In defense of poetry:
This is in support of finding unnoticed moments breathtakingly beautiful
This is in support of being playful, but not necessarily loud
This is in support of experimentation
This is in support of trying, and sometimes failing
This is in support of fashion not just as polished product, but as art form, product, expression of a life's history
etc
Lena,I must say that you and I are alike in that sense. The only mag's I got in the last month's have been the Yohji A and a copy of Kodex that Ninette sent me(which she writes for).
Yeah,the Institute also serves as a platform for young designers to show during FW too. I still admire Elein very much as from the magazine,her genuine support for young,independent talent.
__________________
'rise like lions after slumber. in invanquishable number-shake your chains to earth like dew which in sleep had fallen on you-ye are many-they are few'
percy bysshe shelley,the last verse of:
the mask of anarchy
(Pretension is revolting. But everyone participates in it to some extent, and I see it in a lot of independent fashion media. If you are opinionated at all, you are likely to be a bit pretentious, because you already feel that certain things are better than others--that there is a right or a wrong way--that there are "fashion rules" and so forth. I think labelling something else as pretentious is a question of whether or not you feel you understand it, and whether or not you feel it excludes you somehow.)
Cerfas, I wasn't attacking poetry as such, I'm in no position to (or to want to) do that. What you write in your defence is interesting and valid. What I was getting at is the self conscious attempt to be unexpectedly beautiful. I find this approach quite common in "high end" fashion mags, but to me it is simply banal, not necessarily poetic. I am just plain bored when I look at these stories. I think that fashion photography has to have some connection with the clothes, otherwise it's just photography. Sometimes I find no connection with the clothes and in fact find that either the clothes cannot be seen, or, conversely, are really just consicuously obstructive and in that way tokenistic. It's a fine line between shoots like that which work and which don't, and it's ultimately very subjective. I like very much the photos of the kids running accross fields in their big Yohji cotton shirts in the Yohji A mag, but I'm not really sure why. It just evokes some kind of feeling in you. Maybe it was because it seemed quite spontaneous and unpretentious.
(Pretension is revolting. I think labelling something else as pretentious is a question of whether or not you feel you understand it, and whether or not you feel it excludes you somehow.)
(If the latter is right then is anything really pretentious or is it just too clever for people to understand? When I think of something as pretentious I think of it as "pretending" (or more accurately its' author pretneding) to be something that it's not - that it has a kind of artifice to hide soemthing that's lacking. I think that people can properly see this in art or anything really - it's the lack of some kind of essential validity. I accept that that is very difficult to define, but it is something that you can take an informed view on rather than it being something that is just beyond your comprehension.)
Oh don't worry Johnny, I didn't feel attacked at all! I just wanted to say a few positive things in light of all the negative reactions towards Purple as being pretentious, self consciously poetic, etc.
Thank you for writing this response--it's really eloquent, and I see your point very clearly. It really does fall into a style which became/was overdone. I suppose my love for Purple comes from living in the Midwest and never having seen anything like it before. Yeah, it can be banal. And yes, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, to enlighten. Although I'd prefer a Balance, perhaps it's my personal taste to lean towards banality rather than towards hyper-stylized(wellnot just stylized, because everything can be a "style" but you know what I mean) a la Terry Richardson (who interestingly enough contributed a lot to Purple...never saw any of that stuff)
Yes indeed, I just think that the word "pretentious" is tossed around often in a negative way to degrade things that aren't easily accessible. I don't accuse anyone here of misusing it, and you understand very well what it means by your description. I only wanted to bring to light the other possibility. hehe we are getting into a heavily philosophical debate. Yeah you can break everything down to a point where it is no longer meaningful..I wasn't trying to suggest that, only wanted to distinguish between an educated use of the word (like yours) and an unconstructive one.
(Pretension is revolting. But everyone participates in it to some extent, and I see it in a lot of independent fashion media. If you are opinionated at all, you are likely to be a bit pretentious, because you already feel that certain things are better than others--that there is a right or a wrong way--that there are "fashion rules" and so forth. I think labelling something else as pretentious is a question of whether or not you feel you understand it, and whether or not you feel it excludes you somehow.)
Hmm, to me pretension was always about trying to present something for what it's not. To say that others don't understand is the first defense of the pouseur (I am not attacking you here by any means, just musing on what i think pretension is). So, like Johnny says, when I see a person's face on a picture and the only indication that the person is wearing clothes are the credits next to the picture, I think "pretension". When I see a bunch of naked girls and Terry Richardson running around the woods with his **** out (and the last issue of Purple Fashion I looked at was chuck full of such imagery), I think "pretension".
(If the latter is right then is anything really pretentious or is it just too clever for people to understand? When I think of something as pretentious I think of it as "pretending" (or more accurately its' author pretneding) to be something that it's not - that it has a kind of artifice to hide soemthing that's lacking. I think that people can properly see this in art or anything really - it's the lack of some kind of essential validity. I accept that that is very difficult to define, but it is something that you can take an informed view on rather than it being something that is just beyond your comprehension.)
Quality Robert Pirsig book, Johnny, I know it's on your bookshelf
Thank heavens for that cerfas You want to talk pretentsion,Terry would definitely be up there.
But yes,Johnny's description of the term,is how I always referred to. But people will argue till the end of time who or what is deemed pretentious.
__________________
'rise like lions after slumber. in invanquishable number-shake your chains to earth like dew which in sleep had fallen on you-ye are many-they are few'
percy bysshe shelley,the last verse of:
the mask of anarchy
You guys are much better at etymology than I!
I guess I'm interested in fashion as part of life and an expression of life, and it doesn't bother me that some of the photographs in the issues of Purple that I like are boring or don't document the clothes well. Wolfgang Tillmans is a photographer I like quite a bit, and he contributes to Purple consistently. Although some of his work bothers me I like the overall philosphy of it, snapshot photography, using the camera to do something really new that absolutely could not be done with any other medium--to capture ephemeral bits of life that could never otherwise be captured. And that is more the philosophy I think that governs Purple--not perfect or careful documentation of clothing, not polished fashion images, but imperfect depiction of the intersection of life and fashion. Well, that's what it does when it's at its best. When it's not, it's ineffective and boring. I think that is a good assessment of what I found so appealling about Purple.
You guys are much better at etymology than I!
I guess I'm interested in fashion as part of life and an expression of life, and it doesn't bother me that some of the photographs in the issues of Purple that I like are boring or don't document the clothes well. Wolfgang Tillmans is a photographer I like quite a bit, and he contributes to Purple consistently. Although some of his work bothers me I like the overall philosphy of it, snapshot photography, using the camera to do something really new that absolutely could not be done with any other medium--to capture ephemeral bits of life that could never otherwise be captured. And that is more the philosophy I think that governs Purple--not perfect or careful documentation of clothing, not polished fashion images, but imperfect depiction of the intersection of life and fashion. Well, that's what it does when it's at its best. When it's not, it's ineffective and boring. I think that is a good assessment of what I found so appealling about Purple.
Well, it's not like you have fans of Vogue posting in this thread, so I think we all know where you are coming from (well, at least I do). I think some viable alternatives to purple were suggested like i-D and A. I also like to put things in context I guess, so when I see a bunch of underwhelming (subjective, yes I know) images that neither excite me nor expand my aesthetic/knowledge horizons, with a pricetag of $30 - I can't help buy have an eye-rolling who-are-you-trying-to-fool reaction. Emperor's new clothes moment, if you will. It took me a lot of flipping to buy the Yohji curated A, but I thought it was well worth it. Talk about ephemeral bits of life being capture - that shot that Johnny talked about was all that!
Strange, I never paid much attention to i-D it seemed a bit too trashy for me--but I never really gave it a chance so I can't judge it.
I've heard a LOT about A magazine and have seen what's up their website. It seems like I would love it but I'm not sure I can invest in it at the moment. I'd definitely need to see it first. Now I have to find a way to check it out, the way you've described it is so revealing
Strange, I never paid much attention to i-D it seemed a bit too trashy for me--but I never really gave it a chance so I can't judge it.
I've heard a LOT about A magazine and have seen what's up their website. It seems like I would love it but I'm not sure I can invest in it at the moment. I'd definitely need to see it first. Now I have to find a way to check it out, the way you've described it is so revealing
Yes, i-D is certainly not without bad moments or pretension, but I find that their fashion coverage is quite good. A is very hard to get a hold of in the US, but there are some images scanned in a thread we have on that magazine (I'm not sure if you've seen it). At the end of the day though, one can do much worse than Purple - I can't say that it's a bad magazine. I have two old issues, and they are excellent.
Well, I actually for some reason thought i-D was a product design magazine. I have no idea how I got that impression.
I'm going to check out that thread now, haven't seen it yet, hopefully you can order it online or find it in New York.
Robert Pirsig book, Johnny, I know it's on your bookshelf 
You want to talk pretentsion,Terry would definitely be up there. 
Linear Mode
