reduce/redress

Irène Hillel-Erlanger

2011-04-01T15:19:00.002-05:00

Pourquois j'écris? ... pas facile à écrire. Disons (s’il vous plaît) quej’écris parce que j’adore la parole et aussi parce quej’aime Paris – et les catalogues des grands magasinsde nouveautés! (Littérature 11, January 1920, p. 23)

André Breton

2011-01-14T15:20:00.000-06:00

"Every time I pass a cloakroom, my mind goes back to the already distant days when I first knew Max Ernst, and the time he told me how sure he was of having once seen the hats and overcoats leave the rack where they were hanging and move away to another rack some distance away, without any apparent human intervention. This event had taken place in Cologne, I believe, and I remember that, in

Ellsworth Kelly

2010-12-20T18:44:00.001-06:00

(Anne Weber in a dress designed by Kelly, Sanary, 1952)

Lucia Moholy

2010-12-13T21:22:00.004-06:00

i am almost starting to believe that it's not my fault alone that i'm not creating any of my own work. business is simply eating me up. when one spends eight hours in the workshop one no longer has the energy to work seriously in the evening, especially not here, with so many people around, many of them close to me. sometimes i run a pension and sometimes a flourishing nightclub, and i must say

Richard Martin

2010-12-08T15:04:00.002-06:00

"Everyone says, 'Why don't you do an art and fashion show?" To my succinct answer, 'never,' some do not hesitate to reply, 'Well, you could do it your way.' I've done it my way: NO WAY. The generalization is inane and not even worth consideration. Do not, under any circumstances, use this book recklessly; do not believe in art and fashion simply on the evidences of some

Walter Benjamin

2010-12-06T21:49:00.003-06:00

An image to characterize Baudelaire's way of looking at the world. Let us compare time to a photographer--earthly time to a photographer who photographs the essence of things. But because of the nature of earthly time and its apparatus, the photographer manages only to register the negative of that essence on his photographic plates. No one can read these plates; no one can deduce from the

Lee Miller

2010-12-06T12:34:00.004-06:00

Germany is a beautiful landscape dotted with jewel-like villages ... Mothers sew and sweep and bake, and farmers plough and harrow; all just like real people. But they aren't; they are the enemy. This is Germany and it is spring.-Fashion and Modernity, 45

Derrida

2010-12-02T17:42:00.004-06:00

almost nothing is left (me): neither the thing, nor its existence, nor my own, nor the pure object, nor the pure subject--no interest whatsoever in anything that exists. All the same, I like; no that is still excessive, that still probably implies interest in existence. I do not like, but I take pleasure in that which does not interest me, at least insofar as it does not matter whether I like it

Le Corbusier

2010-12-02T17:32:00.005-06:00

"Gilding is fading out ... glitter is going under ..."-from The Decorative Art of Today (1925)

Saks does it again ...

2007-03-22T13:17:00.000-05:00

This shot from the recent Saks spring preview catalogue (which of course I get for having Saks card: personal contradiction #1) made me do a double-take. Not that I was surprised; Saks has continually and predictably come up with the most inane, regressive, and - dare I say - evil advertising that I have recently encountered (I only say recently because Monsanto wins the "most evil advertising

Zoot-Suits and the broad strokes of fashion rebellion: Lecture on Cosgrove's paper

2007-02-27T13:16:00.000-06:00

Zoot suits were first popularized among marginalized youth in the late 30s and 40s.Young Filipino Americans, Mexican Americans (especially in LA: “Pachucos”), African Americans, and Italian Americans, people who had no voice, who were pushed to the “margins” of society.The zoot-suit looked like an exaggerated “English Drape” suit (in fact, initially called “drapes”):Wide trousers with tight

Fashion as a Social Happening: Lecture on Blumer's Collective Selection

2007-02-26T17:05:00.000-06:00

Who is Blumer?A sociologist just like Simmel, but writing 70 years later. Unlike Simmel, he has observed the fashion industry first-hand.Blumer asks that fashion be taken seriously by those studying society. This is because, as he argues,Fashion includes more than clothing (or “adornment”)And it is usually not perceived as fashion, but as “superior practice,” or natural. “The fashions which we