially, since it's more than just that. Sorry that you consider that tiny post "a lot of words", I just typed a shitload more, hth.

a few DRUNK BONERS posted:

Do you think Fashion still exists in 2022 or are we just repeating things from 30 years ago?

this poster is a oval office posted:

Elentor posted:

This is a similar progression of the punk aesthetic compared to how Jeans went from the symbol of a revolution in the 50's (and notably, a fashion statement in a movie literally called Rebel Without a Cause). The Punk style which in the 90's was still made fun of as something representative of someone unemployable because of standards as to how someone looks no longer holders that stigma so strongly; the suits used by Froskurinn and the business blazer used by Samaha Sam are not, however, the "suit women have to use to go to work in the 90's", they're fashion statements. So due to the reduction of social stigma, the normalization of Rock and associated styles among the younger generations who grew up with them, the reduction of fashion-as-an-employability factor in some fields gave way to a divergent Punk style. Whereas rich people evolved that look into what's called "Punk Chic", there's a different, separate trend that mixes Punk with Business used to signal the alternative look not as part of a rebel motive, but as being part of a tribe or group that no longer associates itself with non-professionalism.

STABASS posted:

there's literally no law against wearing bath robes 24/7. I checked

STABASS posted:

there's literally no law against wearing bath robes 24/7. I checked

Lil Swamp Booger Baby posted:

Its cuz u gay haha

Barudak posted:

Special shoutouts to my two opposing camps regarding gucci's not water proof umbrella of "why the gently caress is the umbrella not waterproof?" and "why would I own any waterproof umbrella?"

Ograbme posted:

So what is wrong with rich peoples' brains that makes them feel "bad" for wearing a $10 plain white shirt instead of an indistinguishable $500 one?

Yaldabaoth posted:

It takes a special kind of sheltered rich gently caress to not understand what an umbrella is for.

Ograbme posted:

So what is wrong with rich peoples' brains that makes them feel "bad" for wearing a $10 plain white shirt instead of an indistinguishable $500 one?

Ograbme posted:

So what is wrong with rich peoples' brains that makes them feel "bad" for wearing a $10 plain white shirt instead of an indistinguishable $500 one?

Elentor posted:

Fashion as an abstract concept is the study of the elements that humans (and other animals) use to distinguish themselves; it's fundamentally linked to tribalism and signaling.

So the study of fashion has an important historical value; since fashion is the foremost way to signal something implicitly to avoid having to explain yourself explicitly, you can find the links (and reconstruct the missing links) throughout all the history and even prehistory of humanity. We can reconstruct the peregrination of our ancestors based on the evolution of their outfits in burial sites as far as 800,000 years ago; starting 50,000 years ago we have a pretty solid idea of who moved where based on artifacts and symbolism from art found, but fashion tends to be a stronger indicator across all periods because the amount of civilizations that buried their dead with symbols that represented status or achievements is pretty high.

The Fashion as an industry is highly segregated, with different designers and magazines having very different opinions; the generations also vary wildly. For example, John Oliver has a great video on the cultural issues faced by black people due to having ethnic hair and for many years the industry as a whole focused on non-African hair; this created an issue because both your cheap *and* your premium L'Oreal group products are not good at all for ethnic hair. Millennials who joined the Fashion industry tried to dissociate some of the cultural stigma that was revived with regards to black culture, in particular the revival of Afrofuturism, which had peaked with Disco, is a very important step in moving society away from the preconception and stereotypes that black people are primitive. The other thing was an update of the Black Power movement - which has a very obvious name - and broadening into different hairstyles for black people to express themselves. Because traditional conditioners are not nutritive enough for black hair, it became standard to use alternative oils, like coconut oil, and since social prejudice works retroactively those scents became associated with poverty (that John Oliver video goes on it). So as an example of a recent movement, the Haircare industry loving finally incorporated coconut oil in hair lines for black people. Kérastase recently released the Kérastase Curl Manifesto (a very hilarious name but it does describe the importance of it), and some of its incredibly expensive products, such as the Huile Curl, incorporate coconut oil.

This small microcosmos of the Fashion industry revolves around political and social movements focused on normalization. In this sense, the inherent study of classism allows to exploit it to normalize over the years/decades (or sometimes just months). If a rich person wearing Kérastase products for their curly hair smell like coconut oil, then that particular scent is no longer tied down to as "not caring about your hair", which is downright ludicrous.

Fancy fashion shows, especially those hosted by Vogue, are like the E3 of fashion. They're not really representative of anything except Fashion as seen by that particular group, which does have a lot of influence, but to make a game analogy it does not touch on your average mobile game player, or your average moba player, or anyone not interested in the show they're putting on for AAA consoles. These tend to focus on experimental concepts, either the subversion of standing norms, the revival of previous styles that fell out of vogue, or just going crazy just because.



Balenciaga in particular is a gimmick brand. When you're dealing with these high-end brands it's useful to keep in mind they sort of have gimmicks, if you don't know about them then they might look just as one big blob. When Marc Jacobs left Louis Vuitton he satirized the overuse of LV's self-referential monogram, which other brands copied, with this:



This tongue-in-cheek approach is an intentional contrast with LV's incredibly serious use as just class statement. MJ does stupid stuff like this:



To contrast with the completely insipid brown-filled-with-LV-logo look from LV, which exists for no other purpose than to show you can afford a Louis Vuitton:





So then you get to Balenciaga. In contrast with some of the examples I gave, the "dirty, expensive shoes" do not exist to normalize people who wear dirty shoes: Rather they exist to allow people to have that look while still maintaining as ostentatious air. It's the same reason why there are $10 white shirts that look indistinguishable from fancy brand's $1000 white shirts. They're not a scam, because the people buying them know exactly what they're buying, and they're not sold as 500% more resistant. Rather they're just what we see as a way to funnel money from the rich who wants to dress like poo poo but not feel bad about it.

All of it is highly contextual, but as a general rule of thumb: If you, someone who doesn't understand anything about fashion, finds something ridiculous, it's because it is. No one in the fashion business or adjacent is looking at that bizarre cropped blazer the OP posted and thinking it's great. However, whether that "ridiculous" has context or not, varies - some artists like Billie Eilish are easily identifiable by her use of over-the-top fashion like the Balenciaga examples. In that sense, these elements become part of self-representation, but the more specific they go the less they become representative of a group, and more of an individual. If that fashion is trickled down, however, as a response to people actively finding way to imitate said individuals to signal their culture, then these ridiculous one pieces become part of society as they're not identifying something, usually bought at accessible discount prices 10 to 100 times cheaper than the original terrible ideas that originated them.

TIP posted:

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hmmm I'm gonna have to call them up to see if I can pay extra for heavier poop stains