Barcelona:
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Instead of “oh-the-bad-fast-fashion-industry” stories, this week I suggest aesthetic, anthropological, and sociological pleasures:
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011) & Iris (2014) – Two documentaries on women who became style icons by reinventing their looks and ignoring trends. Perfect easy-watching pieces (make sure to get them in HD to appreciate all the details!) for a dose of sartorial inspiration.
The Dress of Women (1915) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman – Early feminist sociology analyzing and denouncing the ridiculousness of (women’s) fashion. Full of pearls such as “the mere insistence on a totally different costume for men and women is based on this idea—that we should never forget sex” and
The lot of the farmer’s wife was hard, but the lot of no man’s wife was harder. For the unmarried woman life held no opportunities. Hence, within their iron bound limits, women were modified most by this main economic necessity, pleasing man. This effort must perforce express itself in such channels as were allowed; and when we pass the stage of direct labor and service, the way to a man’s heart through his stomach, she found the second road to a man’s heart lay through his eyes.
It is not Beauty that is demanded. It is two things—variety and the visible effort to please. As one honest man explained, the reason men admire paint on a woman is because it shows her ardent wish to attract; and the cruder her performance the more plainly it shows that alone to be her motive.
Google it and the internets will provide!