#2 Read-Watch-Listen
Read
The Economics of TOMS Shoes: Putting the Boot in Development
by CW, The Economist
I have a fascination with Slavoj Žižek. A year into taking film courses for my cultural studies degree and watching A Perverts Guide to Cinema, I was compelled to buy his book First as Tragedy, Then as Farce. In it, he explains how corporations market their products as so much more than a product, it is a way of life, a moral imperative. This is something seen in Starbuck’s marketing where by buying a coffee you are buying so much more than a coffee. By buying Starbucks you’re buying into the many farms in developing nations that produce the coffee, you are improving third world countries. And that is part of who you are - by buying a cup of coffee you can change the world. Look at you go!
The above notion that you are buying more than just a coffee is not necessarily a new model of marketing. However it is a pivot that the fashion industry has been leveraging to pit themselves as progressive and sustainable. The case for TOMS shoes is one I find absolutely fascinating. In the last ten years there has been a large uptick of companies becoming B-Corp in North America and social enterprises in the UK. Part of running a socially led business or social enterprise is that they have to prove they’re having a net positive effect on the world. These companies need to be producing impact reports (and adverse impact) to investors and consumers.
The read this week is The Economist’s review on TOMS shoes and the economic paper backing the hypothesis that TOMS shoes has 0 to negative effects on the communities they give their shoes to.
Watch
McQueen
by Ian Bonhôte, written and co-directed by Peter Ettedgui, Youtube
Everyone in my family knows how to sew. This is something I thought most people knew how to do, but alas this simple skill is going out of style much like its higher profession of tailoring. This week the first women’s tailor opened on London’s famous Savile Row. It makes me wonder if women will be the saviour to the dying profession. It is definitely one worth invigorating and investing in.
My favourite designers are ones with a background in tailoring. There is something in the precision and thoroughness of tailoring that I aspire to and admire. There are two documentaries that are worth watching, firstly McQueen and secondly Dior and I. Two designers in the documentaries that are obsessed with shapes and projecting an entire vision and transporting you into their world. The great thing about these two documentaries is that the major focus of the films are the designers foundation tailoring. It becomes clear that their success is cemented in their knowledge of the rules of piecing material together twinned with their own ability to construct and break the rules to execute a much larger vision.
These ateliers are also the subject of the last two major fashion exhibits at the V&A museum. I love them. I could watch these documentaries over and over again much like I could go back to those exhibitions again and again. You learn and see something new every time.
Listen
Obsession
by Animotion, 1984
I recently finished watching Schitt’s Creek. If you haven’t watched it, do give it a chance. The show’s wardrobe is…outstanding. It is its own character. The wardrobe was so intentional and well thought out - all explained in it’s show’s documentary about it’s last season. After I watched the documentary about how it was made and I couldn’t help think that the show’s creator Dan Levy (a Canadian) and how he probably grew up watching Fashion Television. If you follow fashion trends or used to watch MuchMusic, you probably know Fashion Television.
Fashion Television was my introduction into all things fashion, clothes, and what the world looked like outside of small-town B.C. I first started watching it when I was very young (maybe 8?) as it was one of the few shows on before and after school. I relished in the host’s Jeanne Beker’s interviews with celebrities, models, and designers and her quick witted comebacks and exhaustion of running after people to ask them what they thought of the runway show they just endured.
All this to say is that the listen this week is the song from Fashion Television’s intro. This song is burned into my head. It’s sooooo eighties. When I hear it I can’t help think of the intro.