Keeping Luxury Alive

Fashion has always been a reflection of its time, but, too, is a shapeshifting clairvoyant that looks with stalwart nerve into the future. It lends a sense of solace in turbulent times — this event is an attempt at either redefining luxury or grappling with the fact that luxury has already been, somehow, below the radar, redefined. Regardless, its goals are a harbinger of a new zeitgeist, and hints, in the way only fashion can, at the rest of the world to catch up already.

Interview by Anna Zanes

office had a tête-a-tête with Jose Teunissen, curator of the event, about the history and evolution of luxury, homemade clothes, and how to bring down the system.

What is luxury? What dictates whether a design or concept is categorized as “luxury”?

Since antiquity, luxury has been the dream that embellishes life’s decor. Luxury stands the test of time, amazes us, makes us happy, and can be compared to a divine or aesthetic experience. Luxury has to do with the human need for jouissance or 'sensual pleasure,' which is a quote form Roland Barthes. It enables us to experience emotional and physical pleasure as a necessary counterbalance to the logic and rational thought that permeates our culture and which we take pleasure in also, but in a different way. Luxury always relates to values of a specific time period. In the 19th century, department stores, sidwalks, and promenades in lush new parks were the ideal luxury environments to show off in public, to enjoy one's leisure and admire each other's fashionable outfits. In 2018, New Luxury appeals to a new sense of conscious consumerism, and evokes a world we can feel connected to. Notably, these new visions of luxury are no longer taken from a uniquely Western tradition, but are defined in an open, global network of designers, putting forward their ideas, solutions and proposals from all over the world.

How do you think that this has changed over time?

The definition of luxury simply changes with fundamental changes in culture and values. For example, in the 1960s and 1970s, second-hand clothes, jeans, working clothes, and homemade garments became not only an expression of youth culture, but also expressed a further democratization and informalisation of culture as well as pointing to the rise of feminism and fashion as a more personal expression than in previous eras.

What do you feel the “old” idea of luxury was lacking?

The classical world of luxury expresses a conventional glamour world with an ideal young, white and slender man and woman wearing expensive watches, cars, living in glamourous hotels and homes. This just doesn’t relate to our new values and lifestyle and current global challenges. Millenials, for example, want to shares instead of buy, and are working out of thier pockets and trying to be a conscious consumer at the same time. New ways of living that affect the boundaries between private and public lives are prioritizing experience over possession. Stella McCartney and Iris van Herpen are the new ambassadors of these values, and their campaigns, images and films give shape to a completely new, fresh world with no references to heritage, retro trends.

If the project's purpose is primarily to reverse the unethical elements of the fashion industry— do you also see the medium of fashion as a form of activism and forward action far into the future?

State of Fashion: Searching for the New Luxury embraces brands and designers who are trying to make a difference by changing the system: some of them try to make their production process more sustainable and transparant, such as Bruno Pieters and G-Star. Others, like Maven Women and Mud Jeans, present even a new business model. Vivienne Westwood shows her work with UN and Ethical Fashion Initiative. All the participants take leadership to make a difference, to change the system overall. They present new, groundbreaking proposals that also show the enormous power and strength of fashion. That's the good news. We hope it will stimulate the visitors to become more aware and active, even activistic, to coin a phrase, to help continue to evolve how fashion functions in the world.

Images courtesy of State of Fashion

Fashion

Tales and Tellers

October 17, 2024

The scene outside the Palais d’Iéna is giving first class check in line at a canceled flight. Irritated VIPs and collectors scramble to show their invitations to security. But security refuses to allow anyone inside Miu Miu’s humming opening night Art Basel party. It begins to rain and the desperation turns lowkey poetic until security announces no one else is getting inside.

Art fairs are as much about the clout of getting into parties as they are about the art. I’m about to join the mob forming until I remember I’m not on some nebulous ‘list’ or a friend’s friend plus one. I’ve been flown out to cover Art Basel Paris. I phone my lovely PR handler. She arrives with a local PR fixer who I guess is running security because, at the sight of him, the guards let me slip through the barricades.

“A French PR person,” the fixer says with that deliciously French cynicism. “Yes, such a thing exists.”

Photography and Words by Sammy Loren

Inside glitterati and grifters search for drinks. Caterers weave through the crowds but seem to only be carrying empty champagne flutes. It’s disorienting being at these parties, especially straight off an 11-hour flight from LA and worse, stone-cold sober. I keep looking for a bar and as if to sharpen the evening’s uncanny atmosphere, Chloë Sevigny steps out from the shadow of the building’s central hemicycle staircase.

Miu Miu models mingle with the crowd, part performance art, part hype crew. Some wander around streaming videos on iPhones and others lounge atop screens. One is locked inside a metal cage, another stands on a stage, singing into a microphone. It’s all part of Tales & Tellers, performances mixed with video installations culled from Miu Miu’s prestigious, bi-annual film commission Women’s Tales, which features works about vanity and femininity by directors such as Mati Diop, Miranda July and Alice Rohrwacher. It’s unclear who all the performers represent. Are they visions? Fashion models? The press release says they’re characters from the different movies, but alive and roaming about they take on an enigmatic meaning. I spot filmmaker Janizca Bravo and introduce myself. Bravo’s ebullient and glowing, in town for Art Basel and because one of her films is in the installation.

Like all LA people the conversation veers to traffic, gyms and juices. It’s grounding to talk LA. That I haven’t managed to find a drink somehow seems fitting. I hear myself telling Bravo’s beau that once he moves to California we’ll rinse the British right out of him, find him a trainer, get him into Erehwon and it goes without saying, drinking less.

The dozens of Miu Miu performers gather at the back of the hall. They start clapping and chanting, the chorus of voices echoing across the cavernous, concrete 1937 masterpiece. Everyone circles around the action.

“I have no idea what’s happening,” says Juju Amoré, a model who lives and works in Paris. “I’ve never seen anything like this before."

While clapping, the Miu Miu models parade down the center of the exhibition, past the installations, past the now empty cage, past the silent karaoke stand. They file into an attached theater.

“It’s so beautiful,” says Amoré’s bestie, Samia Larouiche, when I ask her thoughts. “Besides, there’s hot straight people and hot queer people here, what’s not to like?”

On the other side of the staircase drinks finally appear, but the energy shifts. Sevigny and Bravo have vanished. I try to find my PR handler, but even they’ve left to “seek nourishment.”

I can’t help but adore that one of the world’s chicest fashion houses is bankrolling a project that blends fact and fiction.

Newspapers hang like pressed shirts on a garment conveyor at the dry cleaners, circling around and around on a track. There’s a stand and I grab a copy of The Truthless Times, “Envisaged by Goshka Macuga” and dated “Friday, October 20, 2034.” Macuga is the interdisciplinary artist behind the entire night and the paper, which has headlines like “Famous Philosopher Found in Athletic Attire” and “Tourists Reach Terminus at Last Resort.” Rather than articles, there are QR codes that lead to short stories disguised as articles on Miu Miu’s website. As someone who curates a reading series and is launching a print tabloid, I can’t help but adore that one of the world’s chicest fashion houses is bankrolling a project that blends fact and fiction. The paper echoes the characters from the video installations, strolling among us and yet not quite real.

The crowds thin out, but the booze starts flowing. Caterers pour champagne and trays of flamingo pink cocktails float past. Maybe it’s the jet lag the fake newspapers or the eerie performances, but the mood turns contemplative. What to make of these art parties? What’s the point of art in a world on fire? Miu Miu’s opening night responds to the complicated moment in maybe the only way an art party can: with style, poise, and charm.

As one Parisian I met described the night: “It’s cute.”

Fashion

Born x Raised x Indigenous Enterprise

The collection centers on pieces like the Ancestors Tee, which proudly declares the above message, emblazoned in Born x Raised’s signature Old English font. The Fancy Dancer Tee showcases a powerful tribute to Indigenous artistry, featuring the words "Legacy of Warriors they could never silence" alongside imagery of a traditional dancer. The lineup also includes the Rocker Hoodie, Legacy Crewneck, and the Rocker Fitted Cap, all available on bornxraised.com through Sunday.

Fashion

VRTUE: Capsule One

This month, the avant-garde concept project marks its debut, taking over Melrose Botanical Garden with a weekend (October 25–27) of immersive sculpture, sonic rituals, and shopping. Rooted in esoteric knowledge and ancient practices, VRTUE channels this well of wisdom into a philosophy of reality realignment, offering a space where transformation feels palpable.

Details on the launch event (October 25, 7 PM) can be found here.