Assorted fashion industry books

[droqen]

The Dynamics of Fashion (second edition), Elaine Stone, p20
Principles of Fashion
1. Consumers establish fashions by accepting or rejecting the styles offered. [..] No designer can be successful without the support and acceptance of the customer.
2. Fashions are not based on price.
3. Fashions are evolutionary in nature;  they are rarely revolutionary
4. No amount of sales promotion can change the direction in which fashions are moving. [..] cannot renew the life of a fading fashion unless the extent of change gives the fashion an altogether new appeal. This is why stores have markdown or clearance sales.
5. All fashions end in excess. [..] miniskirts of the 1960s finally becomes so short that the slightest movement caused a major problem in modesty. [..] Once the extreme in styling has been reached, a fashion is nearing its end.

[droqen]

Following such trends is difficult: it is a huge social emergent organism. How do you stay afloat as an individual while also paying attention to the blossoming, dying, cancerous mass that is a cultural art form? Must you purge yourself of individual desire?

[droqen]

Or must you hold on to them as quickly as you let them go? What is best?

[droqen]

Started reading 'Dior by Dior', autobiography of Christian Dior, which is interesting. it's a pretty nice easy read too, the writing style is relatively compelling-story-like
he kinda skips over a lot of the details that i might have been interested in, but it's MUCH better than all the biographies of famous fashion designers ive read which talk all about themes and accomplishments (i dont care) and not the messy process and mental state (i do care)

[droqen]

[On Press conferences]
ludicrous cross-examinations, which force you to ponder heavily on actions which were made at the time without any soul-searching; [..] The rules of the game are that you have to reply in the sense expected by your interviewers [and their ingenious brutality], without being rude. At the slightest sign of difficulty, you change the subject. [..]

'Are the women here the most beautiful in the world?' I invariably reply that French women aren't all bad either.

'What do you think of American women?' [..] In short, the Americans were impeccable. It was true of all classes of society from the millionaires down to the liftman's daughter. [..] clothes were mobilized with, very often, regrettable lack of discernment. A hat bought here, a coat there, a dress somewhere else -- pretty enough in themselves-- made up an outfit, but not an ensemble. [..] A certain taste for exaggeration nullifies the American elegance.

What alarmed me most in the course of my stay in the United States was the habit of spending enormous sums of money in order to achieve so little real luxury. America [..] represents the triumph of the quantitative over the qualitative. Men and women both prefer buying a multitude of mediocre things to acquiring a few carefully chosen articles. [..] to spend money entirely in order to gratify the collective need to buy.
[..] the women of New York are marvellously protected against errors of taste. [..] we still say in Europe that they do not know how to buy. We are in the habit of buying something because we think it beautiful or of good workmanship, and we consider the use we will put it to, as much as its appearance. Can one therefore conclude that abundance risks blunting taste? [..]

These reflections on America do not bring me to any pessimistic conclusion. We live in the times we do; and nothing is sillier than to turn one's back on them.

[..] the average mechanical comfort, which today is tending to replace luxury.