just some show notes

Eighteen days into the new year; many headaches later, little reading and writing has occurred. I’ve only finished two book — which has put me three books behind schedule. Went from Boston to London to Milan and now I’m reversing that. Need to figure out how to watch Jus Reign’s new show. This is a big moment for the culture.

After spending four days in Milan for Men’s Fashion Week, I thought I’d share some show notes below.*

The highlight of the week was definitely Prada. The show fused the corporate space: cubicles, Prada screensavers, swivel chairs, with the natural world. Guests sat above a glass floor and were able to peer at a nature scene of moss, grass, rock, and water. The swim cap clad models wore woven suits, skinny ties, and form-fitting knits.

In reference to the setting, Raf Simons said, “Most people’s screen savers are nature, but then at the end, we sit in this very synthetic, human-made environment.” Meanwhile, Mrs. Prada said, “It was menacing. For me it was scary. That was the impression I had the first time I saw it. What is scary is the nature that you can’t touch through the glass.”

Prada was not the only show to pay hommage to a swim aesthetic. After all, the Emporio Armani show had a lighthouse on the runway. The collection drew inspiration from the sea as models donned sailor caps and the breton stripe in a rich navy hue. I imagine Giles from Lord Jim at Home would have felt at ease in these garments.** Personally, I was partial to the womenswear.

The JW Anderson show turned to Stanley Kubric’s film Eyes Wide Shut for inspiration. At first, I found the connection tenuous. But, after reading some IG captions, I’m starting to see it:

“A domestic fantasy, triggered by seeing the interiors in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes wide shut: the curtains, the reds, the paintings hanging on the walls, which were created by Christiane Kubrick, the director’s wife, who often collaborated with her husband.”

Likewise, the cat motif that was peppered throughout the show, on knits and totes, was Kubrick’s favorite cat Polly as painted by his daughter Katharina Kubrick for his 60th birthday. The timing of this show with the release of a new biography on the director is deliciously close. (They UK really popped off on that cover, unlike the US.)

Andersson Bell, the Seoul-based label, played with proportion, layers, and texture with a smorgasbord of camo, denim and plaid. Finally, the week concluded with Zegna’s fluid shapes — a very cool collection of tactile, rhythmic forms. They’re doing a lot of impressive work over there.

@swami_kiran

#mfw - thats a wrap bb 👼

RECENT READS:

• My friends and I have been playing the NYTimes Mini Crossword. Playing the puzzle led me to some reading on whether or not these games help with brain function. It appears the verdict is still out. 

• Rachel Tashjian delves into the resurgence of glamour in fashion. Delightful read and something I do think we should all aim for:

  • ”Back when the sounds of a daily life well lived were the crisp hiss of a sharp wool skirt suit, the husky swish of a taffeta cocktail dress — so foreign to the noise and mania of today.”

• Money, money, money! The publishing industry is a hard one to crack. Writers write, some books are sold, sometimes for peanuts and occasionally for the big bucks. But, when a debut author gets a “major deal” the likelihood of them earning out is slim. Airmail published a medium-sized article that could have been a bit longer in my opinion called Don’t Judge a Book by Its Advance where we get more insight onto this and some snark.

  • “Publishers continue to spend on big advances because, given that everyone now buys the same few books, if you win, you win big.”

  • “I’ve seen an increase in completely illegible submissions this fall,” one editor tells me. “Agents are coming with what seem to me half-cooked projects just because the writer wrote for [shuttered downtown newspaper] The Drunken Canal one time.... Those books come out, and they flop.”

• I finally got around to reading The Cut article about the culture’s current obsession w/ all things girl and girlhood. The article asks the question, “What is it, exactly, that’s so uninviting about being an adult woman?” Big LOL — why can’t I just look for moments of whimsy in my life?

• Kat’s Field Notes mentioned this article, Can Africans Write Millennial Fiction? in one of her recent videos. I pulled some lines from the article that I thought were interesting:

  • “While other writers may fidget self-consciously with theory, African writers experience the material consequences of the world’s decisions the most.”

  • “Africans are still performing the heavy work of undoing colonial harm while simultaneously finding ourselves; there’s so much to “overcome” in our fiction, so much “writing back” we feel we have to do, whereas Western protagonists are afforded a broader range of action, not to mention the privilege of boredom.”

• Rolling Stone predicts that the Internet is about to get weird again. I say it’s about time the Internet even did something!

• Finally, some deep sea discoveries. FOUR new octopus species were discovered in the waters near Costa Rica and most octopus are colorblind! 🐙 

*How cool was Magliano?
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