"Weekend Reading" is a weekly rundown of our favorite stories from around the web.

Everything You Need to Know About This Fashion Season
"The world is topsy-turvy — on this we all agree. But when down is up and up is down, and everyone is busy looking in all directions at once because so much is going on (Super Bowl! Grammys! Oscars! Trump!), what happens to hemlines? Flux, of course. Fashion is not exempt. Disruption is the overriding trend of the ready-to-wear season. Cities, separation of the sexes, and the very shape of a show are just some of the elements under scrutiny. As fashion month begins in New York on Thursday and continues through the last of the Paris shows on March 7, here is what you need to know to stay on top of it all..."

via: The New York Times

Chanel's Crash Course in How to Make Heritage Go Viral
"Storytelling is no doubt one of the most important mediums in fashion. It is what attracts us to the glamor and frivolity of fashion, even when our moral compasses (or purse strings) direct us elsewhere. Karl Lagerfeld is known for his extravagant storylines—be it the luxury casino that served as the backdrop for his Fall 2015 collection; the Chanel Airlines “terminal” in which he showcased Spring ’16; or the digital archives models navigated in Spring 2017. Each mise en scène possessed a well-timed cultural relevance, as well as no-expense-spared staging that fully immersed the audience in Lagerfeld’s vision for the season. Yet, in spite of their high production value, there often seems to be a disconnect between the scenery and the Kaiser’s designs."

via: The Fashion Studies Journal

Can Raf Simons Reinvent Calvin Klein?
"In a nondescript office building on West 39th Street, behind key-card-locked doors and a stack of nondisclosure agreements, Raf Simons is at work, rebuilding the house of Calvin Klein."

via: The New York Times

Takashi Murakami Talks Kanye West, Louis Vuitton x Supreme, and the Changing Art World
"Takashi Murakami knows how to make an entrance. In New York late last week to announce 'The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg,' his new retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Murakami appeared in front of the assembled crowd at NeueHouse wearing a plush octopus crown and dazzling technicolor suit. Murakami explained that it helped “cover for” his language barrier, a funny touch for an artist who has, over his 30-year-plus career, developed a knack for communicating with collectors, museum-goers, designers, celebrities, and consumers the world over."

via: GQ Style

A Brief History of the Art Collectives of NYC’s Chinatown
"Over the last months, concerned with the proliferation of galleries in Manhattan Chinatown, the Chinatown Art Brigade, W.O.W. Project, and Decolonize This Place have started a conversation about the link between galleries and displacement, and asked how arts workers might be responsible to their neighborhoods. While almost every New Yorker claims some connection to Chinatown — they’ve eaten in its dim sum halls, browsed its brightly-colored shops—very few have access to the neighborhood’s history, let alone its artistic legacies."

via: Hyperallergic

The Woman Behind Martin Margiela
"If ever the notion of a status symbol was subverted, it was with the birth of the blank white Maison Martin Margiela label. Conceived one evening in 1988 at a little bar in Mantova, Italy, when power dressing was at its height, the idea was that only those in the know would be able to determine its significance, or even be able to tell if a garment was 'designer' in the first place. And what — cue the tap of a polished red fingernail — was the point of that? For Margiela and Jenny Meirens, his creative and business partner, making a nameless calling card represented a belief in the inherent quality of design, not to mention satisfied their mischievous streak. 'I was certain we shouldn’t — we couldn’t — just come out with something that read Martin Margiela,' says Meirens, who came up with the idea. 'When people come into a shop and see strong clothes with no name on them they are going to be more curious.'"

via: T Magazine

What Does Virgil Abloh Know?
"Virgil Abloh likes to talk. He possesses an unusual, not-quite-sure-if-he-means-it talent for the gnomic monologue, holding forth on how he is 'kicking dents in culture' and represents a kind of fashion that is 'post-Tumblr, post–street style,' and how his lauded label Off-White isn’t fashion exactly but rather a 'platform' for his being a 'creative.' But then it makes a certain sense coming from a designer, itinerant DJ, and social-media superconnector who has been a member of Kanye West’s inner circle for nearly 14 years, dating back to the era when West was still close enough to his middle-class frustrations that he wrote a song about being talked down to at his retail job."

via: The Cut

Meet the Creative Minds Behind the Nikelab X Acronym Collaboration
"Errolson Hugh isn't a fashion designer—at least not in the traditional sense. The man behind cult Berlin-based label Acronym is something more akin to an artist, engineer, and inventor in the way he approaches design. Hugh considers the way we move through the world, the way that technology and the environment affect our day-to-day. To celebrate the launch of the NIKELAB AF1 DOWNTOWN X ACRONYM®—Acronym's latest collaboration with NikeLab, a visionary reworking of the classic Air Force 1 that mixes utilitarian features and innovative textiles—Olivia Rose captured Errolson's crew, the people who inspire and energize him. His tribe is integral to what he does, and Errolson attracts kindred creative talent like a magnet, giving those around him as much as he gets from them. It's a symbiosis that allows for real innovation."

via: i-d

G-Dragon: “There’s no right answer in fashion”
"It’s no secret that when Western fashion media encountered Korean pop star G-Dragon back in 2012 during Paris Fashion Week, they scrambled to take notes, no doubt intrigued by the screaming fracas that followed him everywhere. Designers were already more savvy, particularly Jeremy Scott who’d forged strong ties with girl group 2NE1 (also part of YG Entertainment, who had created G-Dragon’s group, Big Bang) and Hedi Slimane, whom G-Dragon had been a fan of since the designer’s days at Dior."

via: Dazed Digital

Would you wear a leather jacket grown in a lab?
"It’s hard to place a finger on what makes leather so alluring. Perhaps it’s the unique supple strength, the timeless chic, or the primal intimacy of donning animal skin. The highly-coveted material is used across the fashion, automotive, and interior design industries, and it tops the charts as one of the world’s most widely traded commodities. Measured in economic terms, its desirability is staggering: In 2010, the United National Industrial Development Organization valued the global economy for leather products at roughly $100 billion per year."

via: Quartz

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