Zip Gun Aria
New in Town
- Messages
- 23
- Location
- East of Tin Pan Alley
I share your annoyance with many pieces in the NYT. However, I think the problem lies with the aims of entertainment journalism generally, not with the NYT in particular. I think the NYT contains more useful articles than certain other papers simply because it has access to such a broad range of contributors. However, like most mainstream papers, its focus is on the story at the expense of truth: reading events so as to cull something controversial or newsworthy from them. This usually involves interpreting events in ways that don't violate journalistic standards technically but are often breathtakingly wrong.
This is especially annoying when credit for something new is given arbitrarily -- when the subject is neither new nor exclusive to whatever group or person is being credited.
Edit: A book that relates to your important point about "consumption over connoisseurship":
Minima Moralia, by Theodor Adorno, who was himself a fan of good tailoring and handmade things. Here is a quote: "Genuine things are those to which commodities can be reduced or distilled, particularly gold. But like gold, genuineness, abstracted as an idea, becomes a fetish. . . . It is not man's luxurious indolence that is to be feared, but the spread of social agendas under the mask of the universal." In other words, the individuality expressed by one's clothes and interests is always in danger, once noticed, of being recast and hyped as the reflection of some bland and sweeping idea -- in this case, the Genuineness of Like-Minded Youth with Better Style. Handmade things, such as bespoke suits, go from actually being made that way to mass-produced things being called "bespoke" and getting marketed that way.
Sadly, that's happening right now -- see name brands like Nike and Levi's. Yes, they do use customized elements and a few prized materials (such as special blends of denim). But to call them bespoke is obscene.
Your point turns out to be especially pertinent because Coleman makes our interest in vintage clothes into a love poem to the modern mall-friendly version of Brooks Brothers, manufacturer of Mad Men's wardrobe.
This is especially annoying when credit for something new is given arbitrarily -- when the subject is neither new nor exclusive to whatever group or person is being credited.
Edit: A book that relates to your important point about "consumption over connoisseurship":
Minima Moralia, by Theodor Adorno, who was himself a fan of good tailoring and handmade things. Here is a quote: "Genuine things are those to which commodities can be reduced or distilled, particularly gold. But like gold, genuineness, abstracted as an idea, becomes a fetish. . . . It is not man's luxurious indolence that is to be feared, but the spread of social agendas under the mask of the universal." In other words, the individuality expressed by one's clothes and interests is always in danger, once noticed, of being recast and hyped as the reflection of some bland and sweeping idea -- in this case, the Genuineness of Like-Minded Youth with Better Style. Handmade things, such as bespoke suits, go from actually being made that way to mass-produced things being called "bespoke" and getting marketed that way.
Sadly, that's happening right now -- see name brands like Nike and Levi's. Yes, they do use customized elements and a few prized materials (such as special blends of denim). But to call them bespoke is obscene.
Your point turns out to be especially pertinent because Coleman makes our interest in vintage clothes into a love poem to the modern mall-friendly version of Brooks Brothers, manufacturer of Mad Men's wardrobe.
