New Luxury

(Photo by Soumountha Keophilavong)

A few months ago I stepped my foot inside Bergdorf Goodman's for the first time. You know the mythology surrounding it: a legendary luxury department store, spanning a whole 5th Avenue block and gazillion floors (or so it seems), that carries every conceivable designer and bag and shoe, and is also home of the inimitable Betty Halbreich whom I adore for her books and for stealing that Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf flick. It is the most luxurious, excuisite, discerning and just the mostest of all department stores. Its clientelle is also the richest, most sophisticated, hardest to cater to... I was curious to see it in the flesh.

Can you guess? It was disappointing. Too many people, the overall department store atmosphere, owing no doubt to prominent perfume counters, and racks and racks of dresses (expensive dresses, mind, stuffed almost obscenely on a sales rack!)... Add to this indifferent salespeople, and it all amounted to "THIS is what luxury is?" sense. But of course it is not.

We live in the age of this ultimate oxymoron, mass market luxury, where every airport in the world has a Louis Vuitton store as if it were McDonald's, and where every Chanel/Dior/Saint Laurent boutique looks the same no matter where in the world you are. The experience is homogenized in the very opposition to the notion of luxury as something special, unique, something that is just for you - custom, bespoke, made to measure and to order. BG may be better than most department stores because there is only one of it, but the insides of it are as homogenous as elsewhere.

Of course, the truly rich are taken into some secret compartment of the store where they are waited on by personal shoppers and are offered complimentary champagne. But for the rest of us, BG offers only an illusion of luxury. Department stores are to luxury what heavily logoed Vuitton wallets are to wealth: a hollow symbol that functions only because of its mystique propped by advertizing. Brands that once signified quality now only signify themselves.

I suspect that nowadays the experience of true luxury - that is, attentive service, personalized help, custom goods, and above all quality - can be found by regular people but not at the self-designated luxury brands and stores. It exists in smaller spaces - boutiques, online stores, Etsy even - and it is not called "luxury". But the experience of finding true quality, in clothes as well as service, is what luxury is, really - and I thank all the smaller brands and designers who answer my emails and invite me to their spaces. I thank all salespeople in the stores I frequent who email me to let me know when something I might like comes in or give me heads up for new collections or sample sales. And I am happy to pay a bit more for this, and I would much rather do it there than at some mass luxury designation where unless you are super rich you will get a distinct experience of shopping at Macy's but the one you can only afford a scarf and maybe some perfume, which Target also carries. 

That was a long lead in to a shout out to such a place - Another Garde, a cool online space founded and helmed by the amazing Soumountha Keophilavong. It seems like the past few months have been so generous in letting me meet great women who are clever, passionate, and committed to making a difference in the fashion world. I met Soumountha last week, and really enjoyed hearing about her philosophy of promoting and supporting women designers, as well as getting to ogle her very tightly curated selection of beautiful and functional clothing.

Here are some pictures from Another Garde's pop up in NYC:

Zero Waste Fashion and NYC Shopping

(Disclaimer: Reusing old clothing and upcycling are environmentally friendly and decrease waste and consumption, but here I am more interested in discussing impact of NEW clothing.)

"Ethical fashion" and "sustainable fashion" have become common notions, although often conversations about the future of fashion don't bother differentiating between, or defining the two. Definitions do tend to evolve and shift meanings with the times, but it is useful occasionally to talk about them. Currently it seems "ethical" definitions focus mostly on labor justice issues, such as fair pay for the workers and factory safety, while "sustainable" deals with environmental impacts of textile manufacturing, pesticide and fertilizer use, pollution, waste, and fuel comsumption. One can also argue that "sustainable" should really be subsumed in "ethical", since environmental protection is an issue of ethics.

In my last post I wrote about Greenpeace and its definition of green manufacturing so narrowly focused on avoiding toxic chemicals as to be completely meaningless; on the other end of the spectrum, others tend toward very broad views, setting the bar high enough to include both fair labor practices and minimal environmental impact. Not impossible but challenging, and of course costs will go up. Textiles sourced from sustainable operations and made in mills that pay fair wages, local production, fair labor practices for pattern-makers, cutters, sewers... It adds up. Throw in distribution, warehousing etc etc and the price differential between fast fashion and ethical/sustainable becomes a real hurdle for consumers.

So it is always refreshing to see novel approaches. Zero-waste fashion, for one, focuses on minimizing textile waste, and Tabii Just (by Trinidad-born designer Tabitha St Bernard) takes this concept even further, cutting her garments without leaving any scraps AND using deadstock fabrics, further minimizing impact (and keeping the cost at a low end of the soectrum). Everything is manufactured in NYC, ticking off boxes of fair wages and minimal fossil fuel consumption.

Of course I had to visit! Tabitha was kind and thoughtful, and generous enough to share some professional pictures of her studio. It's a beautiful space filled with gorgeous clothes, and I appreciated Tabitha showing me around!

Her pieces are mostly dresses, with a few tops and skirts and vests, most of them patterned in bright colors. 

If you know me at all, you can guess I opted for black and white. It's a print (I know, so adventurous of me) - a lovely snake print, worn here  with Alexander Wang mules from a few years back, and a family heirloom bone necklace.

I strongly suggest listening to Tabitha and a few other zero-waste designers on American Fashion Podcast - fascinating conversation. 

Personally, I feel that a stumbling block to much of ethical consumption is the unfortunate tendency to put onus on the consumers - having them learn about each clothing brand, research their supply chain, etc etc. This is not a reasonable expectation: I feel that the responsibility should lie with the manufacturers and lawmakers, so that we can go to a store, pick up a pair of shoes and be readonably certain that no children were exploited in their making. Until the day comes, we often resort to shortcuts: rather than performing exhaustive research on each product, we have our criteria. For me, domestically made product suggests 1) fair labor practices, especially if made in NYC; 2) low fuel consumption; 3) compliance with the US environmental regulations, which are not perfect but are at least somewhat enforced. European- made textiles do have a higher fuel component but are manufactured under stricter environmental controls, so it's an all right trade-off.

Anyway! It is nice to find small-scale designers who manufacture in the US; even better to find a bunch of them brought together in a cool retail space. I found such in Coterre, a great little pop-up in SoHo. 

They carry my favorite SCHAI, as well as a few other smallish indie domestically manufactured labels. Of course I had to stop by and try on a few things!

Meet my new blazer, made by Alchemy Detroit. Love the tailoring of their pieces, and their t-shirts are the softest I ever touched. (The pants are by ADAY, and yes, I am coming from the gym.)

There is also jewelry, shoes, cosmetics... And what I found really thrilling while browsing and chatting with Hilary, the woman behind the project, was that I did not have to constantly wonder where and how everything was made. I hope that soon enough it will be the norm: walking into the store and assuming that everything in it was made ethically. Or at least that no one died as a result of making of our clothes - and really, this is not too much to ask!

Made in New York, or Go Home, Greenpeace, You're Drunk

For the first time ever, I got to visit an honest-to-goodness New York City garment factory! With all the talking and teaching about garment industry that I do, it was long overdue.

The factory, Johnny's Studio, manufactures clothing for SCHAI, among others, and it is thanks to SCHAI's founder and designer, Suk Chai, that I got to visit. And to meet Suk, who is smart and funny and gracious, and took time to show me around.

It was amazing to see this vibrant life, mere remnant of the volume of 1950s and 1960s, but so much is the same: the skill and the energy, and the industry that still seems to function (although on a smaller scale) as an engine for getting immigrant workers to middle class and business ownership. The garmentos of yore, the Italian and Jewish workforce of the early days, seem to have been supplanted by Asian and Latinx/Hispanic owners and workers, but the vibe is still there! (Has anyone read The Beatiful Generation by Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, by the way? It's great, and talks at length about the link between Asian-American fashion designers and Asian workers in the garment industry. Anyway, I babble).

Here are some pics!

(I was told Ken here was cutting my dress!)

Here's a snapshot of a few of SCHAI's Fall looks, by the way. As you probably guessed, it's yet another obsession.

I mean, look at these pants!

As you can guess, I love this label not just because of the tailoring and luxe drape of the textiles, but also because it is domestically made, uses well-sourced, high quality fabrics, and doesn't cut any manufacturing corners. The price point of course reflects this ethos. Which is just another way of saying this: there is no way on earth to make cheap garments sustainable. Of course higher price alone does not guarantee sustainability (in fact, many well-known brands' pricetags reflect little but name recognition), but the opposite is certainly true: a ten dollar dress is inherently problematic. Not only because of the impossibility of paying living wages and buying decent materials with that kind of retail, but also because cheap clothes are disposable, and they will be choking our landfills with their poly blends for centuries to come.

And this is why this Greenpeace -authored rundown is especially puzzling. The criteria are so ridiculously narrow as to completely ignore the irreducible reality of how clothes, physical garments, affect the environment in many complex and intertwining ways, and of which toxic compounds are only one part. H&M and other fast-fashion retailers are a problem, and will continue to be so as long as they continue the current volume of production at current prices, no matter how many toxic chemicals they ban.

Versatility

(Transferring frames from the nuc box to their forever home.)

This came out of a few talks with various people, but it seems to me that the new luxury nowadays is space -- as witnessed by high-end boutiques with a single rail and a few wispy garments hanging minimalistically on it. Having things is passe; having space isn't. And for one's wardrobe to be like this, pieces have to play many roles: and lately I find that I tend to wear the same things to work, going out, hanging on the weekends... everything but the gym! (If you see me and I am in sneakers and leggings, this means I am coming from the gym or going there. I have my principles.)

So this necessitates clothes that can be worn -- as much as I love intricate textures and delicate fabrics, I wear them to pieces, because in life things stain and snag; good quality clothing though gets ragged and worn in interesting ways, acquiring patina and character, rather than simply falling apart (one more reason to avoid cheap fast fashion, but enough on that.) So even my expensive stuff is worn everywhere... Including work. Mostly work, if I am being honest.

I rarely talk here about work because boundaries, but I just wanted to share a couple of pictures of me working in the apiary on campus. Last week, we were installing a new nuc (short for a nuclear colony, basically a quick and easy way to get a new hive going. A nuc contains a queen, worker bees, brood, and honey frames.)

Here's the frame with the queen. She is the big one with short wings in the middle:





And here's a somewhat better view of my outfit.




The pleated skirt is by Silvae, and the neoprene top is ADAY sample from their recent sample sale. The coat is my favorite INAISCE piece.

Incidentally, Jona Sees of Inaisce greatly influenced my view on what makes a versatile piece: his clothes do not look immediately easy to wear, with their precise cuts and elaborate designs, but trust me, they are. This sleeveless jacket is easily my most-worn piece: I wear it for work, on walks, on the plane (it unbuttons on the back and makes a great plane blanket). Warm weather jacket or winter layering piece - it works for everything, which is really cool considering that it looks like a really complicated and architectural piece.

Now I will only buy clothes I can tend to my hives in.... shoes, however, might be another matter altogether.

Vault Show

Yesterday, had a chance to attend a fashion event in Philly - Vault Show, organized by Philadelphia Fashion Week crew, was a show featuring some local designers. It's a smaller venue, so you get a chance to see everything up close, and the designers also say a few words, which is nice. Here are some highlights!

First up, Ayasa Afi:

Ke Collection:

Autumn Lin:

Me, in Bitte Kai Rand jumpsuit, Alexander McQueen belt, Dutch Basics necklace and Rachel Comey heels.

Yojiro Kake

Another obsession: as always, it starts with an aesthetic, a unique eye for a silhouette, something that I haven't seen before and yet recognize as mine. This time it is both sculptural and fluid, like the frozen ridges of waterfalls. Fabrics like oil slicks on puddles on a rainy day, Comme des Garçons meets McQueen by the way of Issey Miyake. Minimal avant-garde. In other words, my jam.

Then there are fabrics: how many perfectly nice garments are ruined by thoughtless deployment of polyester and acetate, acrylics that pill and blends that hang limply and without purpose? The more I pay attention to clothes, the more I realize that textiles are where it's at. 

But let me start from the beginning: I came across Yojiro Kake at Not Just A Label, a lovely site dedicated to smaller designers. Yojiro Kake's aesthetic was arresting, and his attention to detail compelling. I don't want to repeat my previous post, where I waxed poetic about INAISCE, but I feel that I'm developing a more defined personal style and I always recognize brands that embody it.

After salivating at the AW 2014 lookbook, I made contact with Oka HuiYun Lin, a friendly and super nice partner of Yojiro, and she helped me to directly order a couple of pieces. (Periodic disclaimer: all clothes featured here are mine - that is, I paid for them.No content of this blog is sponsored ever, by anyone.) I opted for this amazing rich red shirt with a caped back, made in luxurious technicl textile:

Look at that color!

And that drape!

Here's some detail closeup:

The second piece I ordered was this wool cape blazer. The Italian wool is wonderful -- sumptuous and drapey, the cut is sublime, and the finishing of the seams shows the quality of craftsmanship that today sadly only exists in smaller brands who make quality of production their priority, and vintage. Here's a bunch of gratuitous pics of my new blazer! (Pants are by Crippen, shoes are Maje, and the necklace is by DutchBasics, my go-to for pretty and minimal handmade jewelry. 

Yojiro's SS2015 lookbook is also online now, go take a look. Functional and wearable avant-garde is not easy to find! Also, they have a Facebook page, where they post a lot of pretty pictures.

Not another detox post!

Yes, sorry about this one! This time of year internet and other media is bursting with body- and food-shaming masquerading as health advice, and quick fixes and sales on activewear are thick on the ground. This is not what this post is.

Look, your liver, kidneys, and intestines are all doing a fine job eliminating toxins. You cannot make your body more alkaline by eating certain foods. However, there are foods that help with digestion as well as peristalsis, and seasonal eating makes perfect sense at least in the temperate zone: temperatures and day length do affect metabolism as well as local food availability, and our bodies do respond to both. 

So with that in mind, I want to offer a few of my favorite kitchen things to do in the colder months. Most of them are vegetable-based, and thus are basically healthy and good for you. They are also seasonally appropriate in terms of either availability or fitting in with winter cravings for hearty fare. They make me happy in winter; I hope they'll make you happy too!

1. Fermented vegetables. Not quite pickles, since most pickling methods involve vinegar. These only need Lactobacillus to kick off lactic fermentation - lactic acid keeps the pH low and thus prevents harmful bacteria (Clostridium botulinum being the deadly one) from growing. On the pic above, there are two jars of cauliflower and one of beets, but pretty much anything can be fermented - carrots, cabbage, peppers, tomatoes etc.

Cut up the veggies in bite-sized pieces, fill the jars 3/4 way to the top. Prepare brine: 1-2 liters of water, 3-4 tablespoons  of sea salt, and spices of choice. I used bay leaf, dill and cumin seeds, coriander, and black tea for tannins. You can heat the brine but let it cool before adding to the veggies. You can let the nature take its course, or you can add Lactobacillus with some brine from a previous batch, or a spoonful of juice from store-bought kimchi or sauerkraut, or whey from Greek yogurt. Close the lids and let ferment at room temp. Open the jar once a day to taste the pickles and let out the gas. 3-5 days is usually plenty. After the pickles are done, move them to the fridge. Enjoy for the taste, probiotics, and seasonality -- they keep for a few months in the fridge!

2. Winter smoothies. I tend to make them without ice or frozen bananas, and add cold-weather spices, such as ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, and cloves. The bright-green one pictured above is made with two cups of spinach, one cup of almond milk, one whole pear cut into pieces, a sprig of mint, two dashes of turmeric and ginger each (use fresh ginger if available), one tablespoon of flaxseed meal, sweetener to taste -I used a teaspoon of honey and a tablespoon of sea buckthorn berries pureed with sugar, because I am Russian and we feel strongly about health benefits of sea buckthorn.

3. Homemade kefir. Another Russian thing, but also probiotics and deliciousness. If you consume dairy, this is the stuff: sugar has been eaten by Lactobacillus so it's all low sugar, great protein, and probiotics. You can buy kefir grains (sometimes called Tibetan milk fungus) online. 

4. Root vegetables. They are the seasonal staple of temperate zone and national food of all cold European countries (along with fish!) Beets are a given, and sweet potatoes are always nice. I usually convert my salads to root-veggie based in the winter, as they feel heartier that usual summer greens. Here's the one I made today: daikon radish and carrots grated on the largest holes of a standard box grater, seasoned with sea salt and sea buckthorn oil. You may prefer any other vegetable oil, such as sunflower or olive.

The red color is due to the oil as well as the carrots. 

I like these foods because they are delicious yet healthy, filling but not excessively so. And they make me like winter just a little bit more!

Moscow Shopping 2

After another trip, more shopping recommendations. First, if you can go to SV MOSCOW, do: amazing beautifully designed space with a well-curated selection of Russian and otherwise avant-garde designers, from Comme des Garcons to A.F. Vandervorst to KTZ, to more obscure labels such as Gosha Rubchinskiy. This is where I scored these amazing quilted CdG pants (posed with a sweater by The Row).

I also bought this CdG sweater and AF Vandervorst booties. Yes, heavier than usual shopping, bit the selection was too good to resist.

Here're a few more pics of the space and the merch;

I have to give props to the staff as well, always attentive and helpful. I mention it since as a middle-aged woman who doesn't look like the usual fashion person, I have encountered complete indifference as well as borderline disdain in many edgy boutiques. Always nice to encounter an exception!

PRIMEROVA was having an open house in their new space right off Nikolskaya St. Sadly, I wasn't able to meet the designer. I did however met the store cat!

Stopped by Traffik+. Nothing bought, but nice browsing and lovely selection by Rodebjer and Humanoid!

As always, Winzavod is lovely and inspiring, and the graffiti there is as good as shopping!

Here're some pictures of pre-New Year Moscow streets, because most of the point in downtown shopping is wandering through the streets and gawking, and of course warming up with hot chocolate from Shokoladnitsa and pastries from kiosks.

And once I got home, there was a package from Totokaelo waiting for me under the tree! Check out the lovely packaging:

The dress is Issey Miyake's PLEATS PLEASE number in navy and purple. For truly, Japanese avant-garde is a great joy, and I'm so glad I can find it on both sides of the Atlantic!