vestoj : the platform for critical thinking on fashion

vestoj is a both a forum and a paris-based sartorial publication where academia, the museum world and the fashion industry can collaborate and work together to write about the cultural phenomenon that is fashion, in a greater sense.

vestoj issue n° seven, on masculinities
simone de beauvoir once said that ‘one is not born a woman, but rather becomes one,’ and many would argue that the same could be said about being a man. The social nature of masculinity is a pattern of practice, and one rife with complexity and contradiction. Today, it seems more apt to talk about ‘masculinities’ in the plural, to underscore the many ways in which one can be a man, or become one. What we have thought of as ‘masculine’ has changed considerably during different historical periods and inside different cultures, and the social position of masculinity has helped shape not just the gender order by which we continue to define ourselves, but also a hierarchy of masculinities that encourages certain ways of being a man over others. What we consider masculinity is sustained by men, but also by women: how women interact with boys and men continues to have a considerable influence on what we regard as masculine. While the concept of the human mind as a tabula rasa is no longer fashionable, and most today agree that the answer to ‘what makes a man’ lies somewhere between the influence of nature and nurture, the society in which we live continues to have a considerable and ever changing effect on how we perceive ourselves…. read more here.

you may ask, what makes these so special? for one, vestoj exists outside of a trend – based, and news – focused articles. meaning these thoughts and theories that stand the test of time. vestoj champions the independent thinker (hey a little like us) in combination with academic theory, and just a bit of good old-school glamour which is difficult to find these days.

anja aronowsky cronburg lecturing at polimoda (private fashion school in florence, italy.) , on proposing an alternative way of engaging with fashion.

there are a total of 9 issues currently out to date, all produced in minimum quantities and only sold in a selected number of distinct bookstores. personally, i’ve only gotten to get my hands on one and have been searching ever since for my next edition… issues include: issue #9 on capital, issue #8 on authenticity, issue #7 on masculinities, issue #6 on failure, issue #5 on slowness, issue #4 on fashion and power, issue #3 on fashion and shame, issue #2 on fashion and magic, issue #1 on material memories. by lb

CATEGORIES: Uncategorized

LIN YUNG CHENG: On the edge between beauty and bizarre

mirror illusions by lin yung cheng

 

lin yung is a photographer and art director who loves to experiment with optical illusions and whimsical compositions to create images that draw the viewer into their spell. his photographs are on the edge between beauty and bizarre using a sense of poetry and grace in his work. he has a really particular style of working which is minimalistic and ethereal aesthetics. by kn

CATEGORIES: art, photography

The Roots: Things Fall Apart

i love how this album was one of the first ones to break the standards of the typical hip hop albums using famous photos to show what was happening in society. these photos used in the album represented “visual failure in society.” things fall apart was a step towards social activism both in their music and imagery. by kn

CATEGORIES: album covers

spacex vs nasa: saturn and apollo programs that paved the way


elon musks spacex new starship super heavy rocket go for launch and the spacex’s replica nasa spaceshuttle version tesmanian falcon heavy

now i know kanye west and donald trump are the real genius’ out there but before elon, there was the incredible nasa saturn program and the german super villain engineer, and SS party member, dr. wernher von braun (the man behind the Nazi V2 rocket at peenemunde during world war II) who after the war “helped” take the first US astronaut to outer space and eventually to the moon.

rockets of the world by country – amazed at some of the tiny countries and their tiny rockets…

I had the pleasure of meeting and having breakfast with astronaut buzz aldrin (brag) so I may be biased, but here are 2 great documentaries that i enjoyed watching. if link is broken try and search for “nasa doco – the the moon – Pt1 – awesome” its a national geographic docu that is no longer available unfortunately…

enjoy – amazing to see how they risked it all to go into the unknown, the fogging up of the astronaut helmets, the first EVAs and 170 beat per minute heartbeat, one astronaut lost 10.5 lbs in just 2 hours of EVA – upon return they discovered 2 lbs of sweat in the shoes of his space suits. fascinating and impressive. by uh

CATEGORIES: history

wikileaks’ julian assange : what really happened? what was he? abandoned hero or russia’s useful idiot?

talent role in this love mystery: sofia wilen (the cashmere girl) also referred to as “miss w” was 27 years old at the time. she was an assange groupie. when she found out the wikiLeaks head was speaking in stockholm on august 14, she went to the event, insisted on spending the evening with assange and friends after the talk, and ended up alone with him at the cinema… they then had sex.

julian assange was 39 years old at the time. he was considered a soft spoken revolutionary cyber rockstar. he was first admired by the LEFT, for releasing the ‘truth’ about the iraq war, and having the RIGHT call for his assassination. he was then loved by the RIGHT and trump team, for releasing hillary clintons documents and ‘telling the truth to the public about hillary’ and hated by the LEFT, with hillary herself asking “cant we just take him out with a drone strike?” today he is abandoned by ALL and perishing in belmarsh prison, the gitmo of uk.

let me stop for moment for a little off-topic sidebar:

“…my pastor who graduated from brooklyn community baptist college down my street believes in god al mighty. but physicist cosmologist and cambridge graduate stephen hawking doesn’t… just this makes me atleast wanna look into it a bit more. now let me tell you who supports julian assange: they are noam chomsky, ken loach, ai weiwei, roger waters, and 338 intellectuals from 33 countries who signed a petition for his release. ok… back to sensationalism…

anna ardin was referred to as “miss a”, she was 31 at the time, and was working as an unofficial go-between for assange and journalists during his visit to stockholm. she also offered him her apt upon his arrival on august 11. they had sex several times at her one-room stockholm flat, giving details that were blocked out of the police transcript.

sex, lies and julian assange – four corners – four corners broadcasts on ABC TV: sex lies and julian assange

four corners is an award winning (Including 23 logie awards and 62 walkley awards) australian investigative journalism/current affairs documentary television program.

hero or villain julian assange – four corners

the us vs julian assange – four corners

whether you are on the left or the right or simply clueless, before you form an opinion on assange (or agree with tonight’s dinner table crowd narrative) you should watch this documentary. because if he was indeed the rapist, russian useful idiot, who helped trump… or the unpatriotic russian spy that they say he was… then all is fine, let him perish in jail. but if he was the champion of truth and the enabler of civilians holding to account the wrong doings of their powerful governments, then shame on all of us for abandoning him, and abandoning free press. by dd

CATEGORIES: earth related, must see docus

jarvis cocker : I will kill again

“whooot?”

i will kill again – jarvis cocker

this popped on in my playlist and had to point out how much i love this guy. brilliant lyrics, with that signature jarvis cynicism and wit. hes my current leonard cohen – just love this guy. lyrics to the track below…
build yourself a castle (definitely my plan)
keep your family safe from harm
get into classical music (i’m already there)
raise rabbits on a farm (hmmm!)

log on in the night time
drink a half-bottle of wine (i’m there)

buy a couple of records (i have 100s – but this is a jab clearly to the brooklyn hipsters)
look at naked girls from time to time (done that)

and people tell me
what a real nice guy you are (he def doesn’t think of himself as one)
so come on, serenade them
on your acoustic guitar (again a possible jab, he def made me conscious as i do serenade on my acoustic)

and don’t believe me
if i claim to be your friend (see? not your sweet-y pie.)
cause given half the chance
i know that i will kill again
i will kill again

and wouldn’t it be nice
for all the world to live in peace? (jab at head-in-the-cloud hippies)

and no-one gets ill or ever dies
or dies of boredom at the very least (my favorite line in this track)

 

and people tell me… by dd

 

CATEGORIES: music

Russia Ukraine: Russian Sukhoi SU27 that is flying over kiev looking very much like the US F15

a bit of history… above is the US F15 fighter jet

this is the russian SU27 fighter jet – i always assumed russia copied the US but that is not necessarily the case

russian sukhoi fighter jet performing the cobra maneuver

lets hope this gif plays!

 

beautiful profile of the SU27 with its ‘drop nose”

illustration of the SU 27 showing the drop nose

interesting documentary on the history of the Su27 (drop nose) and the F15, interesting for you industrial designers. by dd

CATEGORIES: cars, must see docus

french electro comedy skit with stromae: alors on danse

french comedian jamel debbouze helps stromae how-to

compose “alors on danse”

if unavailable view video in link

remembered this gem of a piece my french buddy showed me almost 10 years ago to illustrate how i must seem when i’m working with musicians to create an electronic track. something i sometimes do… so good, and i guess the cliches are all true, the barking dog, the sick duck and the whole comedy that is constantly self revealing. thank you monsieur pierre… by pp

CATEGORIES: music

good wood: artist jorge pardo’s wooden table

cuban american artist jorge pardo

early example of artists object – wooden table

beautiful under structure

tapered legs and beautiful joinery

laminated particle board with knots – corner joints

an early example of a wooden art object by cuban american artists jorge pardo, prepresented by friedrich petzel gallery in new york. its a beautifully designed table, with details on the joints, the curved legs, the floating top, and the under structure but made of disposable laminated particle board (aka bad wood) often used to obscure construction sites.

each of the tables 4 legs are finished with a different brand of varnish, purchased from a variety of targeted stores, such as in an art store, a hardware store, bulk store and so on. all of them are the same but marketed to different people… and therefore priced rather differently – while the ingredients remain the same. the table is a table intended for a sort of a discussion about the state of our world and its manipulation of its subjects. of course don’t ask the cuban artists to explain his work, he will laugh you out of the room. by uh

CATEGORIES: art

make love not riots

be it the capital riots or the seattle riots or the ukraine resistance, you cant help but bring some love into it. it was che guevera who said “love is the most important quality a revolutionary must possess”. but of course not surprisingly this image is from the vancouver “hockey (?) riots” from our canadian neighbors not the angry gun toting people on this side of the pond. by dd

CATEGORIES: earth related, other places

flow pods are here: let’s eat out on a new york winter night

is this not the best COVID safe outdoor restaurant dinning setup you’ve seen or what? Imagine eating out while you rest your butt on properly heated seats! It’s heat where you want it most – not some electrical death wish hanging over your head giving you a permanent perm you never asked for!

these self heating “stanley kubrick looking” pods can be customized – but for my money Id take the white ones off the cart. they seat 4, actually warm you up, are environmentally “sane” using limited amount of electricity (1/10th of standard heaters out there), they slide open, and slide close for storage, and have detachable roof and side panels to isolate when needed and air out during summer. now why didn’t anyone else come up with that?

 

last time I sat out in new york was in december and i said to myself, “this is the last dinning i’m doing during winter.” our scalp and hair where on fire and our toes were numb. the metal chairs where like frost bites sticking to my ass like a popsicle to a brat’s tongue.

we ate our food as quickly as possible, skipped the bottle of wine, and desert and espresso, and got the hell out of there. when I got home i started looking to see if any place, in NY had sorted this shit out. none! there level of laziness in sorting this out is incredible. to their credit not many options are out there. its either get some useless electric heaters or smell the fuel while you eat and set the place on fire…

COVID safe isolation – with glass roof and perspex side panels in place

for warmer days, and rainy days the side panels are removed

pod closes down and has a wheel base for transport during street cleaning and closing or storage

modular and cohesive, put a series together with no side panels to join tables – seats 4, 8, 12 , etc.

or close the side panels to isolate groups of up to 4 – whats cool is that they also maximize the available space thanks to its mobility on wheels – slide out, get in, slide back up. just genius!

ok now… lets get all that f#@ing refuge-camp shit off the street of manhattan, and use our heads so we don’t ruin this city any more than its been ruined already. also lets get a solution to a problem that is engineered and thought out (lets say by a colombia university masters graduate) vs slapping some crap wood panels together and half ass solving the real problem which is the lack or any “pleasure” in dinning outdoors! this is especially needed when you already are counting your savings every time you consider eating out. can’t wait for this to be over but in the meantime – which is looking like FOREVER, given the various mutant strains of this virus – let’s do it right people. you can contact flow and co if your planning to remain in business… and then please let us know so we can come and test this shit out. by uh

CATEGORIES: architecture