"Weekend Reading" is a weekly rundown of our favorite stories from around the web.
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Why Prada And Louis Vuitton Are Heading To New York In May
"Spring in New York is set to be a high-fashion affair. The Met Gala, which takes place annually on the first Monday in May, has always had the pulling power to draw in the industry’s great and good. But, this year, brands have organized their own events around the fundraiser, in order to capitalize on the crowds visiting the capital."

via: Vogue

Why Dior Men Is Targeting Tokyo
"Luxury menswear is having a moment around the world. Two high-profile designer appointments on the men’s side of LVMH — Kim Jones at Dior Men and Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton — have certainly given the menswear calendar a boost. But the shift goes much deeper. 'There is definitely a trend of men wanting to create their own style, their own personality, their own look,' said Pietro Beccari, chairman and chief executive at Christian Dior Couture. 'In the last ten years, there has been a trend of individualization and an awareness of style, and I think the markets all over the world have been growing for men’s and the trend is not stopping.'"

via: Business of Fashion

How a Japanese Craftsman Lives by the Consuming Art of Indigo Dyeing
"Kanji Hama, 69, has quietly dedicated his life to maintaining the traditional Japanese craft of katazome: stencil-printed indigo-dyed kimonos made according to the manner and style of the Edo period. He works alone seven days a week from his home in Matsumoto, Nagano, keeping indigo fermentation vats brewing in his backyard and cutting highly detailed patterns into handmade paper hardened with persimmon tannins to create designs for a craft for which there is virtually no market. Nearly identical-looking garments can be had for a pittance at any souvenir store."

via: T

Abercrombie's Recovery Shows "Positive Momentum"
"Investors shrugged off slowing sales at the teen apparel retailer, demonstrating confidence in the retailer’s trajectory by sending shares up Thursday morning by more than 20%. 'This is a healthy print across the board, and shows positive momentum necessary to continue to shake decidedly net-negative sentiment around the stock, much of which is harbored at the A&F brand level,' William Blair analyst Dylan Carden said in a note emailed to Retail Dive."

via: Retail Dive

Can a Skateboard be a Work of Art?
"Kevin Achoo owns two kinds of skateboards: those he actually rides and those he hangs on his wall. He currently gets around on a board by Anti Hero, while eleven rarer decks by skate brands Supreme and Fucking Awesome adorn his Dallas home, sans wheels. To the uninitiated, these curved planks of wood might seem interchangeable, but according to the 27-year-old IT worker, the boards he puts on the wall—including ones with imagery by Italian designer and architect Alessandro Mendini or American photographer Andres Serrano—are 'basically art pieces.'"

via: The Wall Street Journal

The Subversive History of Bandanas as a Fashion Accessory
"The word bandana is thought to come from the Hindi word bāṅdhnū, meaning “to tie,” and the garment itself has a history that can be traced back to South Asia and the Middle East in the late 17th century. Fast forward to today and this square piece of colored cloth has found itself tied to various subcultures."

via: Highsnobiety

Patagonia Tells Trump Exactly Where He Can Shove His Tax Cuts
"Patagonia proudly crusades for the environment, and eagerly swings at Trump. It also pulls in a tremendous amount of cash in the process. Even when the brand demands that customers don’t give it any more money, fuzzy-vest fans gladly hand it over. Last year, it was reported that Patagonia was on the verge of raking in $1 billion in annual revenues. This year, Patagonia’s books are looking even sunnier—thanks, to the brand’s frustration, to the corporate tax cuts handed down by the Trump administration. So Patagonia is doing what Patagonia does: succeeding, and rubbing that success in the administration’s face. In a press release, the company says that it found $10 million in 'unplanned cash' thanks to the cuts, and will redirect that sum to organizations fighting climate change. In a post on LinkedIn, Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario calls the tax cuts 'irresponsible' and the president’s climate change denial 'evil.' She adds that the company is donating the $10 million because 'our home planet needs it more than we do.'"

via: GQ

Can We Ever Really #Cancel Dolce & Gabbana?
"Dolce & Gabbana haven’t played nice for a while. So when the brand released an undeniably racist video advertisement on November 17 in anticipation of a runway spectacle scheduled to take place in Shanghai on November 21, there was speculation on Weibo that the designers had intended to offend their audience, and perhaps the rest of the world. How could you be so ignorant that you couldn’t understand the insensitivity of showing a Chinese model in a sequin Dolce dress, struggling to eat a cannolo with a pair of chopsticks, as a narrator intones, 'Is it too huge for you?'"

via: Garage

I’m Almost Done Here
"It has come to my attention that this, our 2018 Men of the Year issue, is my last issue. It does not seem possible. When I try to make sense of it all, of the good times, of the mountains of excellent work I've been fortunate enough to publish, and the crazy expanse of time I have spent happily toiling at the Quarterly of Gentlemen, my brain, usually reliably insistent, gives up and turns to mush. I remember the first day I started at GQ, in 1862. You should have seen what men's fashion shows were like back then. Just a bunch of guys in chaps walking around a horse barn!"

via: GQ

Stella McCartney to Launch UN Charter for Sustainable Fashion
"Stella McCartney is to announce a United Nations fashion industry charter for climate action, which will be launched at next month’s climate talks in Poland. The designer hopes the charter will 'ring some alarm bells' while making a business case for sustainable fashion, setting out a path for collective action to enable low-carbon production methods to be scaled up, improving economic viability. Other signatories to the charter, which will be launched in Katowice on 10 December, have yet to be announced but are known to include several major fast fashion brands."

via: The Guardian

Tags: weekend-reading