Re: REM on how to shop
2002.06.27 11:51
You bring up the notion of some 'fashions' that might be timeless, the suit coat, for example. You also ask if fashion has always been an industry of things that don't last.
Yes fashion has always been an industry of things that do not last, and the suit coat is a perfect example of how fashion controls our modern culture, although I prefer to use the necktie as an example.
The necktie is nothing more than a vestige of bondage. Neckties are nothing if not useless, yet they do effectively place a knot around the neck. Nonetheless, they are still worn because it is some sort of correct thing to do, and what a joke that is. Why should any modern individual care if anyone wears a necktie or not--there is nothing about it that makes sense. The necktie represents a direct bondage to the irrationality of conformity to what is now a huge industry of fashion. (Yes there are times when I wear a necktie, e.g., funerals or weddings, and once or twice a year is about all I can take.)
Think of all the suit coats that wouldn't need to be bought if everyone worked at home. Think of all the air pollution that wouldn't happen and fossil fuel saved if everyone worked at home.
When Dutch architects Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos (www.unstudio.com) said "Architects will be the fashion designers of the future," were they really saying something that at base is unethical in terms of it's promotion of planned obsolescence, or were they (correctly?) predicting that architects will soon be the consummate designers of all things that purposefully do not last?
Given the fact that The Harvard Design School Guide To Shopping is an academic/student exercise, shouldn't it really have been published online and made freely available to all? Harvard certainly has the means to underwrite such an effort, and there really is no reason why paper, ink, and all the other resources needed to print 1000s of books should have been so wasted. For doing the 'book' the way they did, the Harvard Design School indicates just how bad they can be at design.
Maybe a concerted effort to separate design from fashion is design's real next challenge.
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