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

India Embellishes High Fashion
"A tide of workers heading home in this crowded Indian city, cars honking, trucks painted as vividly as the colours of the saris, cows wandering past makeshift stalls, and then – POW! – a serpent wrapped round a tiger fighting for its life."

via: Vogue UK

How Fashion Became a Political Soapbox for Anti-Trump Protesters
"This season, Mara Hoffman’s New York Fashion Week show opened unusually. Instead of the pulse of a zeitgeist soundtrack — the lights poised to illuminate models trussed up in considered costumes — there was a pause for calm, followed by an impassioned address."

via: Evening Standard

Why Some Brands Don't Want To Be Labeled As 'Streetwear'
"People tend to like things that make money. If you buy into this idea, you can understand quite a lot about the stock market, for example, or how wealthy villains in ‘80s teen movies still managed to have friends, or why a segment of the population thinks Donald Trump makes a perfectly suitable President, tax returns be damned. But, like all sweeping generalizations, there are plenty of outliers that contradict this hypothesis. We even have one of our very own in the fashion industry: streetwear, a $75 billion segment of the apparel market that many insiders still hate."

via: Complex

Canada Goose’s smartest business move was expanding beyond Canada
"Canada Goose may still be headquartered in Canada, where it manufactures most of its products, but as of last year, the homegrown Canadian label’s biggest market has been the US. Between 2014 and 2016, it increased its US sales more than 200%, and the company believes it still has plenty of room to grow in the States."

via: Quartz

These Five Fashionable Brands Have Mastered Content That Sells
"How do you grab shoppers’ attention at a time when the retail landscape is narrowing (ahem, Amazon) and online distractions are manifold? Killer content. The following five companies illustrate the power of building a brand atop an authoritative editorial voice, whether it’s in the form of viral videos and lifestyle blogs or influencer ‘grams and disappearing Snaps. They’re also fostering conversations with consumers—sneakerheads, fashionistas, and beauty obsessives alike—that inform everything from product design to distribution and marketing. In their hands, content has become a robust engine for commerce."

via: Fast Company

Alexander Wang: Paint It Black
"In an age where every industry is undergoing 'disruption,' fashion is now poised to radically shift in its attempt to keep up with the speed and efficiency of tech. Wang sees himself as the designer who will harness this seismic change. Having started his own brand in his 20s—in addition to serving as the creative director of Balenciaga—the 33-year-old is possibly the most preeminent American luxury designer since Ralph Lauren. Yet this is a man for whom the word 'luxury' is always accompanied by scare quotes. And, as a native San Franciscan, Wang seems to be offering Silicon Valley’s answer to Lauren’s East Coast Europhilia. He reads his Instagram comments instead of reviews. He spent almost every weekend during his post in Paris taking red-eyes back to New York. He values his high school friends as his closest confidants. And he sees Amazon as the blueprint for the fashion house of the future."

via: SSENSE

How Nike Became A Fashion Powerhouse
"In the mid-'80s, Nike released the Air Force One. It was the first sneaker to incorporate its pressurized air technology that absorbs shock to help athletes perform better. But, to everybody's surprise, the shoe became an instant fashion sensation on the streets of New York. They were so popular in Harlem and the Bronx that they acquired the nickname 'the uptowns.' 'It's just one example of how sport and design collided,' says Adrian Fenech, Nike's senior brand director for North America. 'It created a bond between Nike and the New York City community.'"

via: Fast Company

The Difference Between the Red Carpet and the Runway
"The Grammys, like the Oscars, usually fall during a fashion week, and inevitably there are morning-after comparisons between the runway and red carpet — or, this time, Beyoncé’s Last Supper table buffered by swooning maidens. But, while I adore Beyoncé for her full earth-mother mode — and suspect she’s sort of winking at the public’s obsession with her body — her outfits, even for galas, are really costumes. It’s the same with Rihanna and Katy Perry, and to an extent some actresses (Nicole Kidman in the foil-y green Gucci at the recent Golden Globes). The rest of us, since we don’t live on a stage, just wear clothes."

via: The Cut

How Do Young Designers Afford Fashion Week?
"When she started her fashion business, Yvonne Jewnell was so young that she needed her mother to co-sign the papers. It was the summer before she’d enter Parsons to study fashion, and she had made a ready-to-wear collection aptly titled 'Genesis' — in reference to her religious background and her new life as a designer. She attended everything from street vending events to designer showcases to push her wares, but soon realized that not many in the industry were willing to provide a platform for a 17-year-old."

via: Racked

'The Kids Think I’m a Shoe'
"The island of Hilton Head in South Carolina is shaped like a sneaker, and Stan Smith lives on the laces, right off the river. Inside his house, the six-foot-four retired tennis player with the straightest back I’ve ever seen walks out of the second of his two closets and into the living room carrying five pairs of Stan Smiths, the sneaker, but he still can’t find the one he’s looking for. He has 40 pairs in 30 different styles, more or less."

via: The Cut

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