Happy Friday!
I wholly enjoyed “#Vanlife,” Rachel Monroe’s New Yorker story examining a phenomenon that involves people who live in camper vans, sharing their lives on social media. Monroe cast vanlife as a modern pursuit—one-part “twee escapism,” one-part “leftover baby-boomer fantasy” (complete with VW buses and old-fashioned gender roles), and one part enterprising recession reaction.
Monroe joined a couple of photogenic van-lifers, Emily King and Corey Smith, on a road trip through “the collapsing distance between brand and life,” and found that it isn’t all surf breaks and sun salutations. Beyond the challenges of close quarters, mechanical breakdowns, and inclement weather, King and Smith have the added pressure of packaging their experiences for the companies that sponsor their Instagram posts.
It’s not just a life, after all; it’s a #lifestyle. And making it look easy is hard.
Monroe’s piece illustrates the paradox of people who check out of the capitalist rat race, only to end up shilling for companies that capitalize upon their supposedly carefree lifestyle. She also captures the intense intimacy and irritation of life on the road—most hilariously when one of her van-mates shakes his head in disappointment at the way she opens a bag of chips.
#Vanlife.
If producing the pictures behind #vanlife sounds trying at times, producing a Comme des Garçons collection sounds like absolute torment. “I never know at any given time whether I’ll even be able to do the next one,” said Rei Kawakubo, the 74-year-old Japanese designer and founder of Comme des Garçons. “It’s very painful.”
Kawakubo will be the subject of “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between,” which will open at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art next week and be celebrated Monday night at American fashion’s most important red carpet of the year, the Met gala.
Kawakubo told the Business of Fashion‘s Tim Blanks about the bar she set for reinvention when she established her label in 1969, forcing herself, season after season, to “always find something that didn’t exist, something new.” The resulting creations—as you can see below—are not what one would call easily accessible.
“She is the ultimate, symbolic fuck you in the face of the often myopic marketing machine,” wrote Jo-Ann Furniss of Kawakubo, in 2013. And yet, Comme (as the label is known to fans) has a diverse cult following that keeps it—and its many spinoff lines—in business, outfitting preppies, punks, and hip-hoppers alike.
Kawakubo is famously enigmatic and resistant to interpretation, so it will be interesting to see how the Met’s curators—and guests on Monday’s red carpet—present her creations for the masses. Comme des Garçons is challenging stuff, which is why it has the potential to be a great show.
But who really wears this stuff? To be honest, I’ve never tried on a piece of Comme des Garçons clothing, but I am fortunate to know a true fanatic: Fashion Unfiltered‘s editor-in-chief, Katharine Zarrella. Katharine has been collecting Comme des Garçons clothing since the mid-2000s, and is documenting her favorite pieces on Instagram in the days leading up to the Met’s opening. Below, she wears a velvet dress from the Spring 2016 “Blue Witches” collection to the laundromat (as one does).
“I genuinely feel like a sorceress when I wear it,” she says. “I can’t get enough of the extreme silhouette, the weight of the fabric, the way it moves when I walk or run or twirl around. It’s like being cloaked in a dream…I’m completely addicted.” To see more pictures of Katharine enjoying this excuse to trot out her impressive collection—and insight—follow @fashionunfiltered on Instagram.
Another place to admire clothing’s construction: a factory! Reformation, the Los Angeles-based purveyor of slinky wedding dresses, ruffly tops, and high-waisted hot-pants, has long touted practices that aim to reduce its environmental impact. In November, the brand opened its first factory in downtown LA, and will offer tours to the public on the first Friday of every month.
Reformation is also sharing video interviews with factory employees—including machine operators, pattern-makers, seamstresses, and shipping clerks from Guatemala, Mexico, Afghanistan, and the US—on its website. (Many came from American Apparel’s LA manufacturing facility, following the brand’s thousands of layoffs.) The video vignettes are short, sweet reminders that the fashion supply chain is made up of human beings—a smart move for a company that invests in those people.
Fashionista reports that in addition to their base salary, overtime, and production incentives, Reformation’s employees get access to “biweekly ESL classes, a path to citizenship course, a masseuse, fresh organic produce, free metro cards and full health benefits.” Pretty impressive, especially considering that Reformation’s dresses retail for around $200.
On the road again. Robert Pirsig, the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, passed away this week at age 88. Quartz’s Ephrat Livni looked back at the lessons she took from Pirsig’s best-selling road trip treatise on the zen virtues of patience, preparation, and flexibility. In the book’s postscript, Pirsig revealed that it was rejected 122 times before its publication—a fact that for Ephrat, illustrated the values of persistence and perspective.
“The road is unknowable for everyone and always unfurling underneath us,” she wrote. “It looks different depending where you stand, and the traveler looking back will always tell a different tale than he would while wandering.”
Have a great weekend!
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A superior margarita. Last weekend I had access to a mega-blender and made a batch of frozen margaritas that was truly my best work. I ran out of limes and supplemented with lemons and clementines (1.5-2 pieces of fruit, peeled and seeded), which I blended with silver tequila (2.5 oz), Cointreau (1 oz), sugar (to taste, depending how sweet your fruit is — I used about 4 teaspoons), and ice (about 8 oz, or 9 cubes from a basic tray). This made two generously sized drinks, plus my mini one you see below. The resulting slushy marg was, you know, good, but in need of some depth, I poured a little slug of Campari on top of the glass. I think bartenders call this a “float.” I call it a revelation. The Campari imparted a blood orange color and a slightly bitter, rind-y flavor that made me feel pretty sophisticated about serving frozen cocktails at home on a Sunday.