Tag: ootd

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Fashion

All Gussied Up

At the recent press events I attended, noticing the fashion tribe I wondered.  Why do they wear everything but the frying pan? Many were gussied up wearing all the labels from their shelves popping in and out of offices and showrooms. I wondered if there had been a looting at a luxury department store.   The pride of being kitsch while not understand the meaning of the word scares me.

Chanel’s quote is, “The last thing you put on, take off.” This has been lost on the Kill for TikTok crowd.   When at one time anyone with an eye could see quality and style, in today’s social media driven world standing out as if you were the Oscar Mayer Weiner Mobile at a 4th of July Parade means everything. 

It is sad to look dated after only two hours.  A great style is eternal.  Jackie O never wore a brand emblazoned on her chest. Before Covid, around 2018, many fashion houses redesigned logos to take advantage of the camera phone ratio in an attempt to attract younger buyers.  Monogramed mania took over the fashion industry. Every piece had to display a name.

The world had been hit with a name brand sledgehammer. The influencers, TikTokers wear everything all at once.  This embellishment veers to pathological bad taste.  Imagine stuck in a room with a person who has a big Louis Vuitton bag, Chanel glasses, oversized Balenciaga sneakers and a shinning Gucci jacket. I needed a certified CPA degree to track all the names.   How many of these items were fake?  No clue!

The shift to subtle fashion has taken place, however I do not think it has made its way to the younger crowd. “Bling” is still a way of life, showing off for the camera.  Thankfully, kitchen items do not have a YSL monogram on the side. 

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Before Tacky Fashion

Yoshiki in Paris

Masion Yoshiki showed at Paris Fashion Week for Spring 2025, going with geometric shapes and many mini hemlines the designer buttressed looks with black, white and pastel colors. According the press release, the Japanese Superstar paid homage to 60’s American Pop Culture with print dresses.

Yoshiki at PFW
Yoshiki at PFW
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Fashion

The First Impressions, Paris

For some reason Paris Fashion Week felt a bit desperate for attention this season.  Pandering is never good.   In the crowded landscape designers are under pressure to get that viral moment to stand above the rest. For this reason, some collections looked disjointed, a circle in a square peg.  Creatively, the City of Lights fashion scene has become overly vulnerable to smartphone scrolling.

Paris Fashion Week
Paris Fashion Week Valentino

The big news, Alessandro Michele’s debut at Valentino.  The stage setting fitting for the Rome born designer: dreams and romance. That was the problem.  Valentino was a brand of refined elitism. Jackie O to Joan Collins, the Jet Set Crowd wore the label as an emblem of being in a certain club.  Alessandro’s collection, while lush, comes across as garish compared to the house’s past styles.  While in doubt of the 51-year-old talent, his Gucci era heavily influenced looks on the runway.  It is no secret Kering Group invested in the house, perhaps a way to challenge Louis Vuitton in the uber luxury brand category, however, as soft luxury is trending with shoppers, why did they allow Alessandro to drive the opposite direction?  

Paris Fashion Week
Paris Fashion Week Balenciaga

Demna at Balenciaga continues to challenge what makes fashion, fashion. The French label is popular with young buyers.  The oversized sneakers were a must have for anyone under twenty-five.  The giant logo on shirts worked in the Selfie Age.  In 2024 the Georgian born returned to what he did best.  Oversized jackets that belong on a lifeboat and baggy jeans were runway staples.  Inner wear for the night, perfect for going to the 1920’s KitKat club. Do these looks work with young people looking for the lowest price on an app? Only the book keepers at Balenciaga know the answer.

Stay tuned for more fashion weeks coverage and more episodes of the Before Tacky Podcast.

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Fashion

Vivid From LA

BruceGlen

Streetwear fashion label BruceGlen has an expressive take on streetwear. The Los Angeles based brand goes for vivid looks. I met twin brothers Bruce and Glen Proctor at the Milan Fashion Week Hub while the duo were showing some of the expressive pieces. Are these pieces a person would wear everyday? Who cares! As they said, “It’s about fun.”

One of the Twins
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Fashion

Buying The Alternative Confidence

Handbags

“Luxury bags make your life more pleasant, make you dream, give you confidence, and show your neighbors you’re doing well.” Largerfeld.

As the luxury handbag bubble pops due to working condition and mark-up scandals and over, there are alternatives to big brands. The labels I listed below are small, not mass produced, but more importantly, unique. A person carrying one of these pieces will get a lot of compliments.

While in Milan, walking by Up You To Anthology on my way to a Fashion Week appointment, I decided to go in. After speaking to the curator, he told me each bag is designed by artists with a limited production run.

Anthology
Up To You Anthology

During Pitti Uomo I always pass by the Sentiero Florence store. Looking in the window I decided to go in and see. The sales lady told me about the family owned label still producing handbags in Tuscany.

Sentiero Florence
Sentiero Florence
La portegna
La Portegna Madrid

I am recommending this brand because the online review have been good for this Madrid’s La Portegna. Spanish producers are known for quality leather goods.

Bonastre Paris
Bonastre

I met the Bonastre team at Pitti Uomo. As a small luxury brand the designer and staff have close relationship all aspects of the Paris based label from design to the final product.

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Fashion

That’s A FAKE & We Know It

Handbags

Style moved from Having It to Faking It. As with so many elements in modern life, expensive handbags may not be what you think, fake handbags are stylish. Once a secret, today buyers and influencers proudly display cheap knock offs.

Handbags
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Fashion Feature

Fantasy vs. Reality

The Dior Fantasy is of a handbag made with passion in a stylish factory.

The reality is very different. Dior’s handbags are made mass produced under sweatshop conditions.

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Fashion

More Zara Than Luxury

Dior Saddle

 Luxury industry has adopted the same appalling production model as their fast fashion counterparts. Today, Dior faces charges of exploitative production practices. As the lust for high end products grew the business model changed to satisfy consumer wants. Mass consumption means mass production.  Luxury went from exclusive to inclusive.  Many highly sort after brands morphed into glorified Zaras.

Big fashion companies are integrated entities with huge supply chains needing products to sell. Big profit margins at the expense of quality, the product will suffer from a bottom line decision.  As many shoppers are learning, perhaps the pricey handbag may not be worth the extravagantly inflated price tag. 

Almost on every corner in major cities there is a luxury brand.  In London, seven Louis Vuitton stores are north of the Thames. Buyers fooled themselves into believing they had entitled admittance to a club, when in reality they had been conned.   As the headlines from Italy continue to roll, shock is turning to outrage.   A 56 euros bag selling at 2800 euros rankles. On social media, opinions range from disappointment to disgust. One Korean YouTube Blogger reported local customers are going to the Dior Store asking for their money back or returning bags purchased in the past few weeks.

The Saddle Bag HMMM!

Dior Saddle Bag
Dior Saddle Bag

Does anyone remember when the French House was giving away thousands of Saddle Bags in 2018 to online celebs? As influencers peddled luxury wares, none asked serious obvious questions concerning production techniques or quality. Brand chasers just take the gift, no questions asked.  Watching video after video from “tastemakers” many have labeled accessories in their backgrounds while telling followers about being disillusioned with Dior.  Life is cruel. Stylists loved posting big label overpriced bags on Instagram feeds. Why do brands burn excess unsold stock? Missed clues. Maybe what they were making was not as valuable as we were led to believe.   As an editor I favoured small brands.  The teams have a family feel with real knowledge of their products and production process.

When searching for validation by buying an expensive handbag, let the buyer beware.

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Fashion

How Much? The Dior Markup

Dior Bad

The expression “a sucker is born every minute” applies to luxury fashion these days.  Paris label Dior knows the world wants to belong to the bourgeois club.  Buying an expensive handbag is an arm reach into another social circle.  Emotions of supreme consumption in boutiques satisfies those temporary upward mobility urges was not lost by the fashion’s profit driven machine.

The world’s largest opulent entity, LVMH, learned how to make the desirable more accessible by making it more scarce while producing cheaper products.  A business model earning billions every year. 

When the Italian authorities announced the seizure of a factory producing Dior bag in sweat shop conditions.  Many laborers were illegal.  Beds were in the factory enabling 24-hour production.   According to reports the production site was sourced to produce handbags for the French brand.  Certainly, raised eyebrows hit the ceiling after the announcement of the cost of producing one handbag, 57 euros. The more surprising news is the end price for the aspirational buyer, 2750 euros.  That is a markup of nearly fifty times the production cost. In comparison, an Apple iPhone’s markup cost is double the manufactured price.

Admittedly, this author was not shocked by the news.  During Pitti Uomo, a tannery colleague with a factory located in the same area of LVMH’s facilities told me there were many questionable production techniques involved in the company’s workings. This is not the first time Louis Vuitton has been hit by authorities concerning production. In 2010 UK Advertising Standards Authority banned two misleading ads concerning handmade bags when in reality they were machine made.

At the time of writing the seized factory is under control of the prosecutors.

The next time gazing in front of a Dior window with frivolous desires, remember the quote: “People don’t want the truth because they don’t want the illusions destroyed.”

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Fashion

Vintage Denim History

The history of denim was displayed in Berlin. While walking around a trade fair I came across a stall with vintage jean pieces. The Jeans Museum located in Zurich Switzerland contains over 14,000 pairs of jeans and jackets. Curator Ruedi Karrer is a walking encyclopedia on the textile subject.

The Jeans Museum is on Kochlistr 25. Zurich

contact-reudi@jeansmuseum.org